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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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
Missing Mom on 9/11September 9, 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. Robert was left to care for a 2-year-old daughter and a baby boy with Down syndrome.
“If I was to tell you I did this by myself, I’d be a liar; I’d be a flat-out liar,” Robert said. “I got my mom, my aunt, my pop to help.”
But he never returned to work at the pizza place he owned in Stony Point, New York. His family substituted for him. “I owe it to my children to be around,” Robert explained. “If I buried my grief in work, my kids would lose both their parents.”
https://youtu.be/Fm679Gt0d-g
9/11 Story that Inspired “Come from Away”September 8, 2024
Americans open their hearts and wallets all the time, but rarely do we hear about what the world gives to us and that seems just as important. On the eve of 9/11 there were some villages in Newfoundland, Canada, where unemployment hovered as high as fifty percent, but that remote island in the North Atlantic—Canada’s poorest province—set a mark for charity, worthy of the history books. I was one of the first to tell their story, traveling to Newfoundland as winter set in. Later, it became a hit Broadway musical.
LET’S MEET THE REAL PEOPLE WHO HELPED US IN THAT DARK HOUR.
https://youtu.be/5tPY3RdIaWM
Grease CarSeptember 7, 2024
A little band of inventors are refitting cars to run on left over grease from French fries. Next time you stop for fast food, you can fill up. Twice.
https://youtu.be/p3kB424Vt5c?t=3
Choices in the Autumn of LifeSeptember 6, 2024
The autumn of life brings choices. Decisions. Emil Kech was 73. Age was beginning to nag him like a bad cold. An arthritic ankle threatened to lock Keck out of the forest he loves. Emil and his wife Penny were the only workers in the U.S. Forest Service who lived full time in the wilderness.
https://youtu.be/udvYyAxQ9zs
Portraits on TinSeptember 5, 2024
John Coffer turned his back on modern times to wander America in a wagon pulled by oxen, stopping only to take portraits with his antique camera. Coffer traveled at two and a half miles an hour for five years. 25 states. 10-thousand miles. He crisscrossed America so slowly, everywhere he went, folks joked he was a temporary resident. Coffer captured old fashioned images of modern America.
https://youtu.be/6jtiBtm8nGE
The Hugh Heffer of Cow PhotographersSeptember 4, 2024
A cow today produces three times as much milk as those that came with Christopher Columbus. The most productive sell for more than a million dollars. For that kind of money, buyers want a cow to look as expensive as it is. That's why they call on Maggie Murphy. She poses cows to fit the cow buyers fantasies.
https://youtu.be/CTvihCi6ZKU
Wrong Brothers AviationSeptember 3, 2024
Tim and Wesley Friesen think the Wright Brothers intended to open the skies to everyone, not just professional pilots. They have formed a company called Wrong Brothers Aviation to prove their point. They teach non-pilots how to fly by themselves. The motorized hang gliders they use are so simple, they do not require a pilots license. One big drawback. A student's first flight is solo.
https://youtu.be/ycF54LPVIlI
Road to NowhereSeptember 2, 2024
You ever wonder why cowboys seldom sing songs about a bus? Buses fill the lonesome spaces the stage coach left behind. Yet, there are no tales of Bus drivers derring-do. No teary eyed nostalgia. Bus drivers may not have settled the west, but they sure move it around.
https://youtu.be/yrXMwnaME2k
Mark Mothersbaugh- A Musician for All AgesSeptember 1, 2024
Here’s something rare. A Rock star whose music also makes kids giggle.
https://youtu.be/buaABb5_vvM
Millionaire MonksAugust 31, 2024
Father Bernard McCoy found printer cartridges “sinfully expensive.” So he convinced his fellow monks at Our Lady of Spring Bank Abbey to form a company called Laser Monks, vowing to ship all sorts of products for less. The monks became millionaires. It didn’t last.
https://youtu.be/MawMc5nlKZk?t=3
Urban PioneersAugust 30, 2024
Who does not yearn to live life more simply? To find a place where time is not sliced too thin for thought. Daniel Stalb and his wife Kristen decided to try. They managed to live a comfortable life by doing what seemed to he impossible, living off the land in the middle of the city. They plowed up their lawn. Planted a big garden and set out to feed their family of four on what they produce in their backyard.
https://youtu.be/mPevF6lf4hs
Beyond SightAugust 29, 2024
Pete Eckert began to see the day he went blind. Photography may be the least likely career for a man who has no sight, but Eckert believes you don’t have to see — to have a vision of what life can be. “I found that my other senses brought enough information to my mind’s eye to establish some kind of link to the outside world, a visual link,” Eckert says. He takes pictures in familiar places. Places he’d been before going blind. A braille compass helps him find the light. Eckert memorizes the room, making mental notes of where sounds bounce off corners. When he hears something, he automatically translates that into a visual image. Blindness rewired his brain to feel the sounds that bounce off bones. Sort of like an X-ray. What he “sees” is stunning.
