The Studs Terkel Reader_My American Century

by Studs Terkel

  The irrepressible press agent, the last of his species, remembers his glory days as a familiar in the city room. “I’m in my shirt sleeves at the typewriter, flailing away with two fingers. I belonged there. If you tried that today, seven security guards would escort you out. Anyway, I couldn’t work their computers.”

  On the desks of young reporters in the city room, as on the desks of young traders at the brokerage house, is the ubiquitous IT, through whose windows they stare, in the manner of voyeurs. Each is in a private world, close by colleagues, yet planets away. It is solipsism en masse.

  Though silence pervades where once there was a human sound, conversely, noise overwhelms where once there was quiet. There was a time when a long-established Chicago restaurant had as its hallmark: No Orchestral Din. A quiet conversation could take place across the table and the patrons could actually hear one another. The place has long since been shuttered.

  Several years ago, a friend of mine, a singer, concluded his concert. A half dozen of us adjourned to a nearby restaurant. It was about eleven at night. We were the only patrons. The canned Muzak was so loud we had difficulty hearing one another, though we shared the same table. We asked the hostess if she could turn it off or at least lower the volume. She declined. The simple truth: she could do nothing. It was remotely controlled.

  When talk, where it matters, is discouraged, and quiet, where it matters, is also discouraged, is it any wonder that the speech of the young has been affected. “They talk in short, curt sentences,” says the high-school teacher, “in phrases that are vague and often not to the point. It is their sound bite. And on the bus, with plugs in their ears, they’re sitting next to you, but not near you.”

  The bus I take each morning affords me a window seat. The old ones are among the first to board. As we head downtown, it is no longer the Geriatric Special; the young ad people, traders, lawyers, secretaries crowd into it. For the most part, they are standing; the crones and gaffers, seated. My vantage point is a good one. I need hardly turn my head to see all my fellow passengers, especially the young standees.

  Having nothing better to do, I study the young faces and, in passing, a wrinkled one or two. I stare almost to the point of rudeness; perhaps it’s to attract their attention. I’m doing this more frequently than ever before—to make sure that I understand what is happening. I find what is happening somewhat troubling.

  I am directly in their line of vision; they can’t miss me. For a fleeting instant, Brooke looks down at me; Jason looks down at me. I, with the unblinking stare of a baby, await their recognition of my being—a something. Look, an old boy, a nut, a dirty old man, a retired lawyer, a landlord—a something. Not a flicker, not a millisecond blink of the eye. They look past the space I occupy and turn back to their casual, coded conversation. I am the invisible man, post-Ellison.

  To make certain that my finding is not simply a matter of bruised ego, I peer several aisles forward and see the back of gray heads turned upward toward the standing young. I see the same piece of theater enacted; eyeless eyes passing through gray space, and becoming a touch alive as they turn languorously toward one another.

  As for the old ones on the bus, they, having little else to do, sneak a peek, a squint at the young, in the manner of squirrels. They occasionally look at one another, too. They, in contrast to the new ones, recognize the presence of others, for better or worse.

  Yet on the same bus, a doddering passenger is frequently offered a seat by a young one. “There is no rule of thumb,” muses an old nonstop peace advocate. He passes out leaflets as frequently as he breathes; it’s a matter of reflex. “The attitudes of the conductors on the trains I ride differ so much. Some were rough; some were wonderful. Same leaflets, same me, gray ponytail and everything.”

  The experience of a celebrated agitator is more personal. “My father was a right-winger, a real Horatio Alger hero. Yet he always defended people others looked down upon. When a waitress spilled something on my mother’s new dress, he said it was his fault. Always. He was against almost every stand I took. But at his deathbed, I told him, ‘Dad, you were my inspiration. I was following your example.’ You simply can’t prejudge people anymore.”

  So it is with retirement, too. When do you step down? Does the calendar decide when a person has had it? Is age of retirement a testament written in stone? To a spot welder at an auto plant, whose daily chore is mind-numbing, retirement after thirty years is devoutly to be wished. (Assuming, of course, an adequate pension.) To an old teacher in love with the job, it maybe a disaster.

