Big Russ and Me: Father and Son : Lessons in Life

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Editorial Reviews:

Amazon.com Review
Veteran newsman and Meet the Press moderator Tim Russert is known for his direct and unpretentious style and in this charming memoir he explains why. Russert's father is profiled as a plainspoken World War II veteran who worked two blue-collar jobs while raising four kids in South Buffalo but the elder Russert's lessons on how to live an honest, disciplined, and ethical life are shown to be universal. Big Russ and Me, a sort of Greatest Generation meets Tuesdays with Morrie, could easily have become a sentimental pile of mush with a son wistfully recalling the wisdom of his beloved dad. But both Russerts are far too down-to-earth to let that happen and the emotional content of the book is made more direct, accessible, and palatable because of it. The relationship between father and son, contrary to what one would think of as essential to a riveting memoir, seems completely healthy and positive as Tim, the academically gifted kid and later the esteemed TV star and political operative relies on his old man, a career sanitation worker and newspaper truck driver, for advice. Big Russ and Me also traces Russert's life from working-class kid to one of broadcast journalism's top interviewers by introducing various influential figures who guided him along the way, including Jesuit teachers, nuns, his dad's drinking buddies, and, most notably, the late New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, whom Russert helped get elected in 1976. Plenty of entertaining anecdotes are served up along the way from schoolyard pranks to an attempt to book Pope John Paul II on the Today Show. Though not likely to revolutionize modern thought, Big Russ and Me will provide fathers and sons a chance to reflect on lessons learned between generations. --Charlie Williams

Product Description
Veteran newsman and Meet the Press moderator Tim Russert is known for his direct and unpretentious style and in this charming memoir he explains why. Russert's father is profiled as a plainspoken World War II veteran who worked two blue-collar jobs while raising four kids in South Buffalo but the elder Russert's lessons on how to live an honest, disciplined, and ethical life are shown to be universal. Big Russ and Me, a sort of Greatest Generation meets Tuesdays with Morrie, could easily have become a sentimental pile of mush with a son wistfully recalling the wisdom of his beloved dad. But both Russerts are far too down-to-earth to let that happen and the emotional content of the book is made more direct, accessible, and palatable because of it. The relationship between father and son, contrary to what one would think of as essential to a riveting memoir, seems completely healthy and positive as Tim, the academically gifted kid and later the esteemed TV star and political operative relies on his old man, a career sanitation worker and newspaper truck driver, for advice. Big Russ and Me also traces Russert's life from working-class kid to one of broadcast journalism's top interviewers by introducing various influential figures who guided him along the way, including Jesuit teachers, nuns, his dad's drinking buddies, and, most notably, the late New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, whom Russert helped get elected in 1976. Plenty of entertaining anecdotes are served up along the way from schoolyard pranks to an attempt to book Pope John Paul II on the Today Show. Though not likely to revolutionize modern thought, Big Russ and Me will provide fathers and sons a chance to reflect on lessons learned between generations. --Charlie Williams

Customer Reviews: Read 136 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

By the Grace of Daily Obligations May 16, 2004
150 out of 176 found this review helpful

Edit:
Tim Russert died unexpectedly on Friday, June 13, 2008. He was beloved by many and respected by many. He was one of the few political reporters that I believe gave us both sides of the story. He always spoke with eloquence and intelligence, and when he spoke, we listened.

"People do not die for us immediately, but remain bathed in a sort of aura of life which bears no relation to true immortality but through which they continue to occupy our thoughts in the same way as when they were alive. It is as though they were traveling abroad." ~Marcel Proust

We all know Tim Russert as the moderator of "Meet the Press", and now we meet Tim Russert, son of Big Russ. Tim Russert tells the story of growing up in Buffalo, and how he grew to be the man he is today has much to do with the father he idolizes. His father is his hero. This is a story of love, family love, religious love, love of sports, love of people and love of life.

Much of this book has to do with the lessons learned at the knee of Big Russ. Big Russ was a hard worker- he loved his family, a wife and four children. Big Russ learned his love of life in the Army. He was in World War II and was badly injured in a plane accident. Big Russ learned valuable lessons that day- he was saved from certain death by another soldier who threw caution to the wind to save his brother soldier. Big Russ is a reticent man who does not talk much about his experiences, as is common with WWII soldiers. It took Tim Russert many years to learn about his dad and about his experiences in the Army. Tim Russert once said the person he most wanted to interview was his own dad!