https://youtu.be/V3YeqFY_KhY
Any U.S. College for FreeAugust 28, 2024
/A small town is booming after years of decline, all because of a promise made and kept. Most of us have people who set the pace for our lives. Claiborne Deming leads with hope. He has given the kids in Eldorado, Arkansas, a promise. Anyone who goes to high school for four years, can attend any college in the country on his company's dime.
https://youtu.be/vDS3Y1p_5_8
Freebytes ComputersAugust 27, 2024
Charlie Shoefield and his friends wondered what happened to all those old computers littered along the information highway. Left to gather dust when companies upgraded their systems. They set out to find them. Fix them up and give them to charity. The kids sold some of their old computers to pay the rent on their repair shop. Started scrounging tools from neighborhood businesses. And then went out looking for more obsolete computers. Charlie persuaded 27 companies in Atlanta to give him 150 computers. He and his pals were just 15. They gave back something rare. Something most adults cannot do. “Some can,” admits Charlie, “but they’ll charge $150 an hour to do it.” That’s too expensive for the 34 charities that lined up for Charlie’s services, so many he formed a non-profit company called “Freebytes.” All together, the kids had worked a thousand hours — for free.
https://youtu.be/4D8er0a5WRw
PuppetsAugust 26, 2024
Mike Manteo has hung onto his childhood things. They hang in the dust-combed darkness of his electrical shop. Puppets. The last of their kind. Carved from solid oak, dressed in buffed brass. Polished and repaired by a proud man who found in them the adventure he dreamed for his own life.
https://youtu.be/gKuTSudasps
Thriving on $5,000 a YearAugust 25, 2024
Folks in Missoula, Montana, know Kim Williams well. Each season she shops the back yards and the alleys bartering for fruit and vegetables others let rot. She lives on $5-thousand dollars a year. Kim and her husband Mel don’t merely survive. They have a good time. They believe small moments of life are just as important as the big news on this planet. Not more important, but just as important.
https://youtu.be/pmglCsbFFII
Saved from ExtinctionAugust 24, 2024
St. Catherine’s Island, Georgia, is the last great barrier island untouched by real estate development. For nearly a century, the place was a rich man’s playground, last owned by Edward J. Noble, the fellow who made millions by punching little holes in candy and calling them Life Savers. Today, his island is saving life itself.
https://youtu.be/r3RfezVz1C8
Breakfast for Less than a TipAugust 23, 2024
Franny Ward charges only $1 for breakfast at her restaurant in Yates Center, Kansas, a price unchanged for years. Coffee is dime, if that’s all you’re going to have. How does she stay in business? She sells 200 meals a day. That’s enough for Franny. If folks can’t come, she brings the food to them. Charges an extra dollar.
https://youtu.be/FjaF5pga1_A
Alone with the Beauty She CreatesAugust 22, 2024
The mirrors seldom see movement. The doors are mostly closed. But music comes from a solitary window, six hours a day, seven days a week. Inside, Charlotte Bergen lives her life alone with the beauty she creates. Four times a year, the reclusive woman emerges from her home and heads to Carnegie Hall where she conducts the American Symphony Orchestra. It’s an expensive treat. She pays for herself.
https://youtu.be/Q1-FPhnGcM4
A Mountain of a Man August 21, 2024
Finis Mitchell wanders Wyoming's highest mountains alone. He has climbed 279 peaks, so many summits so often, the U.S. Geological Survey sends him its maps to correct from memory. He has hiked 18-thousand miles. Back in the Great Depression, Finis lost his job in town and was forced to live off this land. He gave something in return. Mitchell packed in 2 and a half million trout, stocking more than 300 lakes. He was one of the few living Americans who has a mountain peak named after him. Finis had climbed nearly all of them.
https://youtu.be/y8SSlEHXxNM
Young at Heart SingersAugust 20, 2024
The Young at Heart Singers in North Hampton, Massachusetts, have been entertaining the world for four decades. This is not your typical senior citizen chorus. They give their own take on contemporary songs at the top of the charts. You won’t believe how GOOD they are.
https://youtu.be/hKcL0pOOf5Y
Hocus PocusAugust 19, 2024
A real life Harry Potter and his friends learn magic in a school millions pass by every day. Like the best magic, it hides in plain sight.
https://youtu.be/TlBPufIGL8M
Light House HomesAugust 18, 2024
Pete Jerowitz likes to rest with his eyes open, so he can see his dream. Can’t beat his view. He’s living in a lighthouse.
https://youtu.be/WALAWg5ei1Q
Combat ComicAugust 17, 2024
Bobby Henline is the kind of guy who could make the faces on Mount Rushmore grin. He fought on the front lines in Iraq during Dessert Storm. Went back after 9/11 three more times. Then a roadside bomb blew off his face. He survived. What’s he doing now? Making us laugh.
https://youtu.be/0XmC2hi3JKs
Honeymoon TrailAugust 16, 2024
Memory is too fragile a thread from which to hang history. The old west is different from what we see in the movies. It was America’s forge, and the pioneers who passed through it had spirits of hammered steel. Mormon settlers in northeastern Arizona traveled along a dusty 70-mile wagon trail to reach the St. George Temple in Utah. The trail eventually became known as the "Honeymoon Trail" because so many newlyweds made the passage. 105 years after its opening, I joined a wagon train, where Mormon couples still re-enact the romantic journey of their forebears.
