Book Review: The Unplanned Life
The Unplanned Life: The Journey of Roger Badesch. Roger Badesch. Eckhartz Press, June 25, 2020, Trade Paperback and E-book, 340 pages.
Reviewed by Gerry Souter.
Perhaps a more apt title would be "The Unplanned Book of Roger Badesch." Normally, this would signal the retelling of a tedious ego trip that offers neither lessons nor entertainment for the reader. The book is mostly a chronological recitation of Roger's life, and therein lies the hook. He's had a damned interesting roller coaster life, a life summed up in a quote early on in the journey: “Man makes plans, God Laughs.”
His huge fan base comprises everyone who has met him, listened to him on the radio, learned from him in the classroom, or drawn upon his wisdom by osmosis. What staggered me as a reader was his mirror image of my life. As I read, place names pelted me like a spring shower. It was spooky. His love affair with radio shows, the newspaper route, a gang of kids living in the shadow of tougher Polish and Irish kids from steel mill families who perfected their pounding skills on us—I was there before him. It gave me a vivid image of my neighborhood's future life as I read his anecdotes and life tales from 10 years later.
Roger's journey is divided into two major parts, with a little bit of both parts suffused into each other.
The first half is a patchwork of anecdotes about his ascending the ladder of low wattage student radio-music and interview shows to arrive at Chicago’s City Hall Press Room at WKQX-FM as a street reporter and sometimes news anchor, ultimately serving in the Mayor’s Press Office for five years under Jane Byrne and Harold Washington. After a private-sector stint in advertising and public relations, the now-husband and father could fulfill a secret yearning—to return to school as a teacher. Making use of school radio and TV facilities, first at Downers Grove North, then migrating to Chicago Vocational Career Academy, he took that student raw material and, during a “whirlwind summer vacation,” assembled a 17-minute film titled “The Last Stain,” that went on to win an Emmy Award. In 2013 Badesch was re-elected Communications Chair of the Two Year/Small Schools Division of the Broadcast Education Association. He had achieved his childhood dreams of being on the radio and so much more.
The second part of this book is titled “Chapter Nine—The ‘C’ Word,” a title that says it all. On August 2012, Roger began another fight, this time for his life, battling cancer. He wanted to keep teaching at Roberto Clemente Community Academy and covered the pain as well as he could. At home, he had his dog, Rufus, to comfort him. In the next to last chapter, his son, David, took over typing for Roger as the insidious disease attempted to eviscerate his father. Courage runs deep in the Badesch family. But you don’t accomplish what Roger did without grit, and the next goal he had set was to finish this book. And here it is, all 362 pages, told with that straight-from-the-shoulder news anchor’s voice.
Live long, Roger. You’ve set a high bar, unplanned or not.