Posted on 11/26/2004 12:58:30 PM PST by Chi-townChief
Studs Terkel isn't dead. And he's a little concerned we're already writing his obituary.
On July 4, Studs slipped and fell at home. At 92, it took a toll on some bones and muscles. With the help of his doctors and physical therapists, he's much better now, but he is keenly aware when his pals come to visit that we're all giving him the once over to make sure he's all right.
He spots it and puts a stop to it immediately by declaring, "There are three stages of life, I've decided. There's youth, middle age and, finally, 'You look wonderful!!!'"
I plead guilty.
When I dropped by Studs' place the other night to say hello, those very words flew out of my mouth. Studs wasn't buying it, but he wasn't really fighting it, either.
He was all decked out in his signature red checked shirt, red socks, dark blue sport coat and trousers. Vintage Studs.
He remained seated, the result of the injuries from his fall. And he has an around-the-clock helper named J.R. to assist him.
But while his body may be slowing down, his mind and his thinking are crystal clear.
We talked about the presidential election (everyone knows Studs tilts hard to the left), and he said something that I wish John Kerry had heard. I had never thought of it this way and neither had friends I told later.
It cut to the heart of Kerry's problem as a candidate.
Here's a paraphrase:
Back in the 1960s when the Vietnam War was raging, John Kerry believed what the president told him. Told all of us. That going to war in Vietnam was in the vital interest of the United States. And so Kerry enlisted and went to fight.
As Studs sees it, Kerry was a soldier who followed the president only to find out the president lied about troop strength, about casualties and about the conduct of the war. That's when Kerry raised his voice to object.
Flash forward some 35 years and Kerry is a U.S. senator. This time the president tells him, tells us all, that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and links to al-Qaida and must be taken by force to keep America safe. Kerry, like virtually everyone in Congress, takes him at his word and votes to support the war.
Now says Studs, we have all learned none of that was true, either.
But this time, instead of immediately and forcefully objecting as he did in Vietnam, Kerry ducked, parsed and dodged. This time around, he was afraid. And he lost.
I think there is a lot to what Studs has to say. He is after all a man who has spent almost 40 years listening to the views and voices of American women and men. His books, culled from tape-recorded interviews, always speak to people's inner truth. Books such as Working, Hard Times and the 1985 Pulitzer Prize winner The Good War: an Oral History of World War II.
Studs rejects romanticizing the working people of this country but, in listening carefully to what they've told him, has always honored their wisdom and their struggle.
The irony in recent years is that the country's preeminent oral historian's own struggle has been to hear. Studs, an artful lip reader, is almost completely deaf.
When I visited, his hearing aids were being repaired and he wore headphones with a small microphone attached in order to hear.
He is under doctor's orders to give up his two daily cigars and his two martinis. There may however be an occasional glass of wine in his future.
Believing in the future is one of Studs' greatest strengths. As cutting as he can be in his social criticisms or political commentaries, Studs has never abandoned an essential optimism.
Even now he is working on a new book, one about music, and he has thoughts of more books to follow.
Studs Terkel isn't dead by a long shot. And you know what, Studs?
You do look wonderful!
CHICAGOLAND PING
"Studs rejects romanticizing the working people of this country but, in listening carefully to what they've told him, has always honored their wisdom and their struggle."
Yeah, this is pretty phoney, I'd say! Terkel's books do offer some useful insights, but they are, in the end, just verbal versions of those Communist-Labor "Glory to the Worker" posters we all have seen from the slaughterhouses of the East.
I think that you can count on a lot of liberals to do the same thing, now that we rabble have gone and voted for a man they hate worse than Hitler.
Oh goodness, I remember Studs in this getup a couple years ago, on Phil Donahue's show. I think Phil was dressed just like him. Looked like a ventriloquist and his dummy. I wish I had a pic!
Age doesn't necessarily translate into wisdom.
I only got as far as this LIE!
Everybody knows Kerry only joined the Navy after his deferment for further study in Paris was turned down!
Studs is one of those people who is mostly famous for being famous.
And about the Gulf of Tonkin.
Which was which?
Got to agree with your assesment of Studs as the world's biggest phony--but your then previous article by Andrew Greeley, who doesn't trail Studs by very far.
Louis Terkel probably still thinks he is Studs Lonigan, even after all these years.
Two peas in a pod.
It's hard to believe that Marin was once a respected newswoman for many years here in Chicago.
Make that TWO dummies in search of a ventriloquist.
Back in the 1960s when the Vietnam War was raging, John Kerry believed what the president told him. Told all of us. That going to war in Vietnam was in the vital interest of the United States. And so Kerry enlisted and went to fight.As Studs sees it, Kerry was a soldier who followed the president only to find out the president lied about troop strength, about casualties and about the conduct of the war. That's when Kerry raised his voice to object.
Flash forward some 35 years and Kerry is a U.S. senator. This time the president tells him, tells us all, that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and links to al-Qaida and must be taken by force to keep America safe. Kerry, like virtually everyone in Congress, takes him at his word and votes to support the war.
Now says Studs, we have all learned none of that was true, either.
But this time, instead of immediately and forcefully objecting as he did in Vietnam, Kerry ducked, parsed and dodged. This time around, he was afraid. And he lost.
John Kerry believed Bill Clinton when he called Saddam Hussein a threat and claimed that Saddam was stockpiling illegal weapons.
BTW, did John Kerry ever talk publicly about Bill Clinton's lies in his sexual harrassment lawsuit? Those lies were told while under oath.
He voted NOT GUILTY on both articles of impeachment (Perjury article, Obstruction of justice article).
"And so Kerry enlisted and went to fight."
Kerry didn't enlist to fight. He enlisted to avoid the draft and was fooled when his Naval reserve unit got called up for active duty.
I hope the Swift Boat Vets. aren't done with this slime. He has no business being in the senate.
'Back in the 1960s when the Vietnam War was raging, John Kerry believed what the president told him. Told all of us. That going to war in Vietnam was in the vital interest of the United States. And so Kerry enlisted and went to fight."
It's horse****. Kerry was against the war in Vietnam as early as 1965.
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