Farewell: Studs Terkel

Studs Terkel is one of the primary reasons, if not the sole reason I am a writer today. When I enrolled in my first semester at community college, after dropping out of high school in the beginning of the 11th grade, I read Working in English Composition I. My teacher, Lee Tosi, assigned us to read specific sections of the book. We read Terkel's interviews with a disgruntled steelworker, a man who felt so faceless in his work that he would hammer dents in the steel to leave his mark. We also read his candid interviews with prostitutes, cab drivers, and waitresses, all confessing their love/hate relationship with their work. 

I was as blown away by Terkel's raw, everyman approach as I was by the sheer volume of research needed to complete a book of this magnitude. This is what a writer can do? I thought to myself. I would love to do something like this. His observational approach, and old guard persona combined to truly inspire me. He reminded me of what my grandfather could have become (my Pop had aspirations of becoming a writer, but instead worked a desk job his entire life). And moreover, he got me thinking about who I could become. Though I was still young at the time, and it took some years to gain my footing, I continued pursuit of this idea, finally landing in a writing program at the University of Pittsburgh that prepared me for the work I do today.

I am writing this post today, however, with guilt and a heavy heart. Guilt that I have not completed reading the other Terkel books I have picked up over the years (The Good War, Talking To Myself), or delved deeper into his vast and important body of work (i.e. Division Street: America, et al). But mainly guilt because I missed the news of his death this past Friday on Halloween. He died in his Chicago home at 96 years of age. Michaelangelo Matos has a good remembrance of the author here. Farewell Mr. Terkel, you will be sorely missed.