Through the Looking Glass Darkly, Part One

by bob.dotson | Dec 27, 2024 | Blog, Evolution of the American Story, Hiding in History's Shadow

One of the most diverse places in America is not where you might expect. Oklahoma once had 28 towns settled by former slaves, scattered throughout 37 Indian Nations. For nearly a century it was primarily a land of the Red and the Black, a checkerboard of Indians and ex-slaves who very nearly got their own state until thousands of immigrants from around the world joined them seeking free land — land they got in a single day.

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Mr. Truman shaded his eyes and smiled when he recognized his friend. "Hi, Paul.”
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He lifted the lid and pulled out a picture. It was not the image of a weary warrior Stacey expected.
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Through the Looking Glass Darkly, Part ThreeDecember 29, 2024
A PBS interview with the team that won a National EMMY for what was — at the time — an untold story: African American history in the old west. Their 1973 documentary, "Through the Looking Glass Darkly,” had higher ratings than any of the network shows the nights it aired. A high definition restoration of the original program was paired with this interview on the 30th anniversary. Bob Dotson, produced, wrote and narrated. Photojournalist Oliver Murray was also an associate producer, as was George Wesley.
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Through the Looking Glass Darkly, Part TwoDecember 28, 2024
Listen to Logan Jackson's story: "Dan Porter was an old Civil War veteran. I was a little boy. At the time we met, they were enforcing the Jim Crow law, which said black men could not vote. ‘Man told Dan Porter, says, ‘Don’t you go in there and try to vote.’ Says, ‘You can’t read.’ “Porter says, ‘That don’t make no difference. I’m one of the men who made General Lee surrender!’” Logan stared into the faces around him, ‘You don’t know who General Lee was, do you? He was a general in the Civil War. Yeah, an old soldier.’ Well, Dan, he voted.”
How a diverse group of Americans succeeded in living together is a fascinating tale that has made an extraordinary difference for the millions who came after them. Of course they had racial problems, and still do, but the way they worked them out holds lessons for our own time.
https://youtu.be/LI8yX28UIdQ
Through the Looking Glass Darkly, Part OneDecember 27, 2024
One of the most diverse places in America is not where you might expect. Oklahoma once had 28 towns settled by former slaves, scattered throughout 37 Indian Nations. For nearly a century it was primarily a land of the Red and the Black, a checkerboard of Indians and ex-slaves who very nearly got their own state until thousands of immigrants from around the world joined them seeking free land -- land they got in a single day.
https://youtu.be/1y-qFCsya3M
Names We Never KnewDecember 26, 2024
A lot of folks have asked how I got started searching for the stories of ordinary people. I remember the moment. It set me on a path that I have follow to this day. I had come to Miami, Oklahoma, to shoot a documentary. Artist Charles Banks Wilson’s most ambitious project. I had no idea back then how that work would change my life. Wilson convinced me that country would be better served if we listened more to people who don't have titles in front of their names.
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Catholic RabbiDecember 25, 2024
One of Baltimore’s most dangerous neighborhoods has a special gift. It’s a blueprint for peace and its working. You could not find a more likely place for peace on earth to begin. But Rabbi Gela Ruskin is celebrating a Jewish sabbath in a Catholic high school. Baltimore’s Saint Frances Academy may be the first in the country with a full time rabbi on the faculty. Every junior in this Catholic school is required to take a full year of Jewish studies. Some think that is something a devout Christian did not need to do. But not school president Sister John Frances.
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Santa’s Toy WorkshopDecember 24, 2024
Remember the first time you sat on Santa’s lap? It was perhaps the most important speech of your life. Blow it here, you could end up with a sweater. We visited a unique toy workshop. For 35 years, volunteers have met once a week in an old sheep barn to make toys — year round — for children whose lives are as rough as theirs used to be.
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Joy Doesn’t Come from a Credit CardDecember 23, 2024
This is for all those who are tired of credit card traditions at Christmas. People in Lake Palmer, Colorado, gather at the town hall for what looks and sounds like an Easter egg hunt. They set off every year to find a special log that will light the darkest days of the year. A yule log. Hidden in the hills above the town.
