The Evolution of the American Story

by bob.dotson | May 24, 2023 | Evolution of the American Story

Bob Dotson spent four decades as a reporter at NBC. For most of that time, he hosted a segment on The Today Show called The American Story, which created intimate portraits of Americans who wouldn’t normally make the news. In this live episode of StoryTech, Bob Dotson talks about changes in technology, from wireless microphones to home video to iPhones, changed the way he told The American Story. You can listen to StoryTech for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and Amazon Music or PBS. Click on this link

https://www.waer.org/podcast/storytech/2023-05-09/the-evolution-of-the-american-story

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“You must have won,” I grinned, “if you became friends?”
“No,” he said, “I lost. But I learned something about Mr. Truman that made me admire the man. He opened a hat shop in Kansas City after he came home from the front lines of World War One. The business failed. His partner declared bankruptcy. Truman did not. He moved in with his mother-in-law, so he could pay back every penny.”
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After president Eisenhower was inaugurated, Harry and Bess bought one. There was no Secret Service following them.
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“Hi, Harry,” he waved.
Mr. Truman shaded his eyes and smiled when he recognized his friend. "Hi, Paul.”
Grandpa grinned and then said, “Okay, Bobby. Let’s get out of here before this Democrat stuff sticks to the tires…”
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https://youtu.be/ZJZ8npJvEw0
Forest FolksOctober 27, 2024
The Hoh rain forest. A cathedral of trees. It lies between Seattle and the sea. No place in the continental U.S. gets more rain. 2 feet some months. Marilyn Lewis and her daughter lived alone in this wilderness. They are the 4th generation of women out here.
https://youtu.be/ezIQIpyx-jc
Wetsuit CEOOctober 26, 2024
A new way to bond with your boss. Forget golf. Go surfing. Out in San Diego, opportunity comes in waves. More than 300 biomedical companies now have people in that surf around San Diego. The best ideas don’t always come in labs under artificial light. Out here they can meet the kind of people who are determined not to follow the same path, but leave a wake.
SURF’S UP.
https://youtu.be/Z8zc9DX8arg
Town Denial (Susan Smith Murders)October 25, 2024
Susan Smith murdered her two little boys. Strapped them into their car seats. Stepped out and pushed them into a lake. She told police she was carjacked. A black man drove away with her sons still inside. For nine days, Smith made dramatic pleas on national television for their safe return. After an intensive investigation and nationwide search, she finally confessed to drowning her two sons. Was sentenced to life in prison without a chance of parole until she was past childbearing age. I covered that sad saga for 9 months.
https://youtu.be/SON1WhKL1yE
Everglades PhotographerOctober 25, 2024
Clyde Butcher lives in a wide river of grass. He is determined to save its beauty. One photograph at a time. Butcher is as comfortable in this swamp as any man easing into a bath. He spends his days deep in the Big Cyprus National Preserve searching for what others have not seen. Sometimes the place never seen is the place we simply pass by.
https://youtu.be/LIvRRoDWh6E
The Last Unmapped PlaceOctober 24, 2024
Dave Williams has a job that would frustrate Daniel Boone. He must find 55 surveyor's benchmarks in a forest bigger than Connecticut. They are the size of a silver dollar.
https://youtu.be/sJgEAV6Byuo
Homemade JamzOctober 23, 2024
Elvis Presley grew up listening to old blues players and used their sound to revolutionize music. Now it may be happening again in Tupelo, Mississippi. It’s not the King that got kids hopping like crickets on hot corn. It’s a 16 year old, who sings like he’s had seven wives.
https://youtu.be/XTrCyk5MAwg
Monks of Waelder, Texas. (Cowboy Monks)October 22, 2024
Everything the monks of Waelder, Texas, touch makes a lot of money. A LOT of money. So much for that vow of poverty.
https://youtu.be/lyME3Rnhv-s
Robo LegsOctober 21, 2024
We all remember what happened when two lights blinked bright in Boston’s old North Church. Paul Revere rode away and the American Revolution began, but 25 years before that fateful night, John Childs jumped from the same belfry three times, holding a big umbrella with wings, thus surviving one of the world’s first parachute jumps.
