Legend is a word we use easily. A team wins thirteen games – legendary. A guy tosses one good season of baseball – he’s a legend. A single Saturday afternoon thrill – legendary. But what of the legends who build quietly, year in and year out, until they touch us all. For sixty summers Jimmy Porter gently coaxed the kids of Carollton, Texas, to play the game he loved.
- Where a Game is Not a Bottom Line
- VANISHING SILENCE
- Navajo Photographer
- Kid App Testers
- Angels on My Roof
- Where a Game is Not a Bottom Line
- VANISHING SILENCE
- Navajo Photographer
- Kid App Testers
- Angels on My Roof
- Where a Game is Not a Bottom Line
Legend is a word we use easily. A team wins thirteen games – legendary. A guy tosses one good season of baseball – he’s a legend. A single Saturday afternoon thrill – legendary. But what of the legends who build quietly, year in and year out, until they touch us all. For sixty summers Jimmy Porter gently coaxed the kids of Carollton, Texas, to play the game he loved.
- VANISHING SILENCE
No matter how far we go into the wilderness, we can seldom escape the sounds we make. There are few places where planes do not fly or foghorns cannot pierce. Just as city lights keep us from seeing dimmer stars, these noises of every day life drown out the more delicate voices of nature. Gordon Hempton searches for spots to record the earth’s chorus — without us.
- Navajo Photographer
Let’s relax with some beautiful scenery, courtesy of a Navajo photographer who shows us what we might miss, even standing next to him. LeRoy DeJolie grew up on a ranch, north of the Grand Canyon. All of his life, he has straddled two worlds. Now he teaches photography to young students and helps them see more deeply.
- Kid App Testers
Zade Lobo sings like it’s closing time. The 8-year-old is testing a new computer app. Adults hover over him like a rock star. They want to know how to make this app so simple — even a grownup can understand.
- Angels on My Roof
Rachel Johnson races the garbage men each morning. She makes a living on what they come to throw away.
America survives and thrives because of all those names we don’t know, seemingly ordinary people who do extraordinary things. They don’t run for president or go on talk shows, but without them, the best of America would not exist.
- America’s Best Architect
Faye Jones was chosen one of the outstanding architects of the last century. He built his crowning achievement — a church — out of 2 by 4’s. The American Institute of Architects ranked his Thorncrown Chapel, deep in the Arkansas woods as the best building constructed since 1980. This web of pine and glass is so functional, so architecturally pure, the building would collapse if any one part were removed. His designs seem to be variations of the spectacular tree houses he built when he was a boy. One of them had a fireplace.
Jones laughed, “That fireplace was its undoing.”
But, build a better tree house, folks will find you and ask for another.
- Picture Man
Few people in Cabbagetown know his name. He just showed up one Sunday and has seldom missed a Sunday since. They call him simply the “Picture Man.” He is not the first photographer to come here, but he is the first to give back something of himself. Each week he passes out hundreds of prints of the pictures he has taken. He pays for the prints himself. They are photos of feeling. Orion Catlege is partially blind.
- Georgie Clark
The first person to ride the rapids through the Grand Canyon was a one arm Civil War veteran named John Wesley Powell. He lashed himself to a 17 foot boat and plunged down the Colorado river in a rocking chair. For nearly a century only a handful of people dared to follow in his path. Then, came Georgie Clark. She opened the Colorado river to us all.
- Papa Goose
Ever wonder what happens to birds who are too old to migrate? Gurney Crawford did. He built a place for them to land and singlehandedly diverted the flight path of Canada Geese. How did the geese say “thank you?”
- Kid PhD
A budding Albert Einstein. Brilliant of course. But an humanitarian too. All at the tender age of 16. Andrew Soo was already working on his doctorate in Medical Research. He started early. His parents taught him to read at age 2. By 5 he was solving algebra problems. At 8 he entered High school. Finished a year later. At 12 he pushed his scooter to the University of Washington. Tutored honor students in science. His smarts brought him to campus, but charity got him admitted. The faculty was impressed by a foundation Andrew started in his spare time.
- The Statue of Liberty Still Stands
I pursued many American dreams for the TODAY show, but this was a nightmare. We were suspended eighteen stories above New York Harbor on a thin metal ladder tilted between the pedestal and the big toe of the Statue of Liberty. She approached her Centennial riddled with rust. There are holes in her gown large enough to take pictures through. And that was what Peter B. Kaplan was doing. I was climbing with him. The odds were against me.
- Miss Liberty Gets a New Torch
The Statue of Liberty has been buffeted with salt water and baked with sun. She approached her Centennial riddled with rust. That had so weakened the statue, French artisans crafted a new torch gilded in gold. They ply their trade much as the original builders did nearly a 150 years ago. Brought with them two tons of hand made tools and 4 tree stumps.
- The Most Photographed Monument in the World
The Statue of Liberty has been buffeted with salt water and baked with sun. She approached her Centennial riddled with rust. There were holes in her gown large enough to take pictures through. And that is what Peter B. Kaplan was doing.
- American Essay
There is more to American than just a blur out of a car window, but you must linger to see it’s details. I’ve crisscrossed this country for nearly half a century listening to your stories. While most reporters focus on life’s flat tires, I look for something far more difficult to find — what keeps the other tires rolling. I discover people who are practically invisible, the ones who make our lives better, but don’t take time to tweet and tell us about it.
