Homeless Chef

by bob.dotson | May 21, 2024 | Blog, Hiding in History's Shadow

The winter of life brings choices. Decisions. Its time to travel back looking for lost dreams. Rollie Richardson quietly gathered some of his homeless neighbors from winter’s worst. And helped them try to find those dreams. He drove them non-stop from Delaware to Disney World for nothing but a smile.

The homeless used to be people he stepped around on the way to the bank, where he was a vice president, until one day, he made the kind of choice the homeless make. Friends offered him drugs and he took them. He was 51 years old. Delores, his wife of 38 years, sent Rollie to rehab — 8 times. He finally quit for good, after a friend said, “Folks used to look up to you.”

Rollie got a new job coaching kids and started cooking up an idea with the money he made. Every Saturday, he would entice the homeless with a gourmet breakfast. Then, offer to help them solve their problems. They had heard that message many times, but in Rollie, they saw themselves — a mirror of hope in the vast uncertainty of life.

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How the Jukebox Got its NameOctober 13, 2024
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Hermit EngineerOctober 12, 2024
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Fisher PoetOctober 9, 2024
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Oldest Family BusinessOctober 4, 2024
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Who Created Baseball? September 30, 2024
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Cotton Eye Joe meets Grand OperaSeptember 20, 2024
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Six Pack PoloSeptember 19, 2024
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Last Mail Boat September 18, 2024
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Time not Sliced Too Thin for ThoughtSeptember 17, 2024
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TV Wrestling Class 101September 16, 2024
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Youngest TycoonSeptember 15, 2024
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Stream SaverSeptember 14, 2024
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Mobile DoctorSeptember 13, 2024
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Lawyer SawyerSeptember 12, 2024
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Saving Soles and Souls September 11, 2024
Most people only witnessed the tragic events of 9/11. It was my fate to live it. I moved to New York City at the beginning of the century to work full time for the TODAY Show. A year later, I was standing outside a little chapel that survived the hell that leveled skyscrapers of concrete and steel.
Terrorists had crashed planes into the World Trade Center. A dozen modern buildings toppled all around, but St. Paul’s — pieced together with brick and timber — stood without so much as a broken window.
The Rev. Daniel Matthews, rector of the parish of Trinity Church, walked with me through the church’s graveyard, which was covered in ash. The dust of the dead had settled in the chapel cemetery.
Matthews stopped to dust off a headstone. “You know what everyone in the neighborhood is calling St. Paul’s, don’t you? The Little Chapel That Stood.” He looked up and smiled.
“The most astounding thing for me was not the soot and the dust, but the paper,” he continued. “There must have been 10 million pieces. Everybody’s desk wound up flying out the window.”
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“When My Kids Smile, the Terrorists Lose” September 10, 2024
The Alonso’s lost their mother during the 9/11 attack in 2001. Janet went to work at the World Trade Center that morning and never returned. Her husband, Robert, was left to care for a 2-year-old daughter and a baby boy with Down syndrome.
Five years later, the Alonso’s spent that 9/11 anniversary in the park, near a memorial that their neighbors built to Janet and all the other parents from their New York City suburb who went to work that day but never came home.
Robby wandered to a wall filled with names as his father and sister played catch nearby. “Right here,” he said, pointing to Janet Alonso’s name etched in marble.
“This was my mommy.”
The little boy leaned over and scraped his fingers back and forth across his mother’s name. His father watched, then rubbed his own hands together, as if he could scour away painful thoughts.
Robby drew his fingers to his mouth, kissed them and gently pressed them on his mother’s name. “Mama,” he whispered.
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Missing Mom on 9/11September 9, 2024
The Alonso’s lost their mother during the 9/11 attack in 2001. Janet went to work at the World Trade Center that morning and never returned. Robert was left to care for a 2-year-old daughter and a baby boy with Down syndrome.
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9/11 Story that Inspired “Come from Away”September 8, 2024
Americans open their hearts and wallets all the time, but rarely do we hear about what the world gives to us and that seems just as important. On the eve of 9/11 there were some villages in Newfoundland, Canada, where unemployment hovered as high as fifty percent, but that remote island in the North Atlantic—Canada’s poorest province—set a mark for charity, worthy of the history books. I was one of the first to tell their story, traveling to Newfoundland as winter set in. Later, it became a hit Broadway musical.
