Studs Terkel

By James North
Studs Terkel was the smartest person
I ever met, and the greatest single influence on me as a writer.  He
was much more than his folksy, cigar-chomping red-checked-shirt
persona, authentic as that was. 
The last time I saw him was one
evening maybe 10 years ago just off Michigan Avenue, in downtown
Chicago.  He was in a long conversation with a homeless person who he
obviously knew, long after most of us passed by the homeless with
barely a thought. 
I told him I was just back from Mexico, and I gave him the latest on Mexican politics.  He was entirely conversant with affairs outside of Chicago.  "The Mexican ruling party sounds just like that fucking right-wing Berlusconi, in Italy," he added.
I was part of a group celebrating with him in 1984, when he won the Pulitzer prize for The Good War.'  He was characteristically modest.  "It's not 'great' news," he insisted.  "But it is 'good' news."
With Division Street America
in the late 1960s, Studs basically founded the field of oral history —
telling large truths through individual people, mainly in their own
words.  So many books have used his approach that we sometimes forget
he started it.  (I basically just copied his methods and applied them
to southern Africa in Freedom Rising — as I said to him when he had me on his radio program.)
Being
interviewed once by Studs was one of the great experiences of my life. 
He was so good at it that compared with the rest of us he was like
White Sox (and Orioles) shortstop Luis Aparicio next
to little leaguers.  First, he actually had done his homework; he had
my book next to him, marked up throughout with his green felt pen. He
had a performer's sense of timing.  He had worked as an actor, and he
used his experience to play a role: the likeable old guy, befuddled by
his big, ancient tape recorder, who really needed your help.  Before
ten minutes had passed, you found yourself telling the old gent about
things you didn't even realize yourself.
I have one more
strong memory of him: his sensitivity.  I reviewed one of his later
books in a small but valuable publication called In These Times,
and, almost as an afterthought, I mailed him a copy of the review.  He
contacted me immediately, with profuse thanks.  A negative notice had
just appeared in another publication, and he said my review had been
just what he needed.
We met for lunch, and I asked him a little
delicately if he was sensitive to criticism, after all the honors he
had received.  He was close to 80 years old at the time.  "Of course
I'm sensitive," he said.  "That other review hurt my feelings, and my
morale was low."