Studs Terkel turns 95 today — and you should be celebrating.

Terkel has chronicled the past century like no one else, winning a Pulitzer Prize and other awards for his countless books, many of which simply and profoundly give us access to the forgotten voices of America, working men and women caught in the web of history. Since he’s always been based in Chicago, I have access to his frequent public appearances — and there’s nothing like listening to America’s greatest oral historian in person.

You can get a taste of that unique Studsian style in his recent interview with Laura Washington of In These Times (another Chicago-based icon). As with any conversation with Terkel, it jumps around. But where it lands is always a wonder.

Take, for example, his response to the following question: “You?re an old radio guy: Don Imus?”:

Ann Coulter, Bill O?Reilly. Don Imus is just one of them. He happens to be stupid. They all are! That’s one of the things I have in the book — the lack of yesterday, of memory. The big thing that bothers me is the lack of history. Gore Vidal used the phrase, “United States of Amnesia.” I call it the United States of Alzheimer’s. We forget what happened yesterday.

Take this story. You know I walk to the bus. Bus number 146. They know me in the neighborhood. They know I’m a writer. They know me as the old guy who’s garrulous. I talk to myself. [Laughs.]

So one day there’s this one couple, they ignore me completely. So my ego is hurt. And I say, “The bus is late.” And I say, to make conversation, “Labor Day?s coming up.” And the man just turns and looks at me — Brooks Brothers, under his arm, the latest Wall Street Journal. And she?s a beauty. Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdale?s. She?s got Vanity Fair in her hand. And he turns, looks at me, and says, “We despise unions.” And then he turns away.

And I said, “You what?” And the bus hasn?t come yet. “Do you know that in 1886, ?87, four guys got hanged? How many hours a day do you work?”

He says, “Eight,” reflexively. I said, “How come you don?t work 18 hours a day? Four guys got hanged for you. Did you know that?”

They think I’m crazy. They’re scared. (Laughs.)

Now I’ve got him pinned against the mailbox. He can?t get away. “So how many weeks do you work?” No bus yet.

So finally they get onto the bus, and she looks out the window, and he says, “Is that guy nuts?” And that was the last I saw of them. This is Uptown — the haves and have-nots. I?ll bet they live in a condominium. Maybe the 15th floor.

The detail about keeping the guy pinned against the mailbox is what makes the story. Amazingly, the politics — which are always out in the open in Terkel’s storytelling — never overwhelm the details of the people and the moment. The story above is about the uncomfortable juxtaposition of cultures in a diverse, gentrifying neighborhood as much as it is about our collective lack of memory or the accomplishments of the labor movement.

His style has inspired, among others, playwright and actress Anna Deavere-Smith — who frequently returns the favor by doing a dead-on impersonation of Terkel.

Bonus: Chicago Public Radio is celebrating Studs’ birthday in their own way by going into the vault and bringing out a “choice moment” between Terkel and his good friend and fellow storyteller, Garrison Keillor, which was recorded in 2001.