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American Story Holidays SpecialDecember 22, 2024
Kick back with a holiday treat, the American Story Hour Long Special. Filled with stories that will make you smile. Grab the egg nog and enjoy. Ho. Ho. Ho.
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Joyful NoiseDecember 21, 2024
Folks in Boldon, Georgia proudly call their town, "the Briar Patch." Like Brer' Fox, they outwitted hard times, terror and indifference to bring us a Christmas Carol unique in all the world. It is called "the shout" an old West African word for "circle." The congregation of the Mount Calvary Baptist church is the last who can carol it. Early missionaries didn't want the slaves to sing the shout because it reminded slaves of home. Down through the years, this congregation has cradled the oldest Black spiritual in America. A Joyful noise, indeed.
https://youtu.be/LuUXkiGSpyw
MiracleDecember 20, 2024
The heart is the ultimate muscle. It can lift a heavy burden and make life easier. Those who meet Amy Wall notice her heart first. She was born deaf, the nerves in her ears, incurably damaged. “You can’t rebuild that inner ear,” her doctor, Matthew Bucko told me. “That is like trying to put a new brain into someone.” Amy’s brother and sister asked their mom, if they could pray for a miracle. She was skeptical.
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?
https://youtu.be/SFzDgvQh1U0?t=2
Fix-it SantaDecember 19, 2024
No child ever asks what Santa would like for Christmas.
I was pondering that point while shuffling in a long line waiting to see St. Nick. A little girl sprang onto his lap.
“I want a Barbie doll,” she announced.
“I want a Barbie!” her sister said.
“You want a Barbie, too,” the bearded man nodded.
“And some doll clothes,” the little girl poked his red coat.
“I want some doll clothes, too,” her sister said.
“Oh, boy,” sighed the Jolly Old Elf. “We definitely have an echo in here.”
This one, just needs a hug. He is more than a storefront Santa. The twinkle in his eye is love, not sales. His workshop is filled with the glitter of little kids’ dreams. But, he’s not making toys. Santa and his elves are making electric wheelchairs. The first, he built for a baby in Vietnam. She had lost both of her legs to a land mine. Santa wore a different uniform then. He was Marine major Ed Butcher. There have been 11-hundred wheelchairs since.
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Homeless No MoreDecember 18, 2024
Forest Cochran was just two. Much had happened in his little life. His parents separated. His mother Karen lost their home. There was no shelter for the homeless in Loganville, Georgia. But Joy Davis and her husband Wayne took them in. They have helped dozens of people get back on their feet. Once they started their single bathroom with ten strangers. Why?
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Wrong Brothers AviationDecember 17, 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.
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Living in a MovieDecember 16, 2024
Brian Jones bought a home 40-million people see every Christmas. He signed a check — sight unseen — for $150,000 dollars. Brian flew to Cleveland, Ohio, for the first time in his life to find it. He figured it must be just around the corner from a flagpole. His wife Beverly, a Navy navigator, had jokingly sent him an email saying someone on EBay was auctioning off the house where they filmed Brian’s favorite movie — “A Christmas Story.” She was at sea at the time. “I didn’t have time to consult her,” Brian said, “There were other bidders.” When Beverly heard how he had spent their savings, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He wrote another check for $200,000 bucks to restore the old place to its happy-ending splendor. That house was Brian’s Red Ryder dream. The couple bought another house across the street. Opened a gift shop to help pay for it all. Here you can find the movie dad’s major award, the old man’s leg lamp. “Fraw—GEE-lay,” said the dad, reading “Fragile” on the box it came in. “Must be Italian.” The first year Brian opened the house and the store, leg lamp sales totaled nearly $700,000 dollars. If you've always wanted to display your leg lamp and avoid "shooting your eye out," it may be time to move. Brian just put the home for sale, along with much of the surrounding neighborhood that serves as a museum campus.