LET’S MEET THE REAL PEOPLE WHO HELPED US IN THAT DARK HOUR.
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Grease CarSeptember 7, 2024
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Choices in the Autumn of LifeSeptember 6, 2024
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Portraits on TinSeptember 5, 2024
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The Hugh Heffer of Cow PhotographersSeptember 4, 2024
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Wrong Brothers AviationSeptember 3, 2024
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Road to NowhereSeptember 2, 2024
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Mark Mothersbaugh- A Musician for All AgesSeptember 1, 2024
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Millionaire MonksAugust 31, 2024
Father Bernard McCoy found printer cartridges “sinfully expensive.” So he convinced his fellow monks at Our Lady of Spring Bank Abbey to form a company called Laser Monks, vowing to ship all sorts of products for less. The monks became millionaires. It didn’t last.
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Urban PioneersAugust 30, 2024
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https://youtu.be/mPevF6lf4hs
Beyond SightAugust 29, 2024
Pete Eckert began to see the day he went blind. Photography may be the least likely career for a man who has no sight, but Eckert believes you don’t have to see — to have a vision of what life can be. “I found that my other senses brought enough information to my mind’s eye to establish some kind of link to the outside world, a visual link,” Eckert says. He takes pictures in familiar places. Places he’d been before going blind. A braille compass helps him find the light. Eckert memorizes the room, making mental notes of where sounds bounce off corners. When he hears something, he automatically translates that into a visual image. Blindness rewired his brain to feel the sounds that bounce off bones. Sort of like an X-ray. What he “sees” is stunning.
https://youtu.be/V3YeqFY_KhY
Any U.S. College for FreeAugust 28, 2024
/A small town is booming after years of decline, all because of a promise made and kept. Most of us have people who set the pace for our lives. Claiborne Deming leads with hope. He has given the kids in Eldorado, Arkansas, a promise. Anyone who goes to high school for four years, can attend any college in the country on his company's dime.
https://youtu.be/vDS3Y1p_5_8
Freebytes ComputersAugust 27, 2024
Charlie Shoefield and his friends wondered what happened to all those old computers littered along the information highway. Left to gather dust when companies upgraded their systems. They set out to find them. Fix them up and give them to charity. The kids sold some of their old computers to pay the rent on their repair shop. Started scrounging tools from neighborhood businesses. And then went out looking for more obsolete computers. Charlie persuaded 27 companies in Atlanta to give him 150 computers. He and his pals were just 15. They gave back something rare. Something most adults cannot do. “Some can,” admits Charlie, “but they’ll charge $150 an hour to do it.” That’s too expensive for the 34 charities that lined up for Charlie’s services, so many he formed a non-profit company called “Freebytes.” All together, the kids had worked a thousand hours — for free.
https://youtu.be/4D8er0a5WRw
PuppetsAugust 26, 2024
Mike Manteo has hung onto his childhood things. They hang in the dust-combed darkness of his electrical shop. Puppets. The last of their kind. Carved from solid oak, dressed in buffed brass. Polished and repaired by a proud man who found in them the adventure he dreamed for his own life.
https://youtu.be/gKuTSudasps
Thriving on $5,000 a YearAugust 25, 2024
Folks in Missoula, Montana, know Kim Williams well. Each season she shops the back yards and the alleys bartering for fruit and vegetables others let rot. She lives on $5-thousand dollars a year. Kim and her husband Mel don’t merely survive. They have a good time. They believe small moments of life are just as important as the big news on this planet. Not more important, but just as important.
https://youtu.be/pmglCsbFFII
Saved from ExtinctionAugust 24, 2024
St. Catherine’s Island, Georgia, is the last great barrier island untouched by real estate development. For nearly a century, the place was a rich man’s playground, last owned by Edward J. Noble, the fellow who made millions by punching little holes in candy and calling them Life Savers. Today, his island is saving life itself.
https://youtu.be/r3RfezVz1C8
Breakfast for Less than a TipAugust 23, 2024
Franny Ward charges only $1 for breakfast at her restaurant in Yates Center, Kansas, a price unchanged for years. Coffee is dime, if that’s all you’re going to have. How does she stay in business? She sells 200 meals a day. That’s enough for Franny. If folks can’t come, she brings the food to them. Charges an extra dollar.
https://youtu.be/FjaF5pga1_A
Alone with the Beauty She CreatesAugust 22, 2024
The mirrors seldom see movement. The doors are mostly closed. But music comes from a solitary window, six hours a day, seven days a week. Inside, Charlotte Bergen lives her life alone with the beauty she creates. Four times a year, the reclusive woman emerges from her home and heads to Carnegie Hall where she conducts the American Symphony Orchestra. It’s an expensive treat. She pays for herself.
