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It’s not always easy to come face to face with your past. Sometimes nostalgia is painful. Dick Rossetti knows this well. He was a DJ for Seattle’s big alternative rock radio station, 107.7 The End, in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He lucked into the job, which is normally a super competitive gig that people who are funny on the air take very seriously off mic . This was not Rossetti. This wasn’t something he dreamed about doing. He was a rock 'n' roll guy. But as it turned out, he loved being

Ken Workman always knew that part of his family tree was rooted in the Duwamish Indian Tribe. But, being Native American when he was growing up in the 1960s in Seattle was a topic he was told not to share with anyone. “It was very bad to be a Native American; very bad. It was so bad that Great Grandma never said anything about being Duwamish and she took it to her grave. Great Grandma apparently knew the ways. She knew how to go down to the beach and just eat. She knew the berries to pick. She

Lane Czaplinski has been the artistic director at On The Boards, a Seattle-based contemporary performing arts organization since 2002. He has basically been working in the arts since he graduated college. But in his senior year of college, a series of unusual circumstances led to him climbing the ranks of one of the most historic and decorated college basketball programs in the country. Lane chose to go to the University of Kansas, but not to play basketball. He took basketball very seriously in

We are changing all of the time. We are shaped by new experiences, people we meet, the work that we do. You might start a career thinking you love what you do - and years later have a completely different opinion. This is what happened to Father Antonio Illas. He is the pastor for Saint Matthew-San Mateo Episcopal Church in Auburn, Wash. But for more than two decades, Illas was an immigration agent for the U.S. Federal Government. “It was very rewarding trying to remove or put behind bars

Seattle writer Michael Long was a terrible student in grade school. It wasn't that he couldn't do well; it was just that he had no interest in it. Instead of studying or paying attention in class, he would often be caught doodling or staring off into space. Michael's parents had tried just about everything, including doctors and medication. But nothing seemed to work. Then Michael's parents found a doctor who suggested that one of the reasons kids do poorly in school is because they didn't crawl

As the years go by, it can be harder and harder to find singers and bands that still perform the original charts from the '30s and '40s, which include Ella Fitzgerald's first big hit with the Chick Webb Orchestra, the 1938 recording of “A Tisket, A Tasket.” In Tacoma, you can find the Swing Reunion Orchestra doing just that. The Swing Reunion Orchestra performs free concerts at the McKinley VFW in Tacoma the last Mondays of the month, and first and foremost, they want their music to sound

This week on Sound Effect, we tell stories of the lies we hear and the lies we tell. Old Time Con Woman One woman became one of the most infamous liars in the Northwest in the early 1900s. Maude Wagnon, who went under the alias Maude Johnson, swindled railroad companies out of an estimated thousands of dollars. Student Scam This past spring, hundreds of thousands of dollars, possibly over a million, were stolen from Chinese international students going to school at the University of Washington.

At the turn of the 20th century, trolleys were just beginning to transform cities across the country. At the same, one Oregon woman figured out a way to defraud the companies that operated these interurban railroads. Maud Wagnon, who went under many aliases but was known by most as Maud Myrtle Johnson, was dubbed the "Queen of Fakers" by newspapers across the Western United States for her history of swindling the trolleys. How did Maud become one of the most infamous liars of the Northwest?

When something seems too good to be true, it probably is. More than 90 Chinese international students at the University of Washington had to find this out the hard way. This past spring, Chinese students were the target of a scam. The alleged ringleader, a fellow Chinese student who goes by FY, possibly walked away with nearly a million dollars. The scam promised students 5 percent off tuition for the 2016 summer quarter if they gave the money to people working for FY. Justin Su, a 21-year-old

There are lots occasions when bending the truth is something we want to happen. This is what more than 60,000 people do every summer in the Nevada desert for Burning Man, the iconic week-long festival with art, music and lots of partying. It’s an event that attracts the likes of hippies, Hollywood celebrities and tech billionaires. However, Burning Man is also sometimes described as one, giant, utopian lie. Before going to Burning Man, where he is known as Konifer, 31-year-old Benjamin Kantner’s