Nearly three centuries later, Army Ranger Monty Reed wasn’t so fortunate. He broke his back when a parachute failed to open. After decades of rehabilitation, he made an amazing recovery and then created something for those who cannot walk.
https://youtu.be/tHUECG3O10g
Put Me In CoachOctober 20, 2024
Lance Hershberger coached high school baseball in Fort Wayne, Indiana. In his spare time, he looked for little kids who’s abilities do not measure up to their love of the game. One year Lance watched four baseball teams tie for the Fort Wayne high school championship. Nearly every player was one he had coached.
https://youtu.be/CFsqru7chHI
Who Created Baseball? October 19, 2024
See this guy. Abner Doubleday. Say his name. What comes to mind? Inventor of baseball. Right? Every year, nearly 300,000 people pass through the Baseball Hall of Fame in upstate New York, built to honor this Civil War Hero. Thank Al Spalding for that. He manufactured Sporting equipment and saw dollars draining away when an English employee, Henry Chadwick, pointed out that baseball came from Great Britain. Kids there called it Rounders. Spalding argued the game was one hundred percent American. Chadwick explained that Rounders is played with a bat and ball, a pitcher and a batter who runs counter clockwise around the bases. Case closed. Not quite.
https://youtu.be/q5iStY9JXFE
Cops n’ ConsOctober 18, 2024
Time to play a football classic. No, not the Cotton Bowl. One you may not have seen. In 1977, a few Tulsa police officers saw a Burt Reynold’s movie called "The Longest Yard," in which a jailed football player organizes a prison team to play a team of guards.
The officers were inspired to stage their own game between police and convicts. The result is Tulsa's annual Cops-Cons Football Game to benefit Mothers Against Drunk Drivers.
Officer Ron Mayfield, a running back, said the game can have its tense moments. “We meet a lot of guys that we personally have put in jail. It makes for an interesting game, but at the end it's like old friends” who have learned to laugh together. I was the play by play announcer back then. The memory still makes me smile.
The Cons have two big advantages: Time to practice together - two hours a day, five nights a week - and a high percentage of returning starters. Unless a player is paroled or gets into trouble, he has a lifetime contract.
https://youtu.be/lcoft1xtV68
Surviving an EarthquakeOctober 17, 2024
Betty Kelly still cannot cross a bridge without flinching. Even now. 33 years later. On this day in 1989, Betty and her husband were driving high over San Francisco Bay, just as an Earthquake struck. A section of the Bay Bridge dropped like a deadly trapped door. The Kelly's honked their horn to warn others. But Anna Annalonghu died. Everything Adeen Murphy owned was 4 flights up a twisted staircase. Adeen had lived through a thousand air raids in World War Two London, so she crossed police barrier and found something she had bought only a week before --- $2-thousand dollars worth of Wedgewood China.
Ballet Dancer October 16, 2024
Elliot Feld would hide his dance slippers in a brief case, so his neighbors would think he had an ordinary job. He would become one of America’s finest ballet choreographers, but ballet is still out of the question for most of the kids in his old Brooklyn neighborhood. Too expensive. He did not recruit from the specialized schools for the performing arts. He traveled to the public classrooms to look for ordinary 8 year olds with potential.
https://youtu.be/zPGCM4QI8eE
The Last Train RobberOctober 15, 2024
I found Joe Newton on a dark night out on a dirt road, down wind from the raccoons, behind the bloodhounds. Newton was one of the most successful and least known train robbers in American history. Least known and now the last.
https://youtu.be/HHbvmciO0Qc
Nickname Telephone bookOctober 14, 2024
If you go looking for folks in Cajun country, it helps to have a nickname handy. In Beaux Bridge, Louisiana, the phone book lists people by the names they are actually known. Nicknames. Too many residents have the same last names. There are 78 Broussard's. 45 Tibedeaux's. And 46 different Champagne's. 2 of them have the same first name. Nicknames here are a necessity.
https://youtu.be/PRDhp9KBn_Y
How the Jukebox Got its NameOctober 13, 2024
Rock n Roll was born behind the glass windows of a jukebox. An evening's pleasure for a pocket full of change. Eventually, Rock ’n Roll got its name on one of those glass boxes. Or so we thought, until we met the man behind that famous signature. Rock-ola is David Rockola. He’d been serving up hits for half a century. At 90, he was still making jukeboxes.
https://youtu.be/hftkXwEGB9M
Hermit EngineerOctober 12, 2024
At 34 Paul Lutus wanted to get a way from it all, while taking it all with him. He built a cabin in the wilderness with no running water, no telephone — just a cat for company. A cat and a computer. Lutus wanted to see if he could work as well in the woods as he did in the city. He worked better. The computer programmer was a consultant for NASA before he went into the wilderness. He helped get the Viking Space probe to Mars. In his tiny shack, miles from the nearest road, Lutus created a new lighting system that is now part of the space shuttle.