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A Mountain of a Man August 21, 2024
Finis Mitchell wanders Wyoming's highest mountains alone. He has climbed 279 peaks, so many summits so often, the U.S. Geological Survey sends him its maps to correct from memory. He has hiked 18-thousand miles. Back in the Great Depression, Finis lost his job in town and was forced to live off this land. He gave something in return. Mitchell packed in 2 and a half million trout, stocking more than 300 lakes. He was one of the few living Americans who has a mountain peak named after him. Finis had climbed nearly all of them.
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Young at Heart SingersAugust 20, 2024
The Young at Heart Singers in North Hampton, Massachusetts, have been entertaining the world for four decades. This is not your typical senior citizen chorus. They give their own take on contemporary songs at the top of the charts. You won’t believe how GOOD they are.
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Hocus PocusAugust 19, 2024
A real life Harry Potter and his friends learn magic in a school millions pass by every day. Like the best magic, it hides in plain sight.
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Light House HomesAugust 18, 2024
Pete Jerowitz likes to rest with his eyes open, so he can see his dream. Can’t beat his view. He’s living in a lighthouse.
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Combat ComicAugust 17, 2024
Bobby Henline is the kind of guy who could make the faces on Mount Rushmore grin. He fought on the front lines in Iraq during Dessert Storm. Went back after 9/11 three more times. Then a roadside bomb blew off his face. He survived. What’s he doing now? Making us laugh.
https://youtu.be/0XmC2hi3JKs
Honeymoon TrailAugust 16, 2024
Memory is too fragile a thread from which to hang history. The old west is different from what we see in the movies. It was America’s forge, and the pioneers who passed through it had spirits of hammered steel. Mormon settlers in northeastern Arizona traveled along a dusty 70-mile wagon trail to reach the St. George Temple in Utah. The trail eventually became known as the "Honeymoon Trail" because so many newlyweds made the passage. 105 years after its opening, I joined a wagon train, where Mormon couples still re-enact the romantic journey of their forebears.
https://youtu.be/5B_Cn7igIpo
WoodstockAugust 15, 2024
My most memorable big crowd gathered in a muddy field called Woodstock, with signs promising “Peace and Love.” That was 55 years ago today. I went “back to the garden,” for an anniversary concert 25 years later. It was still muddy. Rained most of the day, but more than a quarter of a million people partied on. Paramedics were busy fixing broken ankles and arms. 750 people were taken to the hospital. Some concert goers set out islands of straw to keep from sliding away. Others folded up tents and beat feet for home. A few looked to the skies for a face wash. And stuck it out. Re-staging Woodstock was a lot like trying to recapture the moments of a senior prom. Like music, it can't be touched. Only felt.
https://youtu.be/76m_sjl6f3o
A Tugboat with Sails August 14, 2024
There was a time when ships chased and caught the wind for profit, carrying cargo to the world. Like skinny ties, the past is circling back again. In Norfolk harbor, Virginia, there’s a tugboat unlike any other. It’s called a Tugantine. Part tugboat. Part sailboat. It started as a joke. When her captain, Lane Briggs, noticed a 28 percent saving in fuel, the sails stayed on.
https://youtu.be/3QLroWn6ENc
Street RodsAugust 13, 2024
Joe Stacy seldom had a picture taken without his car. He worked all through Highschool pumping gas for no pay. Just free fill ups on Friday nights. Friday nights are still important to him. Joe and his friends cruise in the Restless Ribbon, Oklahoma City’s 39th Street Expressway. The Fonz lives.
https://youtu.be/IpQhs87285c
G.I. WalletsAugust 12, 2024
There was a time when wallets were like mobile phones. They held everything. Some hold a mystery. They were stolen more than 80 years ago. 25 were hidden in old barracks around Camp Roberts, California. Thousands of soldiers have trained here since the wallets disappeared. Staff Sargent Tom Murotake has spent years searching for their owners.