https://youtu.be/5B_Cn7igIpo
WoodstockAugust 15, 2024
My most memorable big crowd gathered in a muddy field called Woodstock, with signs promising “Peace and Love.” That was 55 years ago today. I went “back to the garden,” for an anniversary concert 25 years later. It was still muddy. Rained most of the day, but more than a quarter of a million people partied on. Paramedics were busy fixing broken ankles and arms. 750 people were taken to the hospital. Some concert goers set out islands of straw to keep from sliding away. Others folded up tents and beat feet for home. A few looked to the skies for a face wash. And stuck it out. Re-staging Woodstock was a lot like trying to recapture the moments of a senior prom. Like music, it can't be touched. Only felt.
https://youtu.be/76m_sjl6f3o
A Tugboat with Sails August 14, 2024
There was a time when ships chased and caught the wind for profit, carrying cargo to the world. Like skinny ties, the past is circling back again. In Norfolk harbor, Virginia, there’s a tugboat unlike any other. It’s called a Tugantine. Part tugboat. Part sailboat. It started as a joke. When her captain, Lane Briggs, noticed a 28 percent saving in fuel, the sails stayed on.
https://youtu.be/3QLroWn6ENc
Street RodsAugust 13, 2024
Joe Stacy seldom had a picture taken without his car. He worked all through Highschool pumping gas for no pay. Just free fill ups on Friday nights. Friday nights are still important to him. Joe and his friends cruise in the Restless Ribbon, Oklahoma City’s 39th Street Expressway. The Fonz lives.
https://youtu.be/IpQhs87285c
G.I. WalletsAugust 12, 2024
There was a time when wallets were like mobile phones. They held everything. Some hold a mystery. They were stolen more than 80 years ago. 25 were hidden in old barracks around Camp Roberts, California. Thousands of soldiers have trained here since the wallets disappeared. Staff Sargent Tom Murotake has spent years searching for their owners.
https://youtu.be/p_zuILlJO9E
Reggie Jackson’s DadAugust 11, 2024
Hall of Fame baseball great Reggie Jackson learned the game from a dad who raised three sons by himself. They lived above his tailor shop in suburban Philadelphia. His father did not remarry until he had put each child through college. Martinez Jackson had little money, but he had wealth. He left his sons “a whole wide world to make a living in.”
https://youtu.be/REY62yvdQhU
Paying with PaintingsAugust 10, 2024

Jim Mott, a successful, middle-aged artist, traveled the country trading paintings for hospitality. He managed to safely explore twenty-nine states while traveling fifteen thousand miles. Cost him nothing but gas.
https://youtu.be/ilYlRtaotrw
Money Making InventionsAugust 9, 2024
John Spirk and his best buddy, John Nottingham, have more money making patents than any other living American inventor. Thomas Edison had more, but they were gaining on him. What’s their secret?
https://youtu.be/Hn3hakj3tH0
Dream BigAugust 8, 2024
Bonnie Joe Hunt had a dream. Everyone laughed. She was a Native American after all and Indians didn't do that, so she decided not to talk about it. At age ten she quietly started learning languages. Eight of them. And spent a lot of time alone, practicing. No one is laughing now.
https://youtu.be/INyGxYfRMWQ
Achy Breaky PartsAugust 7, 2024
Sherrill Headrick was one of the greats, a middle linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs in the very first Super Bowl. No ten yards there were tougher than those from his bed to his bathroom. Nine yeas of pro ball left Headrick with roving arthritis. Hands that could trip a pass receiver by the toe, can barely lift a comb. But Headrick still competes in the only game he can. He has become a professional Bridge player, one of the best in the country. The old champ is out there on the playing field, if not in body, in mind.
https://youtu.be/41J5cUhmV_Y
Largest Private LibraryAugust 6, 2024
Lucia Madrid had one of the largest private libraries in the world. In the vast Chihuahuan dessert of west Texas there was no TV, no video games, no movies. Just her trading post. Amid the Coke cans and the candy, she stacked 13 thousand books. Books in her bedroom. In dusty shoe boxes. In milk cartons. Free for all her neighbors.
https://youtu.be/Fvjkj306Xx4
Home is the Town DumpAugust 5, 2024
For 24 years Suzi Valadez crossed the Mexican border to feed and clothe 2-thousand children who lived in a town dump. Their parents pay $10 down to buy a lot. Another $60 to build a home. They then can earn $2.50 a day sorting garbage. They come to the dump looking for a better life.
https://youtu.be/JqoodBtz48E
Birth of the Ice cream ConeAugust 4, 2024
A lot of what we love today —ice cream cones, hamburgers, hot dogs, peanut butter, iced tea, the club sandwich, cotton candy — were all introduced in a single summer in 1904. Americans also got their first glimpse of the Olympic games and the Democrats managed to shoehorn in a National Convention. All three events in one city at the same time. Never happened again.
https://youtu.be/P7Et_Pl-X5s

The Evolution of the American Story

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