https://youtu.be/e7iFA_TKyeQ
Dips into His Own SoulOctober 11, 2024
Lynn Ash was a successful art. He painted memories from America's past. One day, the canvas of his mind went blank. For more than a decade, he did not paint at all, until he sold his home in Tampa, built a cabin in a swamp and designed a sanctuary for injured animals. The wildlife he nurtured unlocked his imagination. Every artist dips into his own soul and paints his own nature.
https://youtu.be/z8dRm-sF3yw
Where the Past is Not Past October 10, 2024
Some folks think New York City has too many stories and too many strangers. In fact, it is a town of tight little neighborhoods where the familiar is cherished. Since 1910 the Broadway Barbershop had been a wonderful window on the neighbors of New York City. Kay Demetrios did not miss a day of work in 40 years. He'd never been on time. He was always an hour and a half early. Customers loved him so much, one walked 60 blocks every morning for a shave.
https://youtu.be/zg8WgZti94M
Fisher PoetOctober 9, 2024
Dave Densmore fishes for words – upon a sea that took his family. That memory is written on his face. For twenty years he tried to write a poem about his family’s tragedy. Dave sought words like he searched for salmon.
https://youtu.be/TLO3jMNxYCU
Still Doctoring Babies at 98October 8, 2024
Dr. Leila Denmark opened her medical practice in 1928. She was Atlanta’s first female pediatrician and was STILL healing children until her retirement at 104. That retirement lasted a decade. She lived to be 114, the oldest doctor in the world.
https://youtu.be/YOVe_U58fA4
A Hat that Starts FightsOctober 7, 2024
Manny Gammage creates hats that would “start a fight in a Wyoming bar.” His motto: “Quality is like buying oats. If you want good, clean oats, you’ve got to pay a fair price. If you want ones that have already run through the horse, that’s a little cheaper.” One of his hats changed Billy Bob Oafley’s life.
https://youtu.be/3B7uj6zUpZI
Fans Tip for Good HittingOctober 5, 2024
At the Dudley Dome in El Paso, fans used to tip Diablos baseball players for good hitting. A guy could make $160 bucks by leaning into the stands for a hug. The 1980 Double-A farm team of the California Angels was in last place, but it attracted more playing customers than any other team in the history of the minor leagues.
https://youtu.be/jq_S92fryzI
Oldest Family BusinessOctober 4, 2024
Avidis Zildjian lured good workers to his company in suburban Boston with a simple promise. “You take care of my family and I’ll take care of yours.” That pledge has remained unbroken for more than eighty years.
When was the last time you heard a factory worker say, “I’ve been here 26 years and I’ve never seen a layoff.”
The 70 workers on Zildjian’s production line are confident they will always have good-paying jobs, because no one has to compete with a machine. Whenever a task was automated, the employee who performed it is trained for another one worth equivalent pay.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5NfXt88m2o
Sargent’s CommonOctober 4, 2024
Ausbon Sargent grew up in a time when only one American in 10 got to go to high school. Like most farm boys, Ausbon never had much money, but neighbors saw something special in him. Paid his tuition to a private academy. He spent his life there, as a care taker. The school fell on hard times. Was about to sell off the town common. Ausbon quietly bought it and gave it back. He was 96.
https://youtu.be/mLmCKd3GYc0
The Storyteller’s StoryOctober 3, 2024
I have now lived more than three quarters of a century. 77 is one of those “0h Sh*t, I can’t believe I’m that old” birthdays. Filled with memories. I have a lot, as all of you who read my posts, can attest. NBC News once hired a red headed kid with a different approach to stories. While most correspondents focused on life’s flat tires, I started looking for something far more difficult to find – what kept the other tires rolling. This was no solitary pursuit. A little band of storytellers traveled with me. We worked the neglected streets of our cities, the small towns and dirt roads, searching for folks you should meet. In the days before cell phones and satellite radios, we sometimes linked our caravan of cars with a wireless microphone and speakers so I could read “nap time” stories to the crew. Fortunately, no one fell asleep as we bounced down all those back roads. Shunning superhighways, chain restaurants, and crowds of reporters, we chatted with the locals and listened carefully to people who are practically invisible, the ones who change our lives but don’t take time to tweet and tell us about it.
https://youtu.be/IYI7JLip6RQ
Happy TrailsOctober 2, 2024
Bernice Ende traveled her own path. Over 30,000 miles in the saddle. The retired ballet teacher criss crossed the country for 16 years at 3 miles an hour. No cell phone. Alone. She encouraged women to be who they wanted to be, to listen to their own voice. Bernice died on this date three years ago a month shy of her 67th birthday. This is what she wrote shortly before her passing.