https://youtu.be/p_zuILlJO9E
Reggie Jackson’s DadAugust 11, 2024
Hall of Fame baseball great Reggie Jackson learned the game from a dad who raised three sons by himself. They lived above his tailor shop in suburban Philadelphia. His father did not remarry until he had put each child through college. Martinez Jackson had little money, but he had wealth. He left his sons “a whole wide world to make a living in.”
https://youtu.be/REY62yvdQhU
Paying with PaintingsAugust 10, 2024

Jim Mott, a successful, middle-aged artist, traveled the country trading paintings for hospitality. He managed to safely explore twenty-nine states while traveling fifteen thousand miles. Cost him nothing but gas.
https://youtu.be/ilYlRtaotrw
Money Making InventionsAugust 9, 2024
John Spirk and his best buddy, John Nottingham, have more money making patents than any other living American inventor. Thomas Edison had more, but they were gaining on him. What’s their secret?
https://youtu.be/Hn3hakj3tH0
Dream BigAugust 8, 2024
Bonnie Joe Hunt had a dream. Everyone laughed. She was a Native American after all and Indians didn't do that, so she decided not to talk about it. At age ten she quietly started learning languages. Eight of them. And spent a lot of time alone, practicing. No one is laughing now.
https://youtu.be/INyGxYfRMWQ
Achy Breaky PartsAugust 7, 2024
Sherrill Headrick was one of the greats, a middle linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs in the very first Super Bowl. No ten yards there were tougher than those from his bed to his bathroom. Nine yeas of pro ball left Headrick with roving arthritis. Hands that could trip a pass receiver by the toe, can barely lift a comb. But Headrick still competes in the only game he can. He has become a professional Bridge player, one of the best in the country. The old champ is out there on the playing field, if not in body, in mind.
https://youtu.be/41J5cUhmV_Y
Largest Private LibraryAugust 6, 2024
Lucia Madrid had one of the largest private libraries in the world. In the vast Chihuahuan dessert of west Texas there was no TV, no video games, no movies. Just her trading post. Amid the Coke cans and the candy, she stacked 13 thousand books. Books in her bedroom. In dusty shoe boxes. In milk cartons. Free for all her neighbors.
https://youtu.be/Fvjkj306Xx4
Home is the Town DumpAugust 5, 2024
For 24 years Suzi Valadez crossed the Mexican border to feed and clothe 2-thousand children who lived in a town dump. Their parents pay $10 down to buy a lot. Another $60 to build a home. They then can earn $2.50 a day sorting garbage. They come to the dump looking for a better life.
https://youtu.be/JqoodBtz48E
Birth of the Ice cream ConeAugust 4, 2024
A lot of what we love today —ice cream cones, hamburgers, hot dogs, peanut butter, iced tea, the club sandwich, cotton candy — were all introduced in a single summer in 1904. Americans also got their first glimpse of the Olympic games and the Democrats managed to shoehorn in a National Convention. All three events in one city at the same time. Never happened again.
https://youtu.be/P7Et_Pl-X5s
Nightmare RanchAugust 3, 2024
Jerry Owens surrounds himself with the sounds he likes to hear. Eating. He runs the Black Beauty Ranch, a place with a storybook name built from a nightmare. It is a haven for nearly 5-thousand animals each year. They are rescued from ghettos of neglect. There are burros pulled from the Grand Canyon. Goats from an island used for Navy bombing practice. And horses whose previous owners only fed them when they rode them. Owens is a one man army against cruelty, a Texas constable who figured long ago that people who hurt animals eventually will hurt people.
https://youtu.be/LIYhuGe72VA
The Most Primitive Place on EarthAugust 2, 2024
The Okefenolee Swamp is one of the most primitive places on earth, a swamp so big, you could lose New York City inside. Every 20 years or so, in times of drought, a great purging blaze burns out the vegetation. One lasted for more than a year.
https://youtu.be/YsBeL6COemo
Beehive TelephoneAugust 1, 2024
To find this business, you go west from Salt Lake City, Utah. Turn left and drive for the rest of your life. Along about middle age, you may pass a battered 1951 Ford Installer moving among the tumbleweeds. That is the Beehive telephone company.
