Turkel Brings Life To Ed School Stage

Taking the podium with a Twain-like twinkle in his eye, Studs Terkel addressed a capacity crowd of 125 people at the Askwith Lecture Hall last night.

Speaking about "real people, real lives, real dreams, and real pain," Terkel entertained the crowd with anecdotes about his experiences.

Terkel, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, oral historian, journalist, radio host and raconteur, moved deftly from generalizations to particulars.

"I see my work as a way of informing us about peoples' lives," Terkel said.

The main topics of discussion included revisionism in American history, the decline of unions, societal relations and worker loyalty.

"America suffers from what I like to call the 'National Alzheimer's Disease,'" Terkel mused in light of a question concerning the best way of teaching the nation's youngest children a sense of history and identity.

Many in yesterday's audience agreed with Terkel about the loss of memory and the loss of national recollection.

Colin J. Kegler '97-'98, said that "memory is a way of preserving history." He added that older members of society possess "worldly knowledge that is a wonderful addition to Harvard's teaching."

About a third of yesterday's audience consisted of elderly citizens.

The most serious discussion came when Terkel recounted his experience with a man at a bus stop in Chicago. When Terkel found out that the man opposed organized labor, he asked him: "How many hours a day do you work?"

"He was obviously a yuppie," Terkel said. "I hate to call anyone that but he was. Soon the man became defensive. I must have scared him. All I was trying to say is that somewhere in the past, at the 1886 Haymarket Riot, four guys had their heads busted so that he could work an eight-hour day instead of 16 or 20 hours."

"He must have thought that I was the Rime of the Ancient Mariner," he added.

Terkel also addressed his fears about the decline in personal communication in recent years.

American society is becoming a "community of communications without communication," he said.

Terkel also expressed dismay at the pervasive silence that is destroying American community.

"Too many people are searching for a life that is not a Monday-through-Friday kind of dying," he said.

Terkel ended his address with what he termed a "friendly reminder."

"Writing is not an art; it is a skill, a learned craft. I am merely a craftsman, a recorder of people's experiences," he said.

Many audience members said they enjoyed the presentation.

Terkel is "as filling as a cheesecake," said Sarah Lawrence-Lightfoot, professor of education at the Graduate School of Education (GSE).