Tim Russert had an idyllic childhood, but it was not an easy life. He worked hard at school and hard at home. He came from a family who loved him and taught him many lessons. The family was Catholic, and his entire education was completed at Jesuit's schools. Food was a big part of their life. Big Russ worked two jobs to give his family a home, clothing and food on the table. There is an entire chapter talking about the food of the Russert home and the food of Buffalo. The roast beef weck sandwich is one of the famous foods of Buffalo but it is the Buffalo chicken wings that are the best known.

Tim Russert goes on to tell about his life, college, law school, working for Senator Moynihan and Governor Cuomo. He was well liked and as always a very hard worker. His work with these politicians was noted, and he was picked by NBC to work in the news division. He became the news Director of the Washington Bureau, and was later asked to be the moderator of "Meet the Press". He has made "Meet the Press' the most popular Sunday political show on television. He credits his success to Big Russ who told him to be himself, and to always tell the truth, and to ask questions the little guys would ask.

Tim Russert met and married a reporter, Maureen Orth, in 1983, and in 1985 one of the most important days of his life occurred with the birth of his son, Luke. Luke is a much beloved son, and from the stories Tim Russert tells, we know that Luke must idolize his dad much as Tim does Big Russ.

Tim Russert has made a success of his life. He attributes much of his success to his father. Tim Russert can best describe his father with this sentence taken from Gail Godwin's book
"Father Melancholy's Daughter".
"He lived his life by the grace of daily obligations."

This is a book to be read again and again. Full of stories of hope and goodness and love and life. It is a feel good book. A story of the life of one of our best political reporters. I believe that Tim Russert is one of the most respected man in America.

Tim Russert told us that Bruce Springsteen was one of the people he most wanted to interview. He was able to make enough money selling Bruce Springsteen concert tickets to attend college. One of Springsteen's songs:got a song to sing, keep me out of the cold
And I'll meet you further on up the road.

Further on up the road
Further on up the road
Where the way dark and the night is cold
One sunny mornin' we'll rise I know
And I'll meet you further on up the road.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=sY__dua_pEg&feature=related

Highly Recommended. prisrob 2004

5 out of 5 stars

Big Russ and Me is a very good book. May 17, 2004
43 out of 59 found this review helpful

I was interested in reading Big Russ and Me, because Tim Russert is one of the most respected journalists and one of the best political minds in the media. I wanted to learn more about this man who has been on television so much the last 2 decades. As the title states, this book is about the relationship and lessons a father teaches his son. Russert not only talks the relationship he has with his father He talks the relationship he has with his own son Luke and the passion of sports they both share.

Tim Russert has so much respect and love for his father, and he explains clearly why in this book. Big Russ, or Tim Russert Sr. prepared and inspected parachuttes during World War 2. He later held down later down 2 jobs as a trash collector and a newspaper delivery truck driver and never missed a single day of work in his life. Tim Russert learned from his father the value of hard work and to take pride in whatever he did.

Russert talks about the things he loves like baseball, food, cars. Russert is also proud of his strict Catholic upbringing, working in a church as a teenager, and attending Catholic schools throughout his life. He also talks and the other people who inspired him throughout his life like his 7th grade teacher Sister Lucille who made him editor of his school newspaper and gave him a love of writing and reading. Father Sturum was another teacher and influence who taught him discipline and accountability. Tim Russert worked as Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan's assistant in the mid 70s. Moynihan became his political and intellectual mentor. The late senator taught Russert how to respect true intelligence, ask good questions, and how to disagree agreeably. This is a skill Russert does so well as moderator of Meet the Press every week.

Big Russ and Me is a very entertaining and heartwarming book about the lessons we learn from our fathers. It is also about how teachers and coworkers can play such an important part in our lives. I enjoyed it very much.

1 out of 5 stars

Ah Drats September 18, 2004
42 out of 62 found this review helpful

Tim Russert's new book about his father and the lessons of life, Big Russ and Me, was an incredible disappointment. In reading this book, one is drawn to the current Walgreens Drugs commercial that features an ideallic life devoid of problems and inconveniences. That's not the way it was in South Buffalo (I'm sure), anymore than it was in New York, Chicago, Detroit or even Nashville neighborhoods.

Face it. Tim wrote a Buffalo version of the television show "The Wonder Years." At least the TV show made a pass at representing itself as fiction based on fact.

Admittedly, Russert is a truly remarkable person and a quintessential American success story. His parents were not atypical of most nuclear Catholic families in America. Most reasonably successful people have very similar stories to tell.

Until, that is, the "secret," which off-handedly appeared toward the end of the book -- his parents separation.