  To me, at eighty-two, my job at the radio microphone, continuing or hanging up my gloves, is a matter of personal decision. Am I as skilled as I may have been when I began at the station forty-two years ago? I may be better in some ways, though not as adventurous as I once was. Do I enjoy the job as I once did, or is the law of diminishing delight taking effect? Energy or the loss of it may be the deciding actor. If only I had the wisdom and honesty of Lotte Lehmann.

  One Sunday afternoon, at the end of her regular Town Hall concert, Mme. Lehmann, the nonpareil of our century’s lieder singers, announced her retirement as of that moment. To her devoted, stunned audience crying out “No! No! No!” she gently responded, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” She graciously explained that, though her voice to others remained unblemished, she knew it was not so. She reminded them of her most celebrated role, the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier. “Remember the mirror scene? When she looked into the mirror and saw her first wrinkle, she decided to give up her young lover. I have learned from her, this wise, beautiful woman.”

  The aging CEO may see retirement as an end to power, yet the retired social worker may see her job-goodbye as the beginning of a new sort of power. He says: “When you suddenly leave the jungle, the phone stops ringing. You want to have lunch with old friends, but they’re busy, working. I’m not in demand anymore. I’m seeking company rather than being sought.” She says, “People who have had power, when they become powerless, are really tragic. We just allow ourselves to be conditioned by a society that tells us we’ve lost it, whether we really have or not. We accept premature death. When you inject something live into it, kick up your heels, you’re exhilarated. You count.”

  Maggie Kuhn was recalling the moment she was declared redundant at sixty-five. She took to heart the lyric of Kris Kristofferson: “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose”—and the Gray Panthers came into being. At eighty-eight, frail and faltering, she’s still at it.

  The Nebraska farmer, eighty, and the Kentucky storekeeper, seventy-five, still breathe fire, as keepers of the flame. Says the farmer: “If I could get ten active people, well organized, well informed, in each county, I could come pretty close to running this state.” Says the storekeeper: “A handful in the beginning saved this country. They did the fightin’. While three quarters of ’em, by God, watched it. You never give up, because a handful can win.”

  Though the embattled spirit of the elderly suffuses this work, it is the sense of mortality, among the nonbelievers as well as the devout, that most colors their thoughts. As time is running out, their own and the century’s, there is a consensus: We’ve had a pretty good run of it. Personally. As for their dreams of the world, there is a sense of loss. Their mourning is not so much for themselves as for those who follow. Their own passing is passed off casually, often with a touch of humor. “I would like to spend my day in a class at MIT, absorbing knowledge, says the eighty-five-year-old woman. “They can take me out in a body bag after that.” (Among the Georgia Sea Islanders, the thought is put to song: “Throw me anywhere, Lord, in that old field...”)

  The printer, having a beer: “As time is running out, I want to win the lottery, buy three ships, man them with American Indians, and send them over to discover Italy.”

  The Iowa gadfly: “Mozart is my entrance into the sublime. At my service, let there be wine, cheese, and Mozart.”

  The radio bard, whose father lived to be 110, wants
his obituary short: “At the age of 124, he was killed in a duel with a jealous lover. His gun jammed.”

  The sparrow sums up the light-hearted farewells: “Listen, since I got to be this age, I’ve got it made. No matter what happens next, I’m still ahead of the game.”

  Yet, the gay adieus do conceal a reluctance of these vital folk to cross the lonesome valley—not just yet. There are several, in despair, who would just as soon not greet the year 2000. Others insist on getting things in order before the long voyage, so, in the words of the venerable judge, “when I kick the bucket, I’ll have everything filed.” The ninety-nine-year-old child of slaves, considering her forthcoming hundredth birthday celebration: “I’d just as soon have a good dinner and let it go at that.”