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Orphan ReunionDecember 15, 2024
Life turns on the tiniest things. Jimmy StOlp and Andy StAlp were raised side by side in the same orphanage. Never knowing they were brothers. In 1926, the clerk at the Tennessee Home for Friendless Babies misspelled one brother’s last name. The mistake was never discovered. The Navy became Andy’s family. He was a good son. Andy Stalp saved his shipmates during World War Two. Tossed burning gasoline tanks over the side during a Japanese bombing attack at Guadalcanal. He earned a silver star.
There were no medals for the battle his brother fought. The other orphans bullied Jimmy. Thought he was retarded. But he was deaf until 1961. When doctors operated, they found rice, papers and other things children had stuffed into his ears.
Some nugget of strength prompted Jimmy to endure. He married on an Easter weekend. So did Andy. Both still wondering if somewhere, they might have a family of their own. The two wore out a lifetime looking.
https://youtu.be/cSPyloCfc_A
Toys not new, but lovedDecember 14, 2024
Why do you suppose toys mean more to us as the years go by? Joe Daole knows. He’s got a house filled with them — more than one hundred thousand. Many are handmade and reflect their time. None are in mint condition. They’ve been loved. “Toys are not just playthings,” Daole says. “They’re memories.”
WHAT TOY OF YOURS DOES HE HAVE?
https://youtu.be/IY64CPAKKH4
A Heart for ChristmasDecember 13, 2024
Glenda Gooch lives with a heart that beats for two families. On Christmas eve 1995, she was dying. Her only hope, a new heart to replace one damaged since birth. It came on Christmas morning with a letter from the mother of the boy who had the heart first. He was just her age. Ten. Killed by a drunk driver. Died a week after his birthday on Christmas eve.
https://youtu.be/rbgdqCZitEo
Donkey BallDecember 12, 2024
Jimmy Deramus went out to buy his daughter a pet and came back with 18 donkeys, a backyard full of alarm clocks. The herd grew to 600. Jimmy picked the best to play basketball. In small town arenas all across the south, people came to ride his front five. The object is to pass and shoot from a donkey's back. Most folks spend more time on the floor than the termites.
https://youtu.be/NNlDpesr4e0
Battlefield ArtistDecember 11, 2024
Cameras replaced most of the artists capturing conflict long ago, but not all. This is a look at the Iraq war, as you never saw it. Few of us venture out beyond the limits of our settle lives. But artist Steve Mumford paid his own way to war, just to create art. He bought his own flack jacket, his own airplane ticket and hitched a ride into battle, armed with only a press pass from an online arts magazine. He spent more than 11 months on the front lines. The world has seen more images from the Iraq war than any other conflict in history. None like his.
https://youtu.be/Tnd_Sue4Bkc
Racing Old AgeDecember 10, 2024
Gertrud Zint celebrated her 70th birthday racing the clock. She was setting new national records for swimmers her age. Gertrud was so fast, they sometimes paired her with women who are 40 years younger. She holds world records in 8 different events. She might have done even better, if she didn’t have arthritis. An American bomb fell on the hospital in Germany where she worked as a nurse during World War Two, crushing her legs. Gertrud was buried alive for two and a half hours. Athletics helped her recover, so she kept at it.
https://youtu.be/vnIJ6c3UcXM
Glass HarpDecember 9, 2024
When the Renaissance Players perform in Miami, Jay Brown tunes up with a turkey baster, and in just a few minutes people hear him play Mozart on 47 brandy snifters filled with water. It’s no gimmick. Jay Brown’s instrument was once more popular than the piano.
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Beats a 260 mile School Bus RideDecember 8, 2024
Crane High is the only locally tax supported public boarding school in America. It was built in a part of Oregon you seldom see in the travel brochures. Out here, people remember bone grey better than rainbows. Southeastern Oregon has a desert so vast, Jerry Deffenbaugh must drive 260 miles round trip to watch his son play high school basketball. Some weeks he does that 3 times. The school draws just 50 students from a district the size of Massachusetts.
AND YOU THOUGHT YOU HAD A LONG COMMUTE.
