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.
- “I Will Find You.”
Bill Eisenhuth watched his psychiatric patients come and go. He decided to follow them into the streets. His office became the steam vents and alleys where his patients lived.
- Wannabe Movie Pirate
To all of us who grew up watching pirate movies, this place is kind of special. Blackbeard had a home just off of Main Street. There were more parrots and eye patches on these wharves than on the movie backlot. In 1981 they came back. Russ Morphew ran the only school for pirates this side of Hollywood.
- Teen is her mom’s boss
Jasmine Lawrence is living every kid’s dream. She gets to boss her mom. April Lawrence works for her 16 year old daughter. How’s that working out? It began with a bad hair day. The chemicals Jazzman used to relax her curls left her practically bald. She decided to create her own recipe — at age 11. Thirteen when she went off to summer camp to learn how to start a business. Eden Body Works was born with a $2-thousand dollar advance on her allowance.
At an age when most kids are lucky to get a summer job stacking shelves, Jazzman has 30 products in stores. She signed a distribution agreement with Walmart. Plans to take her brand world wide. Projected profits: one million dollars. Not bad for a kid in Williamstown, New Jersey.
- Carrying Home in his Heart
For 93 years Beltran Paris has carried his home in his heart. He is the last of the old time mountain men who came from from France and Spain to take a job few people wanted. You can find him behind a moving white blanket of sheep. He still walks them 150 miles to winter pasture. In all those hours alone, Beltran Paris set a plan. He took his pay in sheep. One day, he hoped his children and his children’s children would own the valley where he walked. They do — Butte Valley, Nevada.
- Keeping Kids Out of Prison
Detective Dick Dutrow has had to arrest children as young as 11. He worries less about catching them than keeping them out of prison. When all else fails, he will raise a troubled boy himself. He took in 35 foster children in the 15 years. Most went to college. Married and now have children of their own. None went to prison.
- Longest School Trip
If you could take Alaska and lay it over the lower 48 states, one side would touch Florida, the other California. It’s distances are so vast, travel budgets for high school sports teams can run 100-thousand dollars a year. Arch rivals often live a thousand miles away. Any high school kid who wants to perform or play music must first — learn how to pack.
- American Families We Used to Hear About
Under a cotton puff sky, I met the kind of family America used to know. Wading through the wheat fields came Roger and David and their nephew Jay. Their dads work on the oil rigs. So do four older brothers — 10 hours a day, 7 days a week. They live in a home their parents bought two decades ago for $140., a home their parents rebuilt in the quiet of their evenings.
- Rescuing the Rescuers
The wind can sound like Hell’s idea of music in the north Atlantic. Blizzards blow in biblical proportions; one of them taught Lanier Phillips a great lesson. Caring can come from unexpected places.
- Soul Circuit Rodeo
June 19th. This was the date great, great, grand daddies used to mark the calendar of their lives. In 1865 folks gathered to hear a general who came to tell Texas what the rest of the world already knew. Black Americans were now free. They called it Juneteeth, the day that changed the world. Black Texans had already turned their world upside down.
- Texas Spiny Lizard
The Texas Spiny Lizard is the most elusive animal on earth. It can only be caught with a blow gun and pitted pimento olives.
- In a Beefcake World, He was a Patty Melt
In a beefcake world, LaGrand Nielsen was a patty melt, putting on the pounds. So, at 96, he started eating right. At 97, he entered the Panhellenic Games in Greece. Won races in China, South Africa, Finland, Australia and Rome. How’d he do it?
“All my competitors are dead.”
