Studs Terkel died yesterday, on Halloween, at the age of 96.  Born in New York, he lived most of his life in Chicago, but to be honest, he made all of America, its people and its history, his true home.  As he said in 1980,

‘If there’s something I want to do, it’s create a sense of continuity — that there is a past and a present and that there may be a future. And that there isn’t any present unless you know the past’.

Studs is an example of the best America can produce, and we will all miss his humour, his insight and his no-nonsense devotion to the truth.  Not to mention his generosity — he has left us all with one more last gift.  His book PS: Further Thoughts from a Lifetime of Listening is released tomorrow.
For more quotes, read Msbaroque‘s excellent blog.