Sitting in silence drinking coffee with Daniel (17 yrs. old) at the kitchen table. It doesn't last long and I break it. There's a quote by Kurt Vonnegut (below) I'd like to share. In my role as an unschooling father, especially with mom out delivering mail, it's the best I've got to offer so far today. I reach to my right, swipe the smartphone screen and start reading it aloud with little or no effort. We're off to the races. It doesn't take long and Donald Trump walks into the conversation. Soon after that we're talking about uninitiated males. How they, especially young ones, will burn your city down. I make sure to add they'll burn the whole polis down. Then my son adds, "Isn't it interesting that most advertisements directed at men promote youth. If they could figure out a way for us to have a 24 hour erection they'd do it."
Thank you Mr. Vonnegut, wherever you are, for offering the seeds for a morning conversation with my son before I also head off to do mail duties.
"'Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue,' the monograph went on. 'Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say, Napoleonic times.'"
-Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five, Or The Children's Crusade : A Duty-dance with Death (1969)
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