The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Big Trip Up Yonder, by Kurt Vonnegut

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Title: The Big Trip Up Yonder

Author: Kurt Vonnegut

Illustrator: Kossin

Release Date: October 13, 2009 [EBook #30240]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE BIG TRIP
UP YONDER

By KURT VONNEGUT, JR.

Illustrated by KOSSIN

_If it was good enough for your grandfather, forget it ... it is
much too good for anyone else!_

Gramps Ford, his chin resting on his hands, his hands on the crook of
his cane, was staring irascibly at the five-foot television screen that
dominated the room. On the screen, a news commentator was summarizing
the day's happenings. Every thirty seconds or so, Gramps would jab the
floor with his cane-tip and shout, "Hell, we did that a hundred years
ago!"

Emerald and Lou, coming in from the balcony, where they had been seeking
that 2185 A.D. rarity--privacy--were obliged to take seats in the back
row, behind Lou's father and mother, brother and sister-in-law, son and
daughter-in-law, grandson and wife, granddaughter and husband,
great-grandson and wife, nephew and wife, grandnephew and wife,
great-grandniece and husband, great-grandnephew and wife--and, of
course, Gramps, who was in front of everybody. All save Gramps, who was
somewhat withered and bent, seemed, by pre-anti-gerasone standards, to
be about the same age--somewhere in their late twenties or early
thirties. Gramps looked older because he had already reached 70 when
anti-gerasone was invented. He had not aged in the 102 years since.

"Meanwhile," the commentator was saying, "Council Bluffs, Iowa, was
still threatened by stark tragedy. But 200 weary rescue workers have
refused to give up hope, and continue to dig in an effort to save Elbert
Haggedorn, 183, who has been wedged for two days in a ..."

"I wish he'd get something more cheerful," Emerald whispered to Lou.

* * * * *

"Silence!" cried Gramps. "Next one shoots off his big