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Pearl Harbor Internment CampDecember 7, 2024
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, saw a sunrise of fire. And the memory still burns. Its sizzling seas sent the United States into World War II. Before the day bled away, 110-thousand people were arrested in America for what another country did. Most looked like the Japanese who attacked Pearl Harbor, but in Hawaii, they rounded up European-Americans too.
https://youtu.be/UYwLCkfZ2-Y
Crack House CopsDecember 6, 2024
Elsie Calloway found a drug pusher selling cocaine in her basement. Police closed nearby crack houses, but addicts always came back, until the cops tried something different. Patrolman James Jones now lives in the house he once raided. Columbia, South Carolina, made him an offer that would godfather grin. His family got a home. Fixed up first rate for about half what other renovated houses in the neighborhood cost.
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East Meets WestDecember 5, 2024
This isn’t my first rodeo. In 1981 I put on cowboy boots to find Christine Gulich. Didn’t need them. She lived in a small town south of Boston. Christine was a book keeper in Abington, Massachusetts, at the time. The only thing that says “West” in her part of the country are road signs pointing to where the sun sets. Yet Christine is the first woman from Massachusetts to compete for the title of Miss Rodeo America.
https://youtu.be/7pykKOQhUmA
Kid BillionaireDecember 4, 2024
Jared Issacman became a billionaire before he could drive. He as so young, he hired his dad to wine and dine clients. His mom worked for him too. Issacman used some of his money to pilot Elon Musk's all-civilian mission to the edge of the universe. Purchased purchased all four seats. Kept one for himself. Donated the other three to charity. He made his billions by figuring out a way for businesses to process credit cards more quickly. It all began in his basement. He was just 16. This was the first story ever done on the kid who defies the odds.
https://youtu.be/c66KlC6POSo
All Mine: Death ValleyDecember 4, 2024
Many a man has come and gone, but Susan Sorrells stays in Death Valley, California. Her family left her a little town called Shoshone. She owns a small cafe and the Crowbar saloon. And a thousand acres of the driest land on earth. The ground is not worthless. The state liked its remote location. Wanted to build a prison. Susan was offered enough money to retire comfortably, but she said, "No."
https://youtu.be/nr3Pbv1hwNY
Turning Desert GreenDecember 3, 2024
Few places in America are more remote. We are five hours from the nearest airport. 90 miles from a pizza. 60 from a round of golf. But people do live here because Ben Leaton had a dream. He diverted the water of the Rio Grande river and a tiny sliver of this vast desert turned green.
https://youtu.be/D6IJuSPf3xw
Riches in the Backyard (Aspen Miner)December 2, 2024
Stefan Albouy grew up listening to the tales the old miners had to tell. Stories of gold and silver and riches untold. As a small boy, he dug holes in the hillside behind his house. Laid track for his ore carts across his backyard. At age 11, he wrote the owners of the old Smuggler's mine, asking for a lease. They sold him one. The Smuggler had once produced the largest silver nugget in history. But for years, it had been abandoned. Stefan restored the old mine exactly as it was in 1893 and working alone, he made a living.
https://youtu.be/CveLHSR3xqU
Flying SquadDecember 1, 2024
30 years ago, an innovative approach dramatically lowered drug trafficking in Charleston, SC. Police snapped pictures of people who come to buy drugs, thus cutting off sales. The cops gave copies of those prints to suspected drug dealers. The dealers tossed them away. Police issued them tickets for littering. The suspected dealers threw them away too. When they didn’t pay, police arrested them on Friday nights (peak drug buying time) and held them until Monday morning court.
https://youtu.be/6MHObZUWyeA
Mom and Pop JailNovember 30, 2024
One of the most unusual Bed and Breakfast Inns is an old Victorian house across the street from a neighborhood church. Fred and Gloria Shepperson run Pennsylvania’s last mom and pop jail.
https://youtu.be/mkOFJevturs
Eyewitness to TerrorNovember 29, 2024
When my wife Linda and I returned from our honeymoon, I went to cover my first Olympics. It was in Munich, Germany. 1972. 50 years ago today.
I soon became an eye witness to terror.