  There are always second thoughts and regrets. The most frequent show of grief is toward the fate of their own children. The deaths, whether by auto accident, suicide, AIDS, war, or alcohol, they have, for much of their lives, taken unto themselves. Few are more rueful and moving than the dread of guilt felt by the Flint firebrand of ’37, who gave so much of herself to the community. “Maybe I should have spent more time with the two wonderful kids I lost. Killed by a speeding taxi. Oh, my God, sometimes you think...they had such a short life.” She offers a consoling coda: “Yet if I hadn’t gone through all these experiences, I couldn’t be the same person.” Nor does she know how many others’ children she may have saved from that dark and hollow bound.

  It is she and her sixty-nine other colleagues in this work to whom the old battler pays tribute: “Think of what’s stored in an eighty-, ninety-year-old mind. Just marvel at it. You see faces of people, places you’ve been to, images in your head. You’ve got a file nobody else has. There’ll be nobody like you ever again. Make the most of every molecule you’ve got, as long as you’ve got a second to go. That’s your charge.”

  BESSIE DOENGES, 93

  We’re in her apartment at a senior citizen’s center in New York City. The electric fan gives forth a pleasant breeze on this hot day. She is relaxing on the divan, her tiny feet casually plopped onto the nearby end table. “Someone described me as petite. I can describe everybody else, but not myself. Maybe I don’t want to look at myself. I’m just kidding.”

  She writes a regular column for a neighborhood weekly, The Westsider. “I write about old age and how terrible it is.”

  I can’t seem to remember what happened yesterday, but I can remember what happened in 1912, things like that. I was eleven when the Titanic sank. They let the women and children into the lifeboats, as they themselves drowned. See, there is some goodness in people. I remember the suffragettes. And the writers, Galsworthy and H. G. Wells. We read him a great deal.

  I was born in Canada, 1901. The Boer War was on, and there’ve been wars ever since. If we keep having them, we’ll blow ourselves off the earth. Don’t you think so? My mother and father were in church and the minister said, “All able-bodied men should go fight the Boers.” My mother said she threw her arms around my father to keep him from going. She kept a diary. They all kept diaries. My ancestors were Tories who fled to Canada. They made the wrong turn. My great-great-grandfather’s best friend was Benedict Arnold. Can you imagine?

  What’s my day like? I wake up in the morning and I think, “I’m glad to be alive.” So I roll over on my stomach and feel just great. I look up to see what time it is and I go back to sleep. Finally, I get up and do a little dance on account of my arthritis. It helps. Then I stagger out to the kitchen and get this wonderful oatmeal. We used to call it porridge. I just pour hot water on the flakes. Get the coffee. Just pour water on that. I bring it back very carefully to this table. Then I get the Times, which a dear friend puts outside the door. And I read the obituaries. And I think things could be worse. In fact, it’s damn good. I got through the night, by golly, and I’m likely to live through this day. One day is as good as a hundred days, when you reach this age.

  I have a hundred things wrong with me. I could start at my head and go right on down. I smoked until 1958. When the doctor told me to stop, I said, “You’re asking me to cut off my leg.” He said, “Which leg?” So I stopped.

  You’re a salty one.

  Oui, oui.

  I take my time getting dressed, go downstairs and get my ticket for lunch. I’ve sat at the same table for eighteen years. We know each other thoroughly. Then I take my cane and try to get to the Strawberry Fields in Central Park. I ask someone to help me across the street and I’ve never been refused yet. They all come through, every single one. When you’re ninety-two and five-sixths, you can get away with murder.

  At the Strawberry Fields, I sit there. It’s marvelous. It’s like a beautiful picture: trees, a young man playing the violin. People have staked out claims. If I sit down at a certain place and the woman who always sits there comes along, I immediately get up, bow, and take another seat. You own that seat and it gives you a feeling of security, which you want very much when you’re older.

  Then I come home, take a little nap. Then I read and write this stuff for The Westsider. At six o’clock, the real evening starts. I have a scotch and soda and watch TV I watch the news, and then Jeopardy comes on and Wheel of Fortune. Maybe you’re too refined to watch it, but by this time I’ve had the drink and anything looks good to me.

