The Writing Life Too

Sky is pale with cloud cover. The Packers lost in overtime yesterday, but I’m not going to dwell on it. I’m also trying not to dwell on my worries about the election, but the truth is I’m as nervous as a cat. In case you haven’t voted, here are the two scariest words in the English language: President Palin.

Last week I thought a lot about the passing of Studs Terkel who died at 96. A great story teller with a keen sense of history, he wanted to live long enough to see Obama elected. He left behind a pile of published works and amazing interviews from his radio shows. He most often talked with and about the common person, as in his book Working, but was not common. He was the essence of Chicago, he was erudite and compassionate, and what I love about Midwesterners—brash, bold, plain spoken, and funny.

He didn’t set out to be writer because he first went to law school, and was a writer through the WPA writer’s program in the 1930s. He was an actor, but then he became a columnist, and had his own television show until he was caught in the crosshairs of Senator Joseph McCartney’s House Un-American Activities Committee and was blacklisted. After the Red Scare abated he landed a daily radio show on Chicago’s WFMT which was when he learned the power of oral history. In his last years he kept on cranking out books, held onto his love of life. I loved listening to him chat with Garrison Keillor on Prairie Home Companion who also wears red socks, the Studs trademark. I’m going to miss his wit and curiosity and his voice like gravel over whiskey.

He said, “I want people to talk to one another no matter what their difference of opinion might be.” And, “I hope for peace and sanity—it’s the same thing.”

Now go out and vote.