Combinations to memory vaults often get lost with the incursion of age. This is not to say they cannot be retrieved by certain spoken words, visuals, or listening to stories that remind you of what you've forgotten. Reunions are prime gatherings for exhuming half-buried tales worth re-telling because of the reactions they precipitate from listeners. From gut-wrenching laughter, tears, sadness from discovering who passed, and incredible stories told from the lips of those least expected to tell them, fuel the adrenaline of shocking the brain to say, "That reminds me of . . . " And then, you're...

Combinations to memory vaults often get lost with the incursion of age. This is not to say they cannot be retrieved by certain spoken words, visuals, or listening to stories that remind you of what you've forgotten. Reunions are prime gatherings for exhuming half-buried tales worth re-telling because of the reactions they precipitate from listeners. From gut-wrenching laughter, tears, sadness from discovering who passed, and incredible stories told from the lips of those least expected to tell them, fuel the adrenaline of shocking the brain to say, "That reminds me of . . . " And then, you're...

Most people in our country become fascinated by stories reported by favorite newscasters - Walter Cronkite and Ed Murrow being two prime examples that had wide audiences who accepted their comments and reported their news and views as gospel. Chicago, on the other hand, began a love affair with a street reporter named Studs Terkel (1912-2008), whose 45-year career of recording interviews with a wide spectrum of street people and common folk who were asked for their views on what they liked, hated, living circumstances, and an abundance of topics that they tolerated but despised, racial views...