https://youtu.be/NE1QHNUxiLA
Europe’s First Soul FoodJuly 31, 2024
Leroy Haynes has led a life that ought to begin, “Once upon a time…” He went to school with Al Capone’s kids. Played in the old Negro baseball league. Was an All American football player at Morehouse College in Atlanta. Made movies with Bridget Bardot. Studied for a Doctorate degree at the Sorbonne in Paris. Quit to sell Soul Food to the French.
https://youtu.be/O0-aJ_M3F-E
Maiden in Shining ArmorJuly 30, 2024
There hasn't been much swordplay in the south since the Yankees left. Few southern women ever fought their way onto an Olympic fencing team, until now. Atlanta's own Nee Lee struggled for 12 years, training with no sponsors and little money. One thought, "I want to be a maiden in shining armor.”
https://youtu.be/YxywJWHlSAY
Olympic MemoryJuly 29, 2024
At the beginning of this century, Rulon Gardner won a gold medal virtually no one else in the world thought he could, beating Aleksandr Karelin, a Russian wrestler so good, opponents had not scored a single point against him in 10 years. Karelin started his amazing run when Gardner was a junior in high school. Back then, Rulon didn’t make the Varsity team. He and a brother wrestled for the final spot. Rulon let him win. His brother was a senior. That would have been his last chance to compete.
https://youtu.be/vasXSeWodzs
Eyewitness to TerrorJuly 28, 2024
When my wife Linda and I returned from our honeymoon, I went to cover my first Olympics. It was in Munich, Germany. 1972. 50 years ago today.
I soon became an eye witness to terror.
A group calling themselves “Black September” abducted the Israeli wrestling team. After a tense standoff, the terrorists flew away from the Olympic village in a helicopter. They demanded a plane to take them out of Germany.
The woman who owned the house where I was living and working spoke English, so I asked her on air: “Where do think the helicopter is going?” I was standing next to Mrs. Auspitz at her kitchen window. We were watching the terrorist's helicopter lift off from the Olympic village, carrying the Israeli athletes into the night.
The world press was saying it was headed to Riem, the international airport near Munich at that time. But Mrs. Auspitz said, “That’s the other way. They’re headed toward a small airport called Fürstenfeldbruck.”
I was reporting on NBC radio from her kitchen window: "Well folks, other reporters may be quoting official sources, saying the terrorists are taking their hostages to the Munich airport where a plane will be waiting, but Mrs. Auspitz lives here." She was right. The helicopter landed at the German Air Base. Later that night, German Chancellor Willy Brandt went on television to announce that the terrorists had been killed in an ambush: The Israeli wrestling team was safe. We went to bed enjoying that storybook ending.
But a few hours later, Mrs. Auspitz woke me and pointed out the window toward the Autobahn, which ran near her house. There was a long line of hearses. Each contained the body of an Israeli Olympic wrestler. They had not been saved. They all died. I left Germany with the conviction that terrorism could touch my life at any time. It did. Twenty-nine years later. I was standing outside a church one block from Ground Zero on that terrible day terrorists crashed planes into the World Trade Center, in New York City.
https://youtu.be/akkgQpu77T4
The OTHER Moscow OlympicsJuly 27, 2024
Efforts to boycott the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow did not go well. No alternative site was picked. In the midst of all this, here came Moscow, Kansas, with what it hoped was the answer. The 250 people in town started passing out bumper stickers. They wanted to keep the games in Moscow, if not Russia, then Kansas. At Moscow International airport, they expected big crowds, if they could find a plane that seats more than one. “We have a man who works at the post office,” said Doug Bell. “He knows all about air mail. And then there’s the guy who cleans the sewer tanks here. He knows all about rapid transit.”
https://youtu.be/p_2-9m3L_Hg?t=9
Olympic Athlete’s wifeJuly 26, 2024
My first job for NBC News was the Munich Olympics in 1972. Before the games began, I was sent out with a silent film camera to shoot minute-30 feature stories. Each one had to be shot — in a few minutes — on a single roll of film. Just 3 minutes of video. No natural sound. No interview.