A group calling themselves “Black September” abducted the Israeli wrestling team. After a tense standoff, the terrorists flew away from the Olympic village in a helicopter. They demanded a plane to take them out of Germany.
The woman who owned the house where I was living and working spoke English, so I asked her on air: “Where do think the helicopter is going?” I was standing next to Mrs. Auspitz at her kitchen window. We were watching the terrorist's helicopter lift off from the Olympic village, carrying the Israeli athletes into the night.
The world press was saying it was headed to Riem, the international airport near Munich at that time. But Mrs. Auspitz said, “That’s the other way. They’re headed toward a small airport called Fürstenfeldbruck.”
I was reporting on NBC radio from her kitchen window: "Well folks, other reporters may be quoting official sources, saying the terrorists are taking their hostages to the Munich airport where a plane will be waiting, but Mrs. Auspitz lives here." She was right. The helicopter landed at the German Air Base. Later that night, German Chancellor Willy Brandt went on television to announce that the terrorists had been killed in an ambush: The Israeli wrestling team was safe. We went to bed enjoying that storybook ending.
But a few hours later, Mrs. Auspitz woke me and pointed out the window toward the Autobahn, which ran near her house. There was a long line of hearses. Each contained the body of an Israeli Olympic wrestler. They had not been saved. They all died. I left Germany with the conviction that terrorism could touch my life at any time. It did. Twenty-nine years later. I was standing outside a church one block from Ground Zero on that terrible day terrorists crashed planes into the World Trade Center, in New York City.
https://youtu.be/akkgQpu77T4
Caring for AllNovember 28, 2024
Ruby Walker is an inexhaustible wisp of a woman who cleans 27 houses a week. Five houses a day. Two on Saturdays. That has been her routine for two decades, since her husband died. Most are big homes, as you might expect, but Ruby also works the other side of town — for free.
https://youtu.be/WKt_Dz7UtXU
Native American MedicineNovember 27, 2024
Some say Rocky Stallings knows more about early Native American life than anyone in the country. He listened to the elders. Listened and learned. Where most folks see weeds, Rocky was taught to find medicine. On a hill near his home in San Antonio, Texas, he has found 197 different kinds.
https://youtu.be/5P_FUhdpIu4
Tina Allen Gets a LifeNovember 26, 2024
Tina Allen has a date with a new day. We met her the year before, checking into an Atlanta hospice. Alone. Doctors told the young woman she’d be dead from a brain tumor in three months. But something rare happened inside her head. The tumor shrank. Fewer than 5% of patients with brain tumors as big as Tina’s survive. Doctors said it was now possible for Tina to move out of hospice and go to work. When the tumor was detected four years before, she had just graduated with a degree in interior design. Now, she’s making plans again. “Another day! Great!” Tina smiled.
https://youtu.be/eTexPPunz5s
An Artist Who Paints with Nature November 25, 2024
Jimmy Lee Suddeth drew his first picture in the dirt. It washed he away with the evening rains. He never had time for formal training. Never went to town for art supplies. He made his own from nature. Now his paintings, made entirely of natural material, hang in art galleries and fetch big bucks.
https://youtu.be/-M43D3pXS8Q
Elusive Fireflies of LightNovember 24, 2024
Jake Hoover was looking for gold in Yogo Creek. He discovered something more. What little gold he found was cluttered with blue stones. He tossed them into a cigar box and sent them off to Tiffany's. The New York jewelers fired back a check. The old prospector had stumbled across what could be the world's largest deposit of Sapphires. An usual village was planned. Home owners got the right to search for gems in their backyards, but only if they dug them out by hand.
https://youtu.be/WviUF1bjXCU
Kids Soap OperaNovember 23, 2024
If you want to know what's happening at Henderson school, you don't join the Yearbook staff. You watch a Soap Opera at lunch time. Each Friday, the kids in the cafeteria share a second carton of milk with "The Growing Years." A show they write and produce themselves about their own problems.