- Wrong Side of History
America’s fight for independence was — for some — a civil war. 100-thousand Americans fought with the British. Forty thousand fled to Canada after the war. Among them, a battle-scarred man who walked with a slight limp. Everyone knew his name: Benedict Arnold. “Oh, the traitor, eh?” Steve Arnold smiled. He looks remarkably like him. Steve is Benedict Arnold’s closest living relative.
- Bungee Jump
Bungee jumping was just taking hold in America when this story was done in 1991. I call it Bernstein’s symphony of air. First. And last.
- The Most Important Lesson
There’s an old grocery store in Detroit, Texas. Its shelves are stocked with music. Edith DeWitt’s dad opened the place in 1919. His daughter has nudged aside the can goods to nourish other needs. For 66 years she learned to play dozens of instruments so she could teach whatever her students wanted to master — piano, organ, drums, ballroom dancing, tap dancing, marimba, banjo. She also mastered ballet, acrobatic dancing, drama and voice. Her most important lesson?
- Widow’s Guilt
In January 1957, Henry Alexander offered an innocent black man, Willie Edwards, a terrible choice while he looked down the barrel of a gun. Either run or jump from a bridge north of Montgomery, Alabama. He leapt into the Alabama River 50 feet below. Some fishermen found his body three months later.
Edwards’ wife, Sarah, was left with two children. She was pregnant with another. They never knew what happened to their father.
Before Diane Alexander’s husband died, he gave her his guilt. Clippings from his Ku Klux Klan days. The pattern for his hood. His pistol. A whip. And a stunning confession.
“He said, ‘My problem is Willie Edwards. I caused (his death.)”
- Today’s Lesson from Ms Ruby: “I’ll try.”
On an island off the coast of South Carolina sits an old school with a wooden floor, smoothed by a century of sliding feet. You’ll hear reading, writing and ‘rithmetic, but this story is about another “R.” Remembering Mrs. Ruby, Ruby Forsyth
- “I Will Find You.”
Bill Eisenhuth watched his psychiatric patients come and go. He decided to follow them into the streets. His office became the steam vents and alleys where his patients lived.
- Wannabe Movie Pirate
To all of us who grew up watching pirate movies, this place is kind of special. Blackbeard had a home just off of Main Street. There were more parrots and eye patches on these wharves than on the movie backlot. In 1981 they came back. Russ Morphew ran the only school for pirates this side of Hollywood.
- Teen is her mom’s boss
Jasmine Lawrence is living every kid’s dream. She gets to boss her mom. April Lawrence works for her 16 year old daughter. How’s that working out? It began with a bad hair day. The chemicals Jazzman used to relax her curls left her practically bald. She decided to create her own recipe — at age 11. Thirteen when she went off to summer camp to learn how to start a business. Eden Body Works was born with a $2-thousand dollar advance on her allowance.
At an age when most kids are lucky to get a summer job stacking shelves, Jazzman has 30 products in stores. She signed a distribution agreement with Walmart. Plans to take her brand world wide. Projected profits: one million dollars. Not bad for a kid in Williamstown, New Jersey.
- Carrying Home in his Heart
For 93 years Beltran Paris has carried his home in his heart. He is the last of the old time mountain men who came from from France and Spain to take a job few people wanted. You can find him behind a moving white blanket of sheep. He still walks them 150 miles to winter pasture. In all those hours alone, Beltran Paris set a plan. He took his pay in sheep. One day, he hoped his children and his children’s children would own the valley where he walked. They do — Butte Valley, Nevada.
- Keeping Kids Out of Prison
Detective Dick Dutrow has had to arrest children as young as 11. He worries less about catching them than keeping them out of prison. When all else fails, he will raise a troubled boy himself. He took in 35 foster children in the 15 years. Most went to college. Married and now have children of their own. None went to prison.
- Longest School Trip
If you could take Alaska and lay it over the lower 48 states, one side would touch Florida, the other California. It’s distances are so vast, travel budgets for high school sports teams can run 100-thousand dollars a year. Arch rivals often live a thousand miles away. Any high school kid who wants to perform or play music must first — learn how to pack.
- American Families We Used to Hear About
Under a cotton puff sky, I met the kind of family America used to know. Wading through the wheat fields came Roger and David and their nephew Jay. Their dads work on the oil rigs. So do four older brothers — 10 hours a day, 7 days a week. They live in a home their parents bought two decades ago for $140., a home their parents rebuilt in the quiet of their evenings.
- Rescuing the Rescuers
The wind can sound like Hell’s idea of music in the north Atlantic. Blizzards blow in biblical proportions; one of them taught Lanier Phillips a great lesson. Caring can come from unexpected places.
- Soul Circuit Rodeo
June 19th. This was the date great, great, grand daddies used to mark the calendar of their lives. In 1865 folks gathered to hear a general who came to tell Texas what the rest of the world already knew. Black Americans were now free. They called it Juneteeth, the day that changed the world. Black Texans had already turned their world upside down.
- Texas Spiny Lizard
The Texas Spiny Lizard is the most elusive animal on earth. It can only be caught with a blow gun and pitted pimento olives.
- In a Beefcake World, He was a Patty Melt
In a beefcake world, LaGrand Nielsen was a patty melt, putting on the pounds. So, at 96, he started eating right. At 97, he entered the Panhellenic Games in Greece. Won races in China, South Africa, Finland, Australia and Rome. How’d he do it?
“All my competitors are dead.”