https://youtu.be/6N3iyIrUNg4
Sweat MotelJuly 25, 2024
David Stauffacher grew up on a small Wisconsin dairy farm. He became the chairman of a $12 million dollar motel chain. His construction crew and most of his stockholders call him “dad.” The children get no allowance and no salary, but they do get a percentage of each motel once it is in operation — a sort of sweat equity.
https://youtu.be/j9Csg4-t-Ss
Sail off on a Summer Dream July 24, 2024
Summer is the season of the possible, when dreams don't seem so far away. The long summer days set a haze over the pace of our daily lives and leave us time to reflect. Come on. Lets set sail.
https://youtu.be/7sDX73TjOx4
Cave BrothersJuly 23, 2024
In the mountains west of Boise, Idaho, clouds are the only shade. The sun's heat can evaporate a 3 gallon can of water in 3 days. Americans survive in some of the harshest places. Survive? They thrive. Some of our finest inventors have their best ideas far from the hardware store. We were passing through these mountains one day when we noticed a microphone in the desert. It's chord led over a hill to a place where Tom Edison would feel right at home.
https://youtu.be/Cg5qo8_Er3s
Professor LonghairJuly 22, 2024
Henry Byrd lived on a side of New Orleans most folks never see, the forgotten side of morning. Byrd never left the city. Never followed his fame. But most modern Rock stars can trace their heritage to his pounding piano style. They call him Professor Longhair.
https://youtu.be/dqW4AlwvHcU
Turtle LadyJuly 21, 2024
At age 74, Illa Loetscher attempted an evolutionary miracle. The Mexican government gave her a very special turtle to see if she could raise it, send it to sea and have it return to her. It did. For 20 years, Illa opened her home to the sick and the wounded. Turtles tossed up on the shore and left to die. Kemp Ridley’s are the most endangered sea turtles in the world. The few that remain lay most of their eggs on Mexican beaches where — for years — those eggs have been stolen and eaten as a love potion. Illa puts on shows to get neighborhood kids to help her find the Ridley’s before the poachers do. She names each turtle after the person who found it. The latest was saved by a father whose child had been to the Turtle Lady’s House.
https://youtu.be/BkstTXXThP4
Old Man on the MountainJuly 20, 2024
Niels Nielsen volunteered to sling from a slender thread of steel half a mile high to repair a Great Stone Face in New Hampshire. His father once worked on the Statue of Liberty. Niel liked to think he carried a torch, too. Folks gathered below to watch and wonder: Is that the face of an old man on the mountain? It is seen from only one direction. Without people, it is merely a pile of rocks. Perhaps that is why the Old Man is so special. Real men struggled to keep him from disappearing. They failed. The Face collapsed on May 3, 2003. You can still see it here.
https://youtu.be/8spdNdm8Xuo
The Old West Built in the BackyardJuly 19, 2024
Alberto Munoz came looking for the Old West and all he found were K-Marts. So, he built the Old West in his back yard. As a child growing up in Spain, Alberto spent his Saturdays in darkened movie houses watching westerns. He fell in love, not with the shootouts and the sheriffs, but with the music. It was the music that brought him to the Montana wilderness. Alberto was a classical pianist. For 20 years, he corresponded from his home in Madrid with a pretty American ballerina. She went to see him perform in Los Angeles. They married 3 days later.
https://youtu.be/rV1CRzBo_Q8
Where a Game is Not a Bottom Line July 18, 2024
Legend is a word we use easily. A team wins thirteen games – legendary. A guy tosses one good season of baseball – he’s a legend. A single Saturday afternoon thrill – legendary. But what of the legends who build quietly, year in and year out, until they touch us all. For sixty summers Jimmy Porter gently coaxed the kids of Carollton, Texas, to play the game he loved.
https://youtu.be/Ea0oDp7Ab2c
Black PioneersJuly 17, 2024
Black history in Oklahoma is unique. Some were cowboys. Some were Indians. And all of them were pioneers. Charles Davis knew them well. Most of them he buried.
https://youtu.be/5sJRHJQL84Y
Tree DocJuly 16, 2024
Dr. Olaf Robero, a plant pathologist, believes a tree’s death is just a passing phase. He has found a microscopic mix that can double a tree’s life.
