This year it was far more difficult to see Studs. Tickets sold out faster than we expected, but we were lucky to be among the first on the waiting list. From where we stood, we could see S.E. Hinton, legendary writer of young adult classics such as Rumble Fish and The Outsiders, signing copies of her books in front of an endless line of fans near the information desk. It was strange, watching this woman sign books I read back in 7th grade for English class. Most of the authors I read in middle school and high school English courses are long dead, some for centuries, yet this friendly, unassuming lady, who just turned sixty this year, was very much alive, chatting with her fans ranging from teenagers to people barely younger than she. Although her most famous books are forty years old, the pull she has on teenagers today seems to be as strong as ever.
Tori and I waited for more than an hour. We were happy to receive tickets, but the discussion itself was delayed by at least a half-hour, and word spread through the line that Studs might be too ill to attend and that the discussion would be cancelled. We considered giving up and going home, but finally the line began to move, and we took a seat in the auditorium.
Ninety-six years is a long time, and we should be so lucky to make it even that far. However, if you’ve reached that age, it’s safe to say you peaked physically many decades before. Still, it was a bit of a shock to see Studs wheeled onto the stage. Even the year before, he’d still been able to walk unassisted, still sounded mostly like himself. The man who weakly crossed the stage now seemed a decade older. Kogan and Taylor helped Studs get up and walk to his seat at center stage, and the discussion began.
The first startling change we noticed in Studs was his voice. In his later years, Studs’s voice became raspy, but no less audible, and certainly no less engaging. In 2008, Studs’s voice shrank into a barely audible squeak, struggling to maintain both his voice and his breath. Worse, he seemed barely aware, his usual segues replaced by meanderings and abrupt changes in subjects, from Chicago television programs in the early 1950s (his included), to the election of the late mayor Harold Washington to whatever else popped into his head. Studs has always tended to wander in his conversations, making tenuous connections to link his many stories, but on this day he sounded like, well, an old man.
Kogan’s head would occasionally tilt back in laughter at a Studs punchline, but his heart didn’t seem to be in it. Taylor said barely a word throughout the entire discussion. About twenty minutes in, the reason was evident to everyone in the room: All of us had made a grave error. None of us intended this – certainly not Kogan or Taylor – but we had all been participants in a terrible act: we wheeled out a legend and gawked at him, like an especially interesting museum piece. Studs had mentioned twice that this discussion would be his last public appearance, and the reason was obvious: he just couldn’t do it anymore.
Finally, when Studs, in the middle of a story, asked if his time to speak was up, Kogan stood up and made the audience a deal: read Studs’s latest autobiography, Touch & Go, or come back the following year to hear the rest of the story. To Rick’s surprise, the entire audience stood up and cheered. We knew Studs might not be back next year, but we loved him too much not to let him off the hook.
Studs was not quite done with us yet. He wanted to end the discussion, and possibly his public life, with a favorite quote of his. He reminded the audience the words of Reverend William Sloane Coffin Jr., a prominent liberal theologian who protested the Vietnam War: “Good patriots carry on a lover’s quarrel with their country.” Studs Terkel has lived that quote his entire life, long before the quote was spoken. He embraces his country and his city as he criticizes it. He wants the best for both, so he coaches us, exposing the wrongs so we may make them right. True patriots don’t try to hide local or national flaws or deny their existence or explain them away as necessary evils. Those who do have been in Studs’s crosshairs for well over a half-century, and he certainly earned the right to hobble into his wheelchair a half-hour early.
Check out the Chicago Historical Society's website on Studs Terkel if you wish to learn more.