“Time is not ticking away – your life is ticking away. It’s important to know where you are going and why you are headed in that direction. But most importantly does what you are doing bring you a sense of purpose? These questions rise to the top if we are seeking a fully-fledged life. Three miles an hour is plenty fast as far as I am concerned. If you can, slow down, enjoy this time as a gift. Make this a time to discover, learn and know something new about yourself. If taking a fence apart is necessary to move forward – do it. But always respectfully put it back together. Don’t let fences, road blocks or any obstacles keep you from moving forward, find opportunity, not problems in these challenging time. If you make life a race remember what the finish line holds.”
https://www.today.com/video/happy-trails-woman-travels-country-on-horseback-44515395814
Back Yard DreamsOctober 1, 2024
Welcome to Higley Field, an old time ball park painstakingly recreated in Ed Simonton's backyard. Neighbors gather to play the game of their youth. No. Not baseball. Wiffle ball. There are no umpires to bubble the blood. Catchers call balls and strikes and the majority determines who is safe or out. Higley Field is an attempt to catch what they don't bottle these days. Here, folks can become legends in their spare time.
https://youtu.be/RC8BW6pl-As
Smartest Football Team EVERSeptember 26, 2024
Down in the trenches of big time football, you don’t expect to find a brain trust. During the 1970's and 80's Nebraska had more academic all Americans than Stanford or Notre Dame or UCLA. The reason? Football players point to Ursala Walsh, who gave up life as a nun to teach the Cornhuskers how to study. How does a Dominican nun with 20 years experience become a football coach? She began back in the segregation days, checking out library books for black children. They were not allowed. She earned 3 masters degree and came to Nebraska looking for a PhD and a new way of life.
https://youtu.be/2FMPxxPvZPM
El Capitan’s Courageous Climbers UpdateSeptember 25, 2024
An update 2 decades after El Capitan’s Courageous Climbers scaled the world’s tallest peak. One of them did it with a broken back. That inspired President Bush to sign the Americans with Disabilities Act.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1CZsfr8jqA&feature=share
Roller DerbySeptember 24, 2024
A lot of us lead one life, but dream of another. By day, Jennifer Wilson is a scientist in Austin, Texas, studying water quality. At night, she becomes a meanie.
Her comic book alter ego tries to squash players like bugs. Jennifer is part of the fastest growing sport in America. All-girl roller derby leagues are sprouting up in cities big and small. 42 in just 5 years.
At the rink they get the chance to be something entirely different than they are in their daily lives. All of us wonder from time to time how the world would see us if we presented a different face. Roller derby women play not just for the love of the game, but for what it lets them become.
https://youtu.be/SS3__e6srOY?t=2
I Wouldn’t Choose Sight September 23, 2024
Native American sculptor Michael Naranjo lost his sight during the Vietnam war. He created a 17 foot sculpture by touch.
https://youtu.be/C96-3-WKJQo
Old School FootballSeptember 22, 2024
When Stan Smagala was born, some football teams still wore leather helmets. At 43 he finally made the team. At the time, he became the oldest college football player in the country. To be able to play, Stan set aside his successful insurance business and became a full time student at Moraine Valley Community. The campus malt shop had changed a bit in 23 years, but not Stan. He was convinced he could still play football. He practiced with his son until he could run 40 yards in 4.6 seconds. Stan made the team, but he broke his ribs, jammed two fingers and sprained his ankle. Football isn't his only passion. He likes to stay up until 4 in the morning, playing base in a band. Stan showed up for this first game four hours later.
https://youtu.be/6kebL_tNZSc
Real Horse Power September 21, 2024
Some farmers have been searching for a tractor that doesn’t need oil, a power source that could reproduce itself, was easy to repair and burn home grown fuel. Jim Gulbranson has a tractor that does all that and even fertilizes the soil. It’s called the horse. Gulbranson is part of a small, but growing number of farmers who quietly traded their tractors for plow horses. Nostalgia has nothing to do with it. Gulbranson can make more money farming with horses than he can with tractors. It takes him longer to do his work, but doesn’t have to pay the interest on a half million dollars worth of farm machinery or the mortgage for more land to make that machinery worthwhile. He has found that he can live as comfortably as his neighbor on a farm that is one sixth the size.
https://youtu.be/0qrawO0Nipo
Cotton Eye Joe meets Grand OperaSeptember 20, 2024
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.
https://youtu.be/4z6-JTKBBGk
Six Pack PoloSeptember 19, 2024
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.
https://youtu.be/kdXPKgux0Zw
Last Mail Boat September 18, 2024
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.
