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Studs Terkel Dies
Studs Terkel, the Chicago legend, died today at his home in Chicago. He was 96.
He was a radio personality, a prolific writer and an activist. His books told stories of the famous and not-so-famous in their own words. Despite all these accomplishments, Terkel had his own hopes for how he'll be remembered.
TERKEL: Curious. Didn't know how to mind his own business.
He had heart surgery three years ago. It was a complicated surgery, and when he first learned he needed it, his initial reaction was, quote, "No, the hell with it."
Then he got curious.
TERKEL: What's going to happen to the world when I'm gone? How's it going to behave? I want to know. My curiosity, what's next? So I found my epitaph at last. My epitaph goes, "Curiosity did not kill this cat."
Terkel wanted to have his ashes spread, along with those of his late wife, at Chicago's Bughouse Square.
I'm Lynette Kalsnes, Chicago Public Radio.
Listen Online
http://www.wbez.org/Content.aspx?audioID=29905
TERKEL: Curious. Didn't know how to mind his own business.
He had heart surgery three years ago. It was a complicated surgery, and when he first learned he needed it, his initial reaction was, quote, "No, the hell with it."
Then he got curious.
TERKEL: What's going to happen to the world when I'm gone? How's it going to behave? I want to know. My curiosity, what's next? So I found my epitaph at last. My epitaph goes, "Curiosity did not kill this cat."
Terkel wanted to have his ashes spread, along with those of his late wife, at Chicago's Bughouse Square.
I'm Lynette Kalsnes, Chicago Public Radio.
Listen Online
http://www.wbez.org/Content.aspx?audioID=29905
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"Are you for Calvin Coolidge or John W. Davis?" Miss Boone inquired, mentioning the names of the Republican and Democratic nominees.
Terkel, who had already imbibed the radicalism of Chicago's labor left, was for neither of the major party candidates. Rather, he favored the third-party contender who was campaigning against imperialism abroad and Wall Street at home.
"Innocently--or was I damnably perverse even then?--I piped, 'Fightin' Bob La Follette,'" Terkel recalled eight decades later, mentioning the name of the progressive senator from Wisconsin who earned his support that year. "She was startled, poor dear. Why have I always upset such gentle hearts? Why couldn't I have been my cute little button self and said the right thing: 'Keep Cool with Coolidge.'"
Studs could be cute, and damnably perverse.
But the Pultizer Prize-winning author, pioneering radio personality, battler against Joe McCarthy and McCarthyism, raconteur, rabble-rouser and grand old man of the American left, who died Friday at age 96, never pulled his punches when it came to politics.
More
http://www.alternet.org/election08/105664/studs_terkel,_you_will_be_missed/