The cavalier attitude with which Author Russert treats this central fact in his household was reason enough to send the book back to the publisher with the inevitable angel stamp Nuns put on their charges' inadequate papers back then, "You can do better... I know you can."

One almost thinks there was a lot more going on in the Russert household than Tim was admitting. This is a huge fatal flaw in a nationally published book leading one to wonder whether too much of the book might be almost idealized romance from a man well into middle age longing for a simpler time.

It would be nice if we knew more about the "inner workings" of these people,notably his mother and father. Why they are who they are -- what the core source of the values were and are. In short, Tim needs to be a good reporter and now just ask who, what, when, where and how, but also "why."

One of the "why" questions is the comparatively minimal and stereotypical role Mrs. Russert played in his life. She came off as a traditional housewife who cooked, cleaned and supported but who comparatively had little impact. Who was she? How did she formulate his thinking and who he is. It's amazing that she gets so little press in the book, especially given that she was with him in gross terms far more than his father was. She almost seems like a blue collar June Cleaver.

Another disappointing fact was Tim' attitude toward some of the priests with whom he came in contact, specifically those who "might have been a bit different." Given what's happened between priests and schoolboys, a four paragraph kiss-off of this subject is surprisingly light. Perhaps Mr. Russert could have shed some light on some of the more hidden secrets of the 1960s era Catholic church too, if he was so inclined.

If Russert approached his Meet the Press job the way he approached this book -- he'd be the Larry King of Sunday morning television. One hopes someday Tim writes a sequel and tells us everything he did not tell us in this book about life in the 1950s and 1960s in South Buffalo.

1 out of 5 stars

Enough Already Tim May 26, 2004
38 out of 118 found this review helpful

In the past 3 weeks we've seen:
1. Tim Russert throw out the game ball for the Orioles
2. Tim's wife on NPR talking about what a humble man he is
3. Tim - an interviewer for NBC - being interviewed by Katie Couric - another interviewer - on NBC.

What is going on here?

Of course we all know this is just part of the media circuit required to be run by someone trying to sell a book. But a book about what? How great your dad was? (and by association how great you must be for honoring him in such a public manner?) I guess we can all look forward to the next book where Tim talks about how great his son is and how much he loves the Bills.

The fact of the matter is that Tim has made a very profitable career by being the nice guy everyone pretends to like so they can use him and his tv show. Proof? The day before Saddam Hussein's capture announcement, Tim was at a cocktail party with Donald Rumsfeld. Donald was very coy and confident and Tim smelled a story (or so he told us a few days later). But the real story here is this: Why is this 'journalist' sipping cocktails on a saturday night with the very people he should be objectively reporting on?

Celebrity Journalist is an oxymoron, Tim. Tell your perfect family how great they are in private. Your insistence to insert yourself into the story makes you worse than those idiots at Fox.

4 out of 5 stars A Story About One Father And Son--And All Fathers And Sons July 3, 2004
31 out of 38 found this review helpful

This is a heartwarming, uplifting book. Tim Russert's "Big Russ & Me" encompasses both his own life story and the story of his father ("Big Russ.") The senior Russert grew up in a working class family in South Buffalo, New York and went off to play his part in World War II as a member of the Army Air Force. Big Russ came home after the war, married, raised four children and worked two jobs for thirty years without complaint. In the way he's lived his life and the lessons he's taught his son, he's been an exemplar of the values Americans have treasured: honesty, hard work, loyalty, self-discipline.

The author also spins a warmly entertaining chronicle of his youth, where the adults in his Irish-Catholic neighborhood served as an extended family; where the parochial schools he attended did as much to shape his character as build his intellect; and where, in the presidential campaign of John F. Kennedy, his own passion for politics was first awakened. Russert paints a rich, loving portrait of his first boss, New York Senator Pat Moynihan; remembers some highlights of his briefer tenure on the staff of New York Governor Mario Cuomo; and paints a lively portrait of his years at NBC News, first as a behind-the-scenes executive, and since 1991, host of Meet the Press. Along the way, he married and became a father of a son, Luke.

Russert is a natural-born storyteller. Recalling his feelings of inadequacy when he moved from Moynihan's Buffalo office to Washington, D.C. and found himself surrounded with Ivy League graduates, the senator warmly reassured him that he could learn what the others knew, but they would never have what he did. After all, the senator pointed out, none of them had ever worked on the back of a garbage truck--something that Big Russ did his entire working life and his son did during the summers of his college years.

This is a very personal story about one father and one son, but it's also a universal saga of all fathers and sons. I highly recommend it.--William C. Hall

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