https://youtu.be/hTf0BeT-HpE
Time not Sliced Too Thin for ThoughtSeptember 17, 2024
Daufuskie Island, South Carolina, is a little piece of sand and trees near Savannah, Georgia. A thousand people once lived there, until the oyster beds died and the forest grew back. By the 1980’s there were only 85. There were no paved roads. No street lights. No bridges to the outside world. The island was so remote, the mind can be your best friend. Only the very old and very young lived there. Teenagers moved to the mainland to finish there education. The island’s elementary school had 11 kids. They put together a magazine of their thoughts. Not so unusual really, except the publisher, Shannon Wilkinson, who was working on a grant from the South Carolina Arts Commission, printed 800 copies by mistake. All 800 were sold by word of mouth, nationwide, in less than ten weeks.
https://youtu.be/qDcYaVcKRjk
TV Wrestling Class 101September 16, 2024
There was a time when television wrestling shows in Memphis, Tennessee, pulled in more viewers than 60 Minutes. They were in TV’s Top Ten. That called for some study. College students in Blytheville, Arkansas, did just that.
https://youtu.be/YoR1wYw6zjs
Youngest TycoonSeptember 15, 2024
The youngest members of the Hunt, Texas, Chamber of Commerce run a $20,000 a year business. Their corporate limo is a school bus.
https://youtu.be/Cyv4vZtxdkk
Stream SaverSeptember 14, 2024
Out where the mountains spill their boulders in the sun, flies sing out on nylon wire and catch a bit of heaven. Rich McIntyre is one of those blessed folks who gets to play where he works. He and his wife Sandy started a company to restore damaged trout streams. His small staff of scientists and engineers don't just restock streams. They rebuild them, so that native fish will return naturally to Montana.
https://youtu.be/AjCYupk1XzI
Mobile DoctorSeptember 13, 2024
We’ve got better medicine these days, but perhaps something has been lost along the way. There’s a doctor who’s trying to bring back that personal touch. Dr. Jim Anderson drives the office to his patients. “I get less for a house call than an Airconditioning repairman,” he smiles. He does his own repairs on the mobile clinic to keep patient costs low.
https://youtu.be/F-bo7D59-2A
Lawyer SawyerSeptember 12, 2024
Josh Powell was born in Kentucky hill country and raised on a farm. He worked his way through law school in Atlanta, landed a job with one of the city’s best known law firms and then gave it all up to run a one-man sawmill.
https://youtu.be/a5UHwzBVQ88
Saving Soles and Souls September 11, 2024
Most people only witnessed the tragic events of 9/11. It was my fate to live it. I moved to New York City at the beginning of the century to work full time for the TODAY Show. A year later, I was standing outside a little chapel that survived the hell that leveled skyscrapers of concrete and steel.
Terrorists had crashed planes into the World Trade Center. A dozen modern buildings toppled all around, but St. Paul’s — pieced together with brick and timber — stood without so much as a broken window.
The Rev. Daniel Matthews, rector of the parish of Trinity Church, walked with me through the church’s graveyard, which was covered in ash. The dust of the dead had settled in the chapel cemetery.
Matthews stopped to dust off a headstone. “You know what everyone in the neighborhood is calling St. Paul’s, don’t you? The Little Chapel That Stood.” He looked up and smiled.
“The most astounding thing for me was not the soot and the dust, but the paper,” he continued. “There must have been 10 million pieces. Everybody’s desk wound up flying out the window.”
https://youtu.be/YMKAm7nAKx8
“When My Kids Smile, the Terrorists Lose” September 10, 2024
The Alonso’s lost their mother during the 9/11 attack in 2001. Janet went to work at the World Trade Center that morning and never returned. Her husband, Robert, was left to care for a 2-year-old daughter and a baby boy with Down syndrome.
Five years later, the Alonso’s spent that 9/11 anniversary in the park, near a memorial that their neighbors built to Janet and all the other parents from their New York City suburb who went to work that day but never came home.
Robby wandered to a wall filled with names as his father and sister played catch nearby. “Right here,” he said, pointing to Janet Alonso’s name etched in marble.
“This was my mommy.”
The little boy leaned over and scraped his fingers back and forth across his mother’s name. His father watched, then rubbed his own hands together, as if he could scour away painful thoughts.
Robby drew his fingers to his mouth, kissed them and gently pressed them on his mother’s name. “Mama,” he whispered.
We all think about 9/11 once a year. The Alonsos live it every day.
https://youtu.be/U_0Lhn_DJsM?t=2

The Evolution of the American Story

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