https://youtu.be/WrK5XPB-1OI
California’s First SurfersNovember 22, 2024
Sliding through a hurricane of surf. Heartbeats clock the distance. This sport can make a young person old or an old man young again. Look beneath their wrinkles, you'll find the beginnings of California's surfing.
https://youtu.be/684JQL_ZtL8
Sliding through a hurricane of surf. Heartbeats clock the distance. This sport can make a young person old or an old man young again. Look beneath their wrinkles, you'll find the beginnings of California's surfing.
https://youtu.be/684JQL_ZtL8
Sliding through a hurricane of surf. Heartbeats clock the distance. This sport can make a young person old or an old man young again. Look beneath their wrinkles, you'll find the beginnings of California's surfing.
https://youtu.be/684JQL_ZtL8
Dancing with HopeNovember 21, 2024
Ne Sin was born in a palace with a diamond on its roof. Her mother taught her to perform for princes and kings. She lived in splendor, a lead dancer of the Royal Cambodian ballet, a tradition that dates back 12-hundred years. During the Communist takeover of Cambodia, the Imperial performers were marked for execution. Ne Sin and her mom managed to escape to America and are trying to keep the art form alive.
https://youtu.be/VI6z-oVcFqM
Sweet BeginningsNovember 20, 2024
Planes aren’t the only thing taking off at Chicago’s O’Hare airport. Down at the end of the runway, a bee farm is soaring. Sweet Beginnings created 360 new jobs in a neighborhood where crime is never more than a street corner away.
https://youtu.be/JVv70MWGoYI?t=2
NBA All-Star’s Greatest Opponent. HimselfNovember 19, 2024
Chicago Bulls Hall of Famer Bob Love ended up bussing tables in a Seattle restaurant because he suffered from a life time of stuttering.
https://youtu.be/HBIOy6Uy1sc
Red Carpet GasNovember 19, 2024
Remember when personal service was not just for the rich? At Vince's Red Carpet gas station, it has never gone out of style. It's customers are willing to pay 20 cents more a gallon because mechanics run to help them. If you have to wait to get your car fixed, there's a sound proof lounge. No grime covered calendars of last year's Miss Wrench on the walls. Sparkling clean. That's the way Vince does business, so did his father and his father's father.
https://youtu.be/Y9TQuSx_z2M
Better Baby InstituteNovember 18, 2024
The Better Baby Institute of Philadelphia looks like a college campus. Ivy on the walls. Faculty in the halls. Walk by an open door, you hear violins and Japanese. It’s a college all right, but the average student is less than six years old. Glenn Doman, the director says, “Tiny children are starved for information. They have a rage to learn. And they understand superbly.”
https://youtu.be/0cIWOJgM5u8
A Picture that Touched AmericaNovember 17, 2024
For families who lived in the 1930’s Dust Bowl, “depression” was not an abstract economic term. Their farms were buried in burned out soil, and with nowhere to turn, they moved on. Florence Thompson was 27 years old when the depression started. She had five children and was pregnant with another — and her husband had died. Did she ever lose hope? “Nope, if I’d a lost hope, we never would have made it”
https://youtu.be/SdxZG8KGHw4
Flowery BranchNovember 17, 2024
Carlton Garrett is a working man. Not one for museums. But on a thousand lunch hours, he has retreated into a world of his own — a world he whittles out of wood. In the fragrant closeness of his toolshed, Carlton Garrett has traced his life in toys.
https://youtu.be/8vRvgKvpWog
The Trouble We All Live WithNovember 16, 2024
A 6-year-old girl became the first African American child to desegregate an all-white elementary school in the South. Ruby Bridges always said her mother was the hero of the moment. She put her family and her husband’s job in jeopardy to open schools for all.
https://youtu.be/Ee3uEm2V6dw
Bus Boy RefereeNovember 15, 2024
What's my all-time favorite story? The next one. A storyteller never stops searching. At the core of this lifelong quest lies a simple truth - the shortest distance between two people - no matter how different - is a good story. Once you know a person's story, you begin to see how much we are alike and that helps you appreciate what each of us brings to the mix of America. That's not always obvious at first. I was shooting a story in Las Vegas, Nevada, when I stumbled across a better one. That city’s only commerce is hope. Instant winners. Methodical losers. It is also home to the anonymous thousands who feed those dreams. And, have dreams of their own. Back home in the Philippines, Carlos Padilla is something of a legend. He has refereed 23 World Championship fights, but in between, he takes orders, as a bus boy.
