I arrived home to the sad news that Studs Terkel had passed away. Terkel's great gift was letting people tell their own stories in their own words about subjects as diverse as the Depression, World War II, race relations, their jobs, and even death. He could get people to open up like few other journalists. His classic work on what workers do and how they feel about their jobs, Working, has long had an easy-to-reach spot on my bookshelf.
My guess is that he's now collecting an oral history of the saints.