  Then it’s eight o‘clock and I fight sleep, damn it all. I fight it with everything I’ve got! I don’t want to go to bed, life’s too short. Actually, I sleep twelve hours or maybe fourteen. Sleep is my last lover. I don’t want it, but there you have it. By nine o’clock, I’ve given in and fall into a delightful sleep. I accept it with grace. What else can I do? I wake up in the light of the morning. Yeah! Yah-hoo!

  I always wanted to write when I came to New York. I used to get stuff in the Times, this was 1920. I wrote in the Hearst papers and got more money for verse than I get now. I never told anybody about it. I was writing brochures for a Protestant welfare group and got twenty-five dollars a month.

  I grew up in a writing atmosphere. My father was a writer and a judge in New Brunswick. He had a story in the Saturday Evening Post, the same issue with Scott Fitzgerald. He wrote for Scribner’s. High class. Then he suddenly stopped.

  I came to New York to help my husband with his small printing business. I tried to write the great American novel. Well, I wrote it, but I couldn’t sell it. I gave up writing and typed reports for a large insurance company. I was fifty-three and said I was forty-two. They were already funny about age.

  About thirteen years ago, when I was eighty, I started writing again. A teacher at a senior club set me off. Almost at once, I began to sell to the “Metropolitan Diary” in the Times. At first, they only gave a bottle of champagne. Then the editor said, “We pay starving poets twenty dollars. Are you a starving poet?” I said, “I certainly am.” So I got twenty bucks and my name in the papers. It’s a family curse: we write and never get to the top. Then the great New York Times stopped paying. They didn’t want any professionals for the section, they wanted sort of like “Letters to the Editor” stuff. I got something in Newsday’s Viewpoint and they paid me 150 bucks. Wow!

  I have something published in The Westsider every week. Fifty-two pieces a year when you’re ninety-two and five-sixths—I’ve got scrapbooks here if you want to look through them. Verse, prose. I’m eight weeks ahead now.

  What do I think of my contemporaries here? I like them. We have so much in common: surviving and trying to get something out of life. So we listen to each other’s oft-told tales, because we probably do the same thing ourselves. We cannot help but like them, because we have common memories. They are really us: we’re all one person.

  I have a motto: “Judge not, lest ye be judged,” and “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” I believe that because man is prone to sin, and anyway, it’s none of my business. I refuse to judge. My husband and I never judged each other. We were married forty-four years. He died in 1971 and I still wake up with his name on my lips
. Writing about him makes me feel good.

  I discovered things about him that I hadn’t realized before. For instance, he had a way of thinking about animals and birds as if they’re people. There was a swan up in Pelham Bay Park. He used to bring it food. Sometimes he even gave him our lunch. I didn’t think much of that. I wrote about this: The Wayward Swan.

  I think the young today are much more honest than we were. They see things as they are. I would not want to be young now. They’re having a hell of a time. I feel I’ve been lucky in life. In the Depression, my husband’s business, my goodness. Terrible. We slept in the park because we had no money for rent. He said, “I’m gonna sell the dump. I’m a burden to you.” I wouldn’t let him. I still had a job. We’d sleep in the park, what’d it matter? I let him do the worrying for both of us. No, I don’t judge the young. They’re having an unhappy time.

  What are your thoughts as you read the news today?

  Simply terrible. People starving to death. Do you have a right to be happy when you read about a Bosnian child as you have your morning toast? Do you know how many pills I take for everything? Six, seven times or so. One for emphysema; something I call “dipsydoodle,” for circulation; for blood pressure; for my heart; for diverticulosis—which makes me sick. I cut it out.

  Scientifically, the world has gone beautifully. It’s very exciting. You see a young woman walk along the street with something in her ear. She’s talking to someone on the telephone. It’s exciting to be alive, but I don’t have a great deal of hope for the world. I think we’re going to blow ourselves up. We could have everything, everybody. We’re going to make it so we don’t have to do donkey work: press a button. We can enjoy music, art, gardening, all the fine things. And have time to be friends. But we’re going to throw it all away. I think we’re no damn good.