Spotting Wisconsin™

Within a few seconds of my pressing record, Peter Laing revealed why he had taken up bicycling on the Interurban Trail in Ozaukee County—to handle his grief. This interview was recorded in August of 2015 at a picnic table on the trail in Belgium, Wisconsin. Please like, comment and share this podcast from Spotting Wisconsin’s Facebook […]

In late August, I was biking in Harrington Beach State Park when I spotted a man with binoculars. He was looking into the woods by Lake Michigan. Turns out, Mark Sulway had flown from across the pond (Wales, United Kingdom) and was bird watching in Wisconsin. Visit with Mark who was spotting ‘lifers’ near the village […]

I stood next to an older man who was sitting on a mobility scooter at the Holland Festival parade in Cedar Grove, Wisconsin in late July.  I learned that the mobility scooter isn’t because he is in his eighties but because at age five, in a small town in North Dakota, his legs were paralyzed from […]

Can you hike for an hour? Can you see yourself biking for fourteen days with two twelve-year-olds? How about walking nearly 9,000 miles around the outer states of the U.S.A.? Three times in four days in late August, strangers-on-the-move through Ozaukee County were on-the-spot interviewed for Spotting Wisconsin. What is a ‘challenge’ is personal. Hearing these […]

Did you know that among us are people who remember spotting teams of horses hitched in town? This episode of Spotting Wisconsin shares portions of an oral history I recorded. I have enhanced this little memory piece with audio from my sound collection. Travel back in time with John Kauffman who now lives in Cedarburg but […]

In autumn, David Schueler and his family walked the beach at Harrington Beach State Park on Lake Michigan near Belgium, Wisconsin. They found coal that could have washed up from a sunken schooner years and years ago. David also talks about a special geological feature in Wisconsin, the Niagara Escarpment. A closer look at the wave-tossed coal.  Like, […]

In early October, I knocked on the door of a hobby beekeeper in rural southwestern Wisconsin’s Vernon County. Their neighbor had pointed it out as a story for Spotting Wisconsin. Tim Fitzpatrick and his wife, Kris, led me down the hill behind the house to the honey bee hives where in the summer an estimated […]

Jim Falkner of Milwaukee sat next to me at a live airing of the humorous Wisconsin Public Radio show, Michael Feldman’s Whad’Ya Know? We ‘yacked’ a little before the show. It made me wonder, what does Jim know? So, a couple days later, I phoned to find out that he had been admitted to the hospital the next morning after the show. […]

Come ride a day in a noisy library that runs on diesel and rolls around on wheels. Even when stopped, it’s noisy, because everything inside, the lights, heat and computers are powered with a generator. It’s the Eastern Shores Library System bookmobile that is driven by two hardy librarians who serve the people in the small towns and rural […]

Slow down! We’re in Colby, Wisconsin. I knocked on a door to ask directions to a historical marker. Eighty-six-year-old Virginia ‘Ginny’ Brown invited me in. With her antique calendar clock ticking, she talks about the early years, the present and the uncertain future—reflections on change, the passage of time, the story of life.