Let us remember a time when Americans lived up to their ideals and those ideals helped save the world. On June 6, 1944 we set out to free Europe. The invasion began just 3 miles from the little port where the Pilgrims left for the new world. The allies too, carried a gift of freedom.
American soldier Sam Fuller returned on the 40th anniversary to find the Frenchman who saved his life during the D-Day landings.
- Long Lost Man Who Saved a Life
Let us remember a time when Americans lived up to their ideals and those ideals helped save the world. On June 6, 1944 we set out to free Europe. The invasion began just 3 miles from the little port where the Pilgrims left for the new world. The allies too, carried a gift of freedom.
American soldier Sam Fuller returned on the 40th anniversary to find the Frenchman who saved his life during the D-Day landings.
- Surprise! I’m Alive.
Patrolman Bill Sample was stationed at the Philadelphia Children’s hospital. His beat took him among children who are very sick. He smiled and they talked, telling him of dreams they would not live. Bill Sample decided to provide some of those dreams. He paved the way for Make a Wish and all the other big time charities that followed. The little girl featured in the first story did not die.
- Sunshine Child
Patrolman Bill Sample was stationed at the Philadelphia Children’s hospital. His beat took him among children who were very sick. He smiled and they talked, telling him of dreams they would not live. Bill Sample decided to provide some of those dreams. He paved the way for Make a Wish and all the other big time charities that followed.
- That Last Howard Johnson’s
his a month of memories. I remember a time when summer was served in 28 flavors. Howard Johnson’s ice cream was every where. When I was a kid, the brand was as well known as Coca Cola. I had my last taste in the state where it began. The last Howard Johnson restaurant was closing in Greenfield, Massachusetts.
- Simpler Sign Language
A 21 year old graduating senior at the University of Virginia has developed a simpler sign language for autistic children and stroke victims, helping some to communicate for the very first time. Micki Cassagne brings life to children crouching in the darkness of their minds.
- Places No One Else Has Photographed
David Tatnall worked as a janitor until he saved enough to go looking for places no one else has photographed. His was not the dry Australia of foreign imagination. Tatnall hiked the high mountain forest east of Melbourne where the rain melts the landscape into a vivid softness.
- Surviving the Great Depression
It is an accident of history that old stories are recalled in black and white. Familiar, faded images. Always the same. They never tell it all. During the Great Depression of the 1930’s, farmers from half a continent funneled into California looking for work. Leo Hart helped their children find a way out of poverty. He taught arithmetic in an air plane. Children with the highest marks got to taxi it around. Those kids ended up owning mining companies and supermarkets. They became college professors, engineers and judges. Their teacher emphasized what they could become, not what they were.
- Saying NO to Money
West Texas has one of the most sparsely populated counties in the country, 647 square miles of nothing but sagebrush, rattlesnakes and sand. It has one town. Only 110 people live there. So few, the mayor bought something unusual to let them sleep late.
- A Lobbyist for Wildflower
Carroll Abbott was the only registered lobbyist in Texas — for wild flowers. I loved his motto: “A weed is just a flower in a place you don’t want it.”
- Fighting Grossman’s
I overheard this exchange in Walmart between two older men, one a customer and the other a greeter offering him assistance: “Can I help you?” “Sorry,” said the customer, pulling out a cart. “I don’t hear so well.” He pointed at his ear. “I flew combat during the war.” “I served, too,” said the greeter. Carl Grossman, an affable little guy, played his trump card in this game of “Me, too.” He leaned in, touching the customer’s arm. “Eight of us brothers were in uniform during World War II.”
- People’s Bridge
San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge was so loved when it opened in 1937 that a lot of people scribbled their names and addresses on its towers. A friend bet 14-year old Bill Hughes a quarter that Bill couldn’t write a letter to a name and address chosen at random and get a reply. The friend closed his eyes and put his finger on a name: Patricia Lucas. Bill wrote the letter.
