Cotton Eye Joe meets Grand Opera
For some folks, Saturday night in Dallas means Willie and Waylon and the Cotton Eyed Joe. Don Jackson wants to change all that. Each year, when the New York Metropolitan Opera comes to town, Jackson sweeps through the city, convincing dozens of cowboys to become moving scenery, opera extras, so that a chorus of ten will look like a cast of thousands.
Six Pack Polo
Polo is the sport of playboys and kings. And — a man who spreads asphalt. Glen Waterson is captain of an usual blue collar polo team. His players include a construction worker, a school teacher, a black smith and a 12-year-old rookie. They have penetrated the preserve of privilege and wealth, competing on a field that Waterson keeps in shape with a borrowed front loader. This is probably as good a definition of Democracy as any. After the games, the blue bloods and the good ol’ boys are the same.
Last Mail Boat
Jamie James was the only postman in the country who still delivered the mail, house to house, by boat. Six days a week, Jamie churned the remote coastal creeks of southern Alabama. He made his 25 mile run in a boat not much bigger than a bathtub. Low hanging branches near shore kept him from using a more comfortable conveyance. His neighbors, the 175 families who depended on him, say he came when others did not, conveying the news as well as the mail.
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KEN BURNS
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“Throughout his remarkable career Bob Dotson has searched for the real essence of America – not by interviewing the so-called famous but by seeking out those unnoticed people we pass by every day. Dotson is a national treasure for caring enough to listen.”
- MEREDITH VIERA
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