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.
- Tree Doc
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.
- Brain Music
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.
- Where a Game is Not a Bottom Line
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.
- VANISHING SILENCE
No matter how far we go into the wilderness, we can seldom escape the sounds we make. There are few places where planes do not fly or foghorns cannot pierce. Just as city lights keep us from seeing dimmer stars, these noises of every day life drown out the more delicate voices of nature. Gordon Hempton searches for spots to record the earth’s chorus — without us.
- Navajo Photographer
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.
- Kid App Testers
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.
- Angels on My Roof
Rachel Johnson races the garbage men each morning. She makes a living on what they come to throw away.
America survives and thrives because of all those names we don’t know, seemingly ordinary people who do extraordinary things. They don’t run for president or go on talk shows, but without them, the best of America would not exist.
- America’s Best Architect
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.
- Picture Man
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.
- Georgie Clark
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.
- Papa Goose
Ever wonder what happens to birds who are too old to migrate? Gurney Crawford did. He built a place for them to land and singlehandedly diverted the flight path of Canada Geese. How did the geese say “thank you?”