"People Have Lost Their Sense of Outrage"

I for one have not lost my sense of outrage, a quote from one of the great pontificators, Louis Studs Terkel.  I am daily scandalized by what people are able to get away with in this country - for that matter, around the world.  Slobodan Milosovitch didn't want to come to the tribunal in The Hague?  Innocent women and children being killed daily in the markets in Pakistan, just because they needed to buy bread?

One of the greater bards of our generation passed away recently.  I was lucky to have called Studs Terkel my friend.  Many were the evenings we would sit in his fabulous prairie style home, with art deco and modernist furniture, doing exactly what he is doing here, drinking scotch and smoking a cigar.  On one memorable Thanksgiving that he and his beloved Ida spent with us we went around the room saying what we were thankful for.  Ida, true to form said "A life without cigars".  Of course she didn't have it, but that is what she wished for.

the quintissential Studs

Studs was always jealous that Ida's FBI dossier was larger than his, she being the true heroine in this story.  And stories there were, many times over.  The Boulliabaise one with Algren was a favorite.  "They are looking up at me!"    The last few years of Studs' life were not great, confined to a hospital bed in his living room, but whenever the great ones were in town they would come to pay homage.  My children, who grew up with Studs and Ida as surrogate grandparents thought nothing of them in greatness, only as kind ,benevolent people with lots of fruit juice in the fridge and the occasional hamburger on raisin toast, Ida's specialty.

He always made it to Christmas Eve at our house.  Always brought a bottle of J&B.  Always sat in the same chair, always ate the same food, and one special year he even read "The Night Before Christmas" to the assembled choir.  I have it on tape somewhere.  Other years we played Harold Washington reading the same poem. 

Now the FBI has released 269 pages of his dossier.  What a tribute to this maligned man who only wanted to have everyone be happy, have a home, and be able to discuss his or her opinion.  They have kept many hundred pages classified.  Probably late night outings with Nelson and Simone (terrible subversives) at a jazz dive on the South Side.  Perhaps a late night song fest with Win Stracke.

If you ever heard him sing " A Wee Drapiot" it would bring tears to your eyes.  I remember him singing it many times, once in our back yard when we hosted Studs and Ida's 50th Wedding Anniversary party.  Most of you will probably know him from the Maurice Lennel commercial jingle.  What a great guy.  I have been a better person to have  known him and his family . Jane, I wish I had your e mail address so I could send this to you.  Perhaps Dan has it.                                                                      

Anyway, a small homage to a man who was privleged to have 269 pages of his FBI dossier released, who I knew as my friend, who I helped whenever I could, and he helped me.  Wish I could make you some broccoli soup my friend.

XO V.

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