American Countryside - An Amazing Journey

Why is there a National Hobo Museum in Britt, Iowa?  I called the museum and they asked if I wanted to interview two hobos.  Of course I did!  I'll take you to Britt to meet real-life hobos and the town that has embraced them for over a century.  

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It's so large it’s a city within a city, with cars and rails headed to all points in the nation. I'll take you inside the yard where 8000-10,000 rail cars are housed at any one time for the fascinating process of getting cargo where it needs to go...and it's all open to visitors from a perch high above the plains.

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You’ll soon find, this was about much more that just a very long walk - it was a walk of faith.  By the end of the journey, some might have regarded Bruce Sweet as an angel sent to minister to those in need.  There is a very strong spiritual component to this story, one that reminds us that our biggest goals in life are often about much more than what is on the surface.  Here’s the story of Bruce and his hike of the full Appalachian Trail

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They are the cowboys of Hawaii and I visit with perhaps the biggest paniolo of all, Robby Hind, former livestock manager of the Parker Ranch, the largest ranch in Hawaii at over 200,000 acres.  We take a look at cattle that graze on the lava fields and learn the interesting history behind Mr. Parker, a kid who jumped ship and wound up creating an enterprise that thrives yet today.

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It may sound like a laughing matter, but it was not.  A 25 foot tall wall of molasses was moving through the streets of Boston at 35 miles per hour.  We go to Commercial Street were the tragedy unfolded and explore the changes in our world as a result. 

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He’s a man who’s story would take volumes to tell, and we hit some of the most intriguing points in the life of the amazing showman.  William Cody has different towns that could claim him as his hometown, but North Platte, NE has a strong basis for that title…yet not everyone there is a big fan.  Tthat has to do with Bill’s marriage to Louisa…a marriage that was quite rocky at times.  This tale has many twist and turns and we even get into the mysterious disappearance of some of the Wild West Show cast when they were interrogated by the Germans on the eve of World War I and never seen again.  Here’s the story of William Cody, aka Buffalo Bill.

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Perhaps you know how and why the product got that name…but there’s much more to this story and it’s all because of the CEO of WD40, Gary Ridge.  

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We take you the country of Iran in 1979.  Tom Schaefer was working in the U.S. Embassy when he and others working there were taken hostage for 444 days.  It’s an amazing story of keeping mind, body and faith strong in one of the most difficult times a person could face. 

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On this edition of our podcast I take you to a farm field just outside Clear Lake, Iowa.  It was here on the evening of February 2, 1959, Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, Ritchie Valens and Waylon Jennings had just played a concert.  But the night would end in tragedy.  It was the event remembered in the first lines of the song Bye Bye Miss American Pie.

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