https://youtu.be/zMoxoM3XN-Q?t=2
Bubble Wrap BoyJuly 15, 2024
Simplicity is the mark of genius. Grayson Rosenberger is changing the world with scissors, Scotch tape and a souped up hair dryer. He’s found a way to make artificial legs look real for less. A lot less. Artificial leg covers can cost a thousand bucks. Grayson’s cost $11. He has invented a lightweight and more lifelike prosthetic leg using bubble wrap.
https://youtu.be/lFaJXwlIURg
Brain MusicJuly 14, 2024
A young man climbed the ladder of success and found it was leaning against the wrong wall. Now he has to chose between two very different careers. A lot of us love the spotlight. Look at the explosion of personal postings on the internet. Everyone trying for their 15 megabytes of fame. Robert Gupta is different. He could be famous, but backed away. Robert was a gifted kid who performed with major orchestras all over the world. He sailed through Suzuki, Julliard and Yale. Got a Masters in music at 19. Music was supposed to be his hobby, so his dad asked Robert to follow another passion — one that could put groceries on the table. Robert began assisting medical researchers at Harvard and two other colleges, studying Parkinson’s disease, the effect of pollution on the brain and how to restore spinal cords. He received his first college degree in Pre-med — at 17. Had his choice of med schools, but decided to join the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He was perfectly happy playing second fiddle.
https://youtu.be/gMfnUAG7M6Q
Veteran’s LegacyJuly 13, 2024
Jeff Steiner is building a sanctuary. He is planting trees on a hundred acres he bought after returning from the Vietnam war. Half a year after high school graduation he was evacuating wounded G.I.'s. A shell exploded in his face. After his discharge, he became an alcoholic. Got divorced. Attempted suicide. Then, he decided to do something positive. Plant one tree for each of the 60-thousand fellow soldiers killed or missing in Vietnam. He had planted 30-thousand, when I met him.
https://youtu.be/nKeU_rKkf98
Navajo PhotographerJuly 12, 2024
Let’s relax with some beautiful scenery, courtesy of a Navajo photographer who shows us what we might miss, even standing next to him. LeRoy DeJolie grew up on a ranch, north of the Grand Canyon. All of his life, he has straddled two worlds. Now he teaches photography to young students and helps them see more deeply.
https://youtu.be/Pq4QqEsi8-E
Kid App TestersJuly 11, 2024
Zade Lobo sings like it’s closing time. The 8-year-old is testing a new computer app. Adults hover over him like a rock star. They want to know how to make this app so simple — even a grownup can understand.
https://youtu.be/uxD55IGaG2g
What She Cannot Live WithoutJuly 10, 2024
Doris Travis’s talent brought her to Broadway twice. The first time she was 14. Doris did something no other 14-year-old had ever done. She danced her way into one of the most popular shows in New York City. It took her more than twenty seven million minutes to get back. She was 93.
https://youtu.be/8K9fV1csciM?t=3
America’s Best ArchitectJuly 9, 2024
Faye Jones was chosen one of the outstanding architects of the last century. He built his crowning achievement — a church — out of 2 by 4’s. The American Institute of Architects ranked his Thorncrown Chapel, deep in the Arkansas woods as the best building constructed since 1980. This web of pine and glass is so functional, so architecturally pure, the building would collapse if any one part were removed. His designs seem to be variations of the spectacular tree houses he built when he was a boy. One of them had a fireplace.
Jones laughed, “That fireplace was its undoing.”
But, build a better tree house, folks will find you and ask for another.
https://youtu.be/w8hQQ0EwzMg
Picture ManJuly 8, 2024
Few people in Cabbagetown know his name. He just showed up one Sunday and has seldom missed a Sunday since. They call him simply the “Picture Man.” He is not the first photographer to come here, but he is the first to give back something of himself. Each week he passes out hundreds of prints of the pictures he has taken. He pays for the prints himself. They are photos of feeling. Orion Catlege is partially blind.
https://youtu.be/K0jxqSByc5w
Georgie ClarkJuly 7, 2024
The first person to ride the rapids through the Grand Canyon was a one arm Civil War veteran named John Wesley Powell. He lashed himself to a 17 foot boat and plunged down the Colorado river in a rocking chair. For nearly a century only a handful of people dared to follow in his path. Then, came Georgie Clark. She opened the Colorado river to us all.
https://youtu.be/xAmmtyXmRls

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