Happy Birthday, Studs!

I would be gravely remiss if I failed to pass along greetings to Studs Terkel, who turns 93 today. From Minnesota Public Radio:

It's the birthday of broadcaster and writer Louis Studs Terkel, born in the Bronx, New York (1912). He moved with his family to Chicago when he was twelve, and throughout his career he was associated with that city as a broadcaster on radio station WFMT. His first program on the station aired in 1945, and in 1958 he launched the "Studs Terkel Almanac." The flair for interviewing that he demonstrated on the air translated into a series of successful books of oral history. They include Division Street: America (1967), Hard Times (1970), Working (1974), and Coming of Age: The Story of Our Century by Those Who've Lived It (1995). He became celebrated for his ability to record the words and thoughts of ordinary people. He said: "A tape recorder, with microphone in hand, or on the table, or the arm of a chair, or in the grass, can transform both the visitor and the host. It can be used to capture the thoughts of the non-celebrated-on the steps of a public housing project, in a frame bungalow, in a furnished apartment, in a parked car-and these 'statistics' become persons, each one unique. I am constantly astonished."

One of my biggest dreams in life is to be interviewed by Studs.

Addendum: On the subject of Terkel (and with Algren still vivid in my mind), I just stumbled across this priceless recording of Studs reading my favorite Algren short piece, "The Silver-Colored Yesterday" from Chicago: City on the Make.