Humble Pie

Friday, July 24 2009 - Humble Pie

David Bailey

David Bailey was a successful food writer for airline magazines when the recession hit and he lost his job. He was 61 and had a hefty mortgage, so retirement wasn't an option. But when David searched for work, he wasn't only looking to pay the bills. He wanted to explore new ways to reinvent himself and his career.

That's when he decided to become a dishwasher at a local restaurant. It was a hard job, and David worked his way up to line cook. He talks to Janet Babin about why he's content with working behind the scenes in the restaurant business.

• Follow David's blog

SECOND INTERVIEW

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Try Looking on MySpace

Tuesday, July 21 2009 - Try Looking on MySpace

Crystal Riportella-Crose

Crystal Riportella-Crose was adopted when she was an infant and grew up in Vermont. As an interracial child in a Caucasian family, she always wondered what her birth mother looked like. So when she got older, she began to search for her, and eventually found her birth mother on the social networking site, MySpace.

Crystal tells Janet Babin how she ended up meeting her birth mother in person, and what that odd mix of feelings was like.

• See photos of Crystal's reunion with her birth mother

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Alison and Pat Keenan

Alison Keenan found a husband and a father for her children in a newspaper ad. Not that she meant to.

In 1987, Alison was newly-divorced and needed a babysitter for her two boys. She looked through the classifieds. There she saw a phone number for someone named "Pat." When Alison discovered that Pat was a man she was nervous, but she met with him anyway. He took the job and moved into their apartment immediately. Nine months later, Pat Keenan stole their hearts, married Alison and adopted the boys.

They talk with Dick Gordon about how the babysitting job turned into romance and the first Father's Day when the boys acknowledged Pat as "Dad." This story originally aired on June 13, 2008.

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Over the Moon

Monday, July 20 2009 - Over the Moon

top to bottom: Bill Bussey, Chris Gember, John Polanda, Steve Gustafson (larger)

Forty years ago today, millions of people watched, transfixed, as Neil Armstrong took his first step onto the moon. Today we talk with five people who remember that moment well.

Bill Bussey was 10. His parents drove the family to Florida to watch the launch from the Kennedy Space Center - then they got in the car and drove back to Georgia to watch the moon landing on TV.

Chris Gember's father used the moon landing as an excuse to buy a color TV - even though the actual broadcast was in black and white. Chris remembers the event as one that made her realize how peaceful and unified the planet could be.

John Polodna was serving in the Army. He heard about the moon landing in the middle of a misbegotten adventure, drifting down a river in Alaska in a boat that had run out of gas.

And Steve Gustafson was in Holland, newly married to his Dutch bride. Her elderly grandmother, Oma, was convinced the whole thing was staged, filmed in an American desert like the television show High Chaparral. And if it were real, Oma was convinced the world was about to end.

Charlie Duke

We also listen back to an interview Dick Gordon recorded with the astronaut Charlie Duke. Charlie visited the moon in 1972. While walking on the lunar surface, he and a fellow astronaut held, what they called, the very first Space Olympics, including a high jump "competition." That program aired on October 20, 2006.

• Hear Dick's original interview with Charlie
• Read more about Astronaut Charlie Duke

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Two Teachers, One Out of Work

Thursday, July 02 2009 - Two Teachers, One Out of Work








Connie and Steve Rice relocated from Southern California to work as teachers in Oregon. Both have years of experience, and they enjoyed their classrooms in Oregon. But the national budget woes have hit schools hard. First Connie was laid off, then Steve. Dick Gordon talks with both Connie and Steve about how the lack of job stability for teaching has affected their lives, and about how they heard the welcome news that Steve would be rehired.

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