HERO
STUDS TERKEL
1912 – 2008

When the media reported the death of Studs Terkel, I knew immediately that Studs would be on my next web page as a Hero. I also knew that Aimee Picard would be able to give my readers and me some insights about Studs because she knew him personally.

Back in the seventies when I was at Saint John College of Cleveland, I met Emy Picard, a faculty member, and his wife Marie and their four young children, one of whom was named Aimée. Over the course of thirty years, Anita and I kept in touch with her parents, and they kept us informed of the progress of their lovely and brilliant daughters.

Emy and Marie moved to Maine near Bar Harbor. A couple of weeks ago, I called Emy to tell him that an aggressive cancer had struck Peg McCarthy, the widow of Jack McCarthy, who was also at Saint John College during the sixties and seventies. The news saddened Emy and Marie because the Picards and the McCathys were very close friends. I then asked Emy if he would ask Aimée to write something about Studs. A few days later, I received a lengthy message from Aimee:

Personal Reflection on Studs Terkel

Hi George,

Studs Terkel was someone whose voice influenced me long before I met him, as I told him when we did meet. He taught me to love Chicago, warts and all. When I moved to Chicago, young and unexposed to all things urban, I wasn’t at all sure it was where I wanted to be or where I belonged. By coincidence, I learned about Chicago from the ground up – which was Studs’ modus operandi – because I had no car and little money, I went everywhere by foot or on the city bus (Studs’ preferred method of transportation, even well into his 80’s), so what I learned about people and the city was at street level. And in that first year of wandering around neighborhoods trying to get to know the place, I found Studs’ book “Chicago” in a used bookstore and it helped me reconcile my own mixed up feelings about life in the big city.

Studs liked to quote Nelson Algren’s line (which I may be paraphrasing): “Loving Chicago is like loving a woman with a broken nose.” Kind of a sexist line…the prize fighter with a broken nose looks a little heroic, but the woman may not be characterized as beautiful (and thus worthy)…Studs knew (in a way that maybe Algren did not) that women did battle in life too and that the scars could be a badge of honor.

But I digress. I gave that book “Chicago” to sister Marguerite when she moved to the city, and she too fell in love with him and it. Like all of Studs’ work, it’s a primer on history, an exercise in remembering. He seemed to find it both a duty and a calling to fight what he called our “national Alzheimer’s disease.” And he himself remembered everything to the end.

So my most memorable times with Studs were just those: him remembering things and telling about them. Always on a drive through the city on the way to someplace else he would have stories that went with each neighborhood, and even each block – e.g. (to paraphrase, again) “it was there that the police charged on the families gathered to hear Philip Randolph, the founder of the black man’s union, the Pullman porters union. . .”

Studs was a favorite guest in later years when we went to events at the Cliff Dwellers Club, a private arts club whose waiters were all elderly former Pullman porters hired by the club after their jobs had dried up, or their retirement pensions proved too little. Studs knew those waiters and he knew their stories and they loved him for it.

Studs was beloved because he was a friend to all, especially the little guy. If he didn’t know you personally—or even if he did—he called you “kid.” Everyone was a familiar to him, there was no stranger.

Even the robber – one day when a friend and I arrived at Studs’ house there was a new addition on the porch: a dog dish full of food, and a sign on the door saying “Beware of the dog.” When we asked him since when had he gotten a dog, he replied “I’m the dog.” Several evenings before, sitting on the couch watching baseball on TV, he had suddenly looked up to see a guy standing in the room, moving his lips (Studs was notoriously deaf) and waving his hands. Studs said “hold on a minute, I have to get my hearing aid,” and went into the bathroom with the guy trailing behind him. What Studs heard with his aid was “give me all your money.” So he got his wallet, cursing himself that he had gone to the bank and cashed a check that day, and pulled out the $200 he had and gave it to the man, who turned to go. As the fellow left Studs said “Kid, wait a minute—can you spare me $20; I have to get to work in the morning.” The robber handed him back a $20 and left.

Studs told stories, all the time.

I called a friend in Chicago Friday night to commiserate on Studs’ death. This retired journalist – who later became a community activist, and in fact saw the journalism he had done as a kind of community activism – wanted to talk about the presidential election more than Studs: it seemed like he subconsciously wanted to avoid his own grief. He said to me “I thank god that I never wanted to be a politician; can you imagine me running for office – they would find out that the Weather Underground and the Black Panthers were sources for my stories and used to come to my house to deliver them.’ He’d be seen as aiding and abetting criminals, not exercising our right to hear all sides to the story.

I realized after I hung up the phone, that his grief was in that: in losing Studs we lose pieces of ourselves because we lose the storytellers. . . .

All my best --

Aimée

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