https://youtu.be/Cy9iTD_oyb4
Deputy DumpNovember 14, 2024
Texas has always had it’s share of lawmen who took on trouble with little help. Sheriff’s deputy James Lee Harms was hired to clean up Wise County. He has had amazing success. All alone, he has tracked down more litterbugs than anyone in Texas. Detractors call him, Deputy Dump.
https://youtu.be/HEr6I0f9tYo
He Sees More Deeply than MostNovember 13, 2024
Willie Morris wrote 19 Best Sellers. When he died, he left something to help someone who had never read them. His corneas. Morris gave them to two men he had never met. One Black. One White. All three were born in Mississippi.
https://youtu.be/Pfz0pF8b-BU
MarblesNovember 12, 2024
Naoma, West Virginia, is a marble shooters Mecca. This little town has had four national and one world champion. Before kids learn to tie their sneakers, they know the joy of knuckles in the dirt.
https://youtu.be/0ZxlFqZGw8k
Veteran’s BabiesNovember 11, 2024
I remember a man who said his father was a folded flag on the mantle. Let’s remember the bill some people must pay for patriotism. Red was the last vivid image Matt Keil remembers, the day he stopped walking, the day an Iraqi sniper shot him in the neck. Matt and his wife Tracy were determined not to let that war wound limit their lives. They longed to have a baby, but were told that might not happen. They tried anyway, even as Matt battled back to health. One day their doctor showed them three tiny hearts. Tracy was pregnant with triplets.
https://youtu.be/rEwEUTTHKJ4
Sing in the Shower and DreamNovember 10, 2024
Most days you’ll find Jay Reinke singing to the audience behind his eyelids, the one that crowds his mind, while he measures floors for a living. Thirty years ago, he started performing the songs of Jay and the Americans, a pioneer rock group that twirled to stardom with Chubby Checker, opened for the Beatles and had 23 hits. This is for all of us who sing in the shower and dream.
https://youtu.be/Ua9jkqvqqt4
Music IS LifeNovember 9, 2024
What is it about creativity that keeps some folks active long after the factory workers have set aside their tools. Perhaps it’s that simple urge to make something that keeps tugging them back. Telling them to keep busy and stay alive. Stanley Chappell has a profile chiseled with age. A face Charles Dickens might have dreamed up. Ebenezer Scrooge on the day after. For most of last century, he hunched over musical podiums in Seattle, Washington, pouncing on notes like a bird of prey.
https://youtu.be/em69RYfAQxA
Rockin’ ReclinersNovember 8, 2024
Slim and Zella Mae Cox have the most listened to furniture store in the country. Some people do come to buy furniture, of course, but if you want a sofa on Saturday afternoon, you've got to carry out the audience that's sitting on it. There's a lot more rocking here than La-Z-Boy recliners.
https://youtu.be/RyExLdS2HRI
Saving the First Draft of HistoryNovember 7, 2024
Newspapers are the first draft of history, so it makes sense that a museum stepped up to save its small town newspaper and the story of their lives. The Silverton, Colorado, Standard & the Miner is now a National Historic site.
https://youtu.be/xMPrtXaGDqc
If America Had a KingNovember 6, 2024
When George Washington took the oath of office, the presidency was a uniquely American institution. Back then, kings ruled most of the world. They believed they were divinely chosen. Of course, the first presidential inauguration changed all that. But what if the popular general had decided to become king? Who would be our king today?
https://youtu.be/b5tmR0pc9Dw?t=7
D.C. SamaritanNovember 4, 2024
There is a side of Washington, DC, we seldom see on Nightly News. It is far removed from the ruffles and flourishes of the Nation’s Capitol. Here, survival is no global affair. Calvin Woodland’s business is begging. For decades, he hustled these streets, raising money to help the drug addicts and dead end kids who lived in his neighborhood. Home was the grimy public housing projects southeast of the Capitol. Calvin Woodland represents something in short supply around here. A hero.
