The giants pass - Studs Terkel

[RichardRay]

Studs Terkel has died at the age of 96. As I age I keep losing the people who were giants to me as I grew up. Studs Terkel was one of those giants.

Terkel's most popular books, ``Working,'' ``Hard Times,'' and ``The Good War,'' which earned him the Pulitzer Prize in 1985, were compilations of transcribed interviews with waitresses, truck drivers, gravediggers and prostitutes telling their own stories.

An unabashed leftist who was blacklisted during the McCarthy era, Terkel considered President Franklin D. Roosevelt a hero and credited his New Deal programs for getting the U.S. economy moving again. Terkel, who always wore a red article of clothing as a symbol of his sympathies with labor, would later rail against welfare reform and other ``small government'' policies that he said hurt working Americans.

Studs Terkel


I'm sorry he couldn't hang around another week or so - he'd have loved it.

[Muttocracy]

1. Oh, for him to have been able to celebrate Obama, a Chicagoan even...

NPR has some collected audio:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94573985

[Cha]

2. I saw that on Home page and

thought.."what a bummer!..right before the election that I'm sure he loved right up until.." Or maybe beyond..I don't know.

[the48er]

3. Studs Was One of the Best of Us

Thanks, RR, for posting the http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a9nj2Wu3ZEoY&refer=us">link to the good but concise Bloomberg http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a9nj2Wu3ZEoY&refer=us">bio. Very nice.



What a mensch he was!

Anyone who hasn't read The Good War or Hard Times or The Great Divide: May I be so bold as to recommend them.

[RichardRay]

4. Studs received his absentee ballot Friday morning...

His son didn't mention in the interview whether he got it filled out before he kicked off later in the afternoon. I sure hope so...

If he did, and if it were possible (which it probably shouldn't be) I'd like to find that ballot and preserve it on display with his papers.