This story originally aired on Nov. 4, 2017. On Nov. 28, 1952, a chance occurrence – a clerical error – resulted in Bob Hofferber not catching his scheduled flight from Fort Ladd, Alaska to McChord Field in south Tacoma. It was an error that likely saved his life. The U.S. Air Force C-54G Skymaster crashed on its approach , resulting in the deaths of all but two of the people on board. Bob had spent most of the day checking out of Ladd Air Force Base, where he was coming to the end of an

This story originally aired Jan. 12, 2019. Nathalie Bajinya grew up in the Democratic Republic of Congo with her twin sister, her younger sister and brother, and her parents, a teacher and a school principal. In the early 2000s, the long-raging civil war in Congo was officially winding down, but all over the country, pockets of fighting continued.

This story originally aired Dec. 31, 2016. Tacoma arborist Mik Miazio loves trees. He has loved them since he was a kid growing up in New Jersey. "I remember climbing my first tree when I was a kid. As soon as I was able to, I would jump right in there and disappear. I’m in my own world right there," Miazio said. It was this love that led Miazio to discover the tallest tree in Tacoma's Point Defiance Park. He noticed the giant Douglas Fir poking out of the canopy when he moved to Tacoma three

This story originally aired on May 6, 2017. Ben Union basically grew up in a church, and for him there was little question as to what he wanted to be when he grew up. He was going to be a preacher. But in religion, just like in politics, or relationships, challenging or even traumatic experiences can make you change your feelings about a path you were once entirely certain about. This was the case for Ben Union. He didn’t become a preacher, but instead, a professional musician in Tacoma. Music

This story originally aired Feb. 25, 2017. In the late 1960s and early '70s, all sorts of underground newspapers had emerged from the counterculture and antiwar movements. Most of them weren’t actually all that underground, since there wasn’t much risk involved in publishing or distributing them. But if you were in the military and you wanted to publish stories that strayed from the company line, you could get in serious trouble. That led in part to something called the GI underground movement.

This story originally aired Feb. 25, 2017. To live in the Northwest is, to some extent, to roll the dice. If you lived through the 1965 Seattle earthquake, or the Nisqually quake in 2001, or if you just read the New Yorker article about the “really big one” destined to hit our region, you know this well: There are forces under our feet that could just shrug our cities off into the abyss. The push and pull of continental plates is so huge compared with a puny little human. And yet, for a man

This story originally aired on Feb. 11, 2017. In 1950s Tacoma, Harold Moss and his wife Willibelle faced racism in the search for a home. “You learned that when you called a white realtor, you had to use your white voice, and if you sounded black, you weren’t going to get anywhere,” said Moss. The couple owned a plot of land on which they intended to build a house, but banks refused to give him a mortgage and contractors refused to build. They decided to keep the land and buy a house instead.

This story originally aired on Feb. 17, 2018. If you visit Tacoma's Point Defiance Park most any afternoon, you'll see raccoons lounging about the trails by day, often next to signs warning visitors to not feed them. If you drive slowly enough through the park's roads, they might rush out of the misty old-growth forest to greet you, tiny paws outstretched for food. If you're on a bike, they might scurry after you for a stretch.

This story originally aired on Sept. 24, 2016 There are some things you might only be able to notice if you happen to be an insider. If you have lived in Tacoma for any extended period of time, there is a pretty good chance that you feel a bit territorial about it. It is a city that gets told that it can't measure up to Seattle. It is often associated with a certain aroma, while residents know that the smell doesn't really exist anymore, or at least doesn't compare to how it did decades ago. And

Host Gabriel Spitzer celebrates some of his favorite stories from past shows on today’s episode. We’ll meet a punter who thought he was a linebacker for a minute, a composer working in an empty 2 million gallon water tank , a cowboy who “met” Bigfoot and a Balkan rock star who staged an antiwar musical in a war zone.