If your dad’s in town, win Father’s Day by taking him to see Luke Russert talk about his father Tim Russert’s memoir, Big Russ and Me: Father & Son: Lessons of Life (Weinstein, $16). At 1 p.m. this Sunday, Politics and Prose will commemorate the book Tim wrote about his relationship with his dad “Big Russ” — a World War II veteran who worked blue-collar jobs and taught his kids all the values of the “Greatest Generation.”
Tim Russert, the respected journalist who moderated NBC’s Meet The Press before his unexpected death in 2008, was beloved in a way mainstream journalists are not typically. Luke Russert, now an NBC correspondent, wrote a new preface for Big Russ and Me‘s 10th anniversary edition. In it, he recalls ongoing encounters with fans of his father, including one in particular with a man who said “he was one of us. He cared.”
The preface is an extensive commentary on Tim Russert’s legacy and applying Big Russ’s lessons today, which will also be discussed at Sunday’s event.
Luke Russert writes with nostalgic sweetness about the elder Russerts. “I’m forever thankful that my father wrote Big Russ and Me,” he says, “not just because it’s a wonderful book, but for the more selfish reason that it has given me my father’s playbook as I have embarked on my own life.”
He reflects on Big Russ as well, writing that if he taught Luke anything, “it was about the importance of doing the job you were asked to do.” He tells the story of missing a family Fourth of July barbecue due to his summer job: “When I got home later in the day, he couldn’t have been prouder. He told me that working when nobody else wants to ‘shows ’em you’re reliable.'”
Tim Russert took to heart a similar message from his father; one that might put today’s economic challenges in perspective: “Like so many members of the strong, silent generation who grew up during the Great Depression and went off to war, [Big Russ] had learned long ago that life was hard and nothing was handed to you,” he wrote. “In fact, Dad considered it a sign of success, and even a blessing, that he was able to hold down two jobs. He could remember a time when a man considered himself fortunate to have even one.”
Big Russ and Me can certainly serve as a kind of playbook for anyone, with chapter titles like “Respect,” “Work,” “Faith,” “Food,” “Fatherhood,” and “Discipline.” But it is largely an autobiography of Tim Russert, as each theme goes back to the author’s experience growing up with his father in midcentury Buffalo, N.Y. and how it shaped him as a man.
Tim Russert worked for New York Sen. Daniel Moynihan and Governor Mario Cuomo before joining NBC News and becoming bureau chief in 1989. He was the longest-serving host of Meet The Press, winning several journalism awards and an Emmy in 2005. Luke Russert covered youth issues for NBC during the 2008 presidential election, and is now a congressional correspondent and rotating news anchor on NBC’s Weekend Today.
Aw heck, even if your father can’t attend, go to what is sure to be a thoughtful and tearjerking event that honors dads everywhere. It is free and open to the public.