https://youtu.be/NV5IoCJwUoQ
An Image to Show They LivedNovember 3, 2024
Most everywhere you go out west, you find that a photographer has been there before. People didn't always care where they'd end up, but they wanted the folks back home to see they had arrived. Glenn Altman has been taking their portraits most of his 81 years, offering his neighbors something special -- a beautiful image to remind the world they had lived.
https://youtu.be/assjrVMbe18
Until It’s Not Here No MoreNovember 2, 2024
150 years ago, the plains Indians of Oklahoma were refugees of war. The tattered remains of once proud tribes who had become foreigners in their own land. Practically overnight, they were faced with a new language, new religion and a new way of life. In the struggle to survive some of the old ways were forgotten. But Katie Osage remembers. "I was born in a tent and raised in a tent. Yeah, I still live in a tent." For nearly a century, she has lived in two worlds. And she has survived.
https://youtu.be/3Adr3VNI06A?t=25
Found ArtNovember 1, 2024
Think of what you drive by every day and don’t see. Douglas Geiss notices more than most. He and his cousins live in a five acre forest filled with wonder. They found a mermaid riding a yellow submarine. And a fish made out of pick axes. Created by their grandfather, Nate Nichols, a farmer who also planted art. Nate would weld together whatever he saw in worn out tools. None of them made him much money, so every day for 25 years, he hid them in his woods.
“Everybody else looks up in the clouds and says, ‘Oh, that cloud looks like a dragon,’ Nate’s son Josh said. “My dad looked down at the ground and said, ‘That wrench looks like a monkey.’”
Nate Nicholls' sculptures so filled his heart, he felt compelled to give them life. The farmer was working on a metal frog last summer when his heart failed and he died at 52. Last fall his children buried him beneath flowers he'd made from water faucet handles.
https://youtu.be/n-DeIHAfUnQhttps://youtu.be/JMdv9XvCU0g
YouTube StarOctober 31, 2024
Here’s a story about one of the most popular people on the internet. He’s not a celebrity. Just an ordinary guy. Crafting an effective visual story about him involved more than an interesting headline. After a brief phone interview with a Kyle Lindsey, a young man who had become an YouTube star, I crafted a story outline. First, I tried to answer the “So What?” test. Why would anyone want to pay attention. How does a seemingly ordinary person become an internet star? Then, I searched for the surprises in the information I had gathered during my phone interview. Those would become the twists and turns in my tale. I stacked the surprises so they would flow logically from start to finish. (For example, you wouldn’t show a child going to school and then waking up.) Click to see the finished story:
https://youtu.be/d0Xa21-TUDI
Lady EyeOctober 30, 2024
Virginia Snyder looks like the little old lady Boy Scouts help across the street. You can’t always tell a book by its cover. Same with people. At retirement age, Virginia opened her own detective agency. With no prior police training, she became one of only two women in Floria to get a Class A Investigator’s license. The cases she handles are none too dainty — murders, muggings, drug sales. She keeps a trunk load of disguises for safety.
https://youtu.be/GIqUYffkd2w
Girls of WinterOctober 29, 2024
When Ethel Lehmann was young, she was never more than a pebble kick from a ball park. She quit to have 5 kids. Now, she’s the first woman to try out for the Kids and Kubs, a team whose rookies are 75.
https://youtu.be/apjJKMQq-TY
Eagle FlightOctober 28, 2024
Forty percent of the kids in this Newark, New Jersey neighborhood did not finish high school back in the 1980’s. Russell White changed that back in the 1980’s. He made thousands of street kids a startling offer. Learn to fly an air plane. For free. Some kids flew solo before they turned 12. His Eagle Flight has sent 6 kids on to the Air Force academy. The rest? 8 out of 10 go to college.
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

Through the Looking Glass Darkly, Part One

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