He Was Our Santa
Pepe Gallego never learned how to read or write. He worried that might cost him his job at a sawmill, but owner, Bill Gregory, set up a small classroom to teach him.
“My whole life was get up, go to work, come home, lay down, watch TV and sleep,” he said. “Twenty three years just slipped away.”
It was all the more frustrating because it was a web of his own weaving.
Bill Gregory changed Pepe’s life.
“He was my Santa Claus,” Pepe said, “a Santa offering dreams.”
Charles Banks Wilson
For years artist Charles Banks Wilson crisscrossed the West stopping in small town pool halls and churches seeking faces that make each Indian tribe unique. Native Americans can look as different from one another as a Turk from a Swede, but that is changing.
Santa Creek
Dee Newberry teaches kids in a two room school house in a vast wilderness. A billion ounces of silver were pulled from a nearby valley. Discovered after Noah Kellogg tossed one of those silver rocks at a mule that ran away. The town that bear his name once put up a sign that said, “Discovered by a jackass. Inhabited by his descendants.”
“These are remarkable and poignant stories that need to be told.”
-
KEN BURNS
“Those of us who know and work with Bob Dotson stand in awe of his gifts as a writer. Like the work so many viewers have come to love on NBC, this collection of stories captivates and inspires.”
- SAVANNAH GUTHRIE
“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
Schedule an Event
bob@myamericanstories.com
Contact Agent
Contact Bob
bob@myamerianstories.com
