Roger Ebert: To Studs: With Love and Memories

[babylonsister]

Roger Ebert
Posted November 1, 2008 | 02:11 PM (EST)

To Studs: With Love and Memories


"Take it easy, but take it." -- Studs Terkel's sign-off on every WFMT radio show.


So there wasn't a World Series in Chicago, and Studs missed the 2008 Presidential election. Other than that, Louis (Studs) Terkel did everything possible in 96 years.

Was he the greatest Chicagoan? I cannot think of another. For me, he represented the joyous, scrappy, liberal, generous, wise-cracking heart of this city. If you met him, he was your friend. That happened to the hundreds and hundreds of people he interviewed for his radio show and 20 best-selling books. He wrote down the oral histories of those of his time who did not have a voice. In conversation he could draw up every single one of their names.

Studs said many times in these last years, "I'm ready to check out." He hadn't been in any hurry until a fall in late August slowed him down. At the time of his 93th birthday, we had dinner with him a few days before he was having a heart bypass. He was looking forward to it.

"The docs say the odds are 4-to-1 in my favor," he said, with the voice of a guy who studied the angles. "At age 93, those are pretty good odds. I'm gonna have a whack at it. Otherwise, I'm Dead Man Walking. If I don't have the operation, how long do I have? Six months, maybe. That's no way to live, waiting to die. I've had 93 years -- tumultuous years. That's a pretty good run."

It was a run during which his great mind never let him down. "This is ironic," he told me. "I'm not the one was has Alzheimer's. It's the country that has Alzheimer's. There was a survey the other day showing that most people think our best president was Reagan. Not Abraham Lincoln. FDR came in 10th. People don't pay attention any more. They don't read the news."

Studs read the news. He sang with Pete Seeger: "I sell the morning papers sir, my name is Jimmy Brown. Everybody knows that I'm the newsboy of the town. You can hear me yellin' Morning Star, runnin' along the street. Got no hat upon my head no shoes upon my feet."

more...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/roger-ebert/to-studs-with-love-and-me_b_139999.html

[panader0]

1. "I never saw a petion or a picket line I didn't like" Turkel

94 years old was it? Cool guy.

[xxqqqzme]

2. What a fine piece.

thanks for posting.

[Kurovski]

3. "His ashes will be scattered in Bughouse Square."

Historically, a place for the outspoken, and freedom of speech.


K&R.