That was how our radio partner KMUW welcomed us as we pulled into Wichita, Kansas for our stop in the Wheat State. And the stories have been plentiful. Wichita, we learned, is the originator of many things: Pizza Hut, the electric guitar, Cessna airplanes, and yes, folks, the original White Castle.  Pizza, and airplanes, and little, tiny, burgers, oh my!

Our first week of recording, Randy Cabral came in with his friend and colleague Heidi Johnson to talk about the first fully-tactile Braille American flag. Randy created the flag to honor his father, a World War II veteran who became blind later in life. The American flag was a big deal in the Cabral family. Every day his father insisted that it be raised and lowered in front of their house. As his father’s sight grew dim, Randy decided to dedicate himself to learning Braille and subsequently started the Kansas Braille Transcription Institute.

One evening Randy’s mother told him that his father, who was now completely blind, had confused their American flag with her scarf. That same evening Randy drafted the first-ever tactile American flag. Randy has toured the country with his flag, commemorating it at places such as Arlington National Cemetery, as well as giving a copy to President Obama. Some of his most prized memories, however, have been when he has witnessed blind Americans ’see’ their flag for the very first time.

Due to popular demand—and the generosity of our host, The Contemporary Jewish Museum, our StoryBooth has been extended through October, 2010!

To celebrate, we’re having a party.

Please join us at the Contemporary Jewish Museum on Sunday, November 8th from 2-4pm to listen to never-before-heard highlights from year one of our San Francisco StoryBooth—and toast to year two!

More information can be found here, on the Museum’s website. We would love to see you there.

In addition, reservations at the San Francisco StoryBooth are now open through February, 2010. We still have some open slots on the calendar, so now is the perfect time to make a reservation to record a conversation with a family member over the holiday season or schedule a Valentine’s Day surprise. Reservations can be made through our website or by calling 1-800-850-4406. Interview times go quickly, so make sure to sign up now.

It has been a true honor to listen to Bay Area stories for the past year, and we are beyond thrilled to have the chance to preserve even more stories from this incredibly diverse community.

Come visit us at the booth one of these days, okay?

Our friends at 89.5 FM not only set up a huge banner over Waterside Drive announcing our arrival, but they also provided music and food for guests at our opening day. Of course, the best part of any opening day is the stories we hear from our participants.

Brenda H. Andrews interviewed her friend Andrew I. Heidelberg about his experiences as one of the Norfolk 17,  the first group of  black students to attend previously white schools during desegregation in Virginia. One day, when 12 year-old Andrew was coming home for dinner, there were two women and a man from the NAACP at his family’s home. They wanted to recruit Andrew in their efforts to get African-American students into recently desegregated schools. Andrew agreed to participate but had no idea what to expect. Months later at age 13 was his first day at Norview High School. Despite the tremendous prejudice he faced on a daily basis from white students at Norview, he knew he would graduate. “I didn’t want to let them make me quit,” he said.

A tale of triumph over a different kind of adversity came from Ray Evans who spoke with his daughter Debra Matthews about what it was like to be a child evacuee in England during World War II. His separation from his family found him in foster home after foster home, some of them warm and loving and others awful and abusive. Ray also talked about the bittersweet moment when he had to leave his final foster home—a wonderful, caring place—to return to his family.

Mr. Heidelberg summed up the message of both stories when he said, “Quitters never win and winners never quit!”

The opportunity arose to hear more from Frank when he brought his niece, Jo, into the StoryBooth. Frank and Jo spoke honestly about regrets and second chances in life. Frank told Jo that having her in his life is a ‘wonderful gift.’ The love and understanding he and his niece explored during that 40 minutes was a beautiful thing to witness. It strongly reinforced why it is so incredibly important to sit down with the people you love and have a conversation.

I can only say how honored I felt to be a part of it and to have an opportunity to know my colleague and friend better.

Here are some thoughts from Frank:

The tables were turned when I recently moved from one side of the StoryCorps booth to the other, when I went from facilitator to participant with my 28 year old niece, Jo. I was surprised at how different it was to be the designated storyteller. The physical immediacy of where we were receded as our voices became the dominant reality. The soft light of the table lamp illuminated an intimate and comfortable space. Jo and I found an atmosphere of trust and acceptance that permitted us to open our hearts. Eloise, our facilitator, did a superb job of actively listening and asking helpful questions. Her participation was genuinely nurturing and helped the process of discovery and revelation
that took place.

We couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome. Thank you, Eloise, and thank you, StoryCorps!

Everyone at StoryCorps is excited to have a StoryBooth in the South, especially the Atlanta team: Lillie Love, Anthony Knight, Lola Ibitoye, Katrina Singh, and me! We are thrilled to be recording and preserving the stories of the South for our nation and future generations to hear. And we are very grateful to 90.1 WABE for hosting us for our first year in Atlanta.

Anthony, Lola, Lillie, Katrina, Amanda

We spent two weeks training and learning the ins and outs of StoryCorps. We learned how to record stories and archive them for the Library of Congress.

Katrina, Lillie, Lola and Anthony practice recording

Last week, we hosted a Friends and Family Week to practice our facilitation skills. I had a great time facilitating a conversation between two of my new friends, Alex West and Chris Appleton, best friends and co-founders of Wonderroot. Chris and Alex grew up together in Atlanta. When they were in college, they started planning to create a community arts organization in Atlanta with their friend Whit. Now their vision has come to life – the Wonderroot community arts space in Reynoldstown has now become a staple in the Atlanta activist and art scenes. Chris and Alex also talked about the people who inspired them, their visions for Atlanta, and the pranks they play on each other. We hope to partner with Wonderroot throughout the year.

Chris Appleton and Alex West

We will be recording on Thursdays and Saturdays at our booth, located in Studio 3 at 90.1 WABE. We will also be working with community organizations to do recordings out in the field each month.

To record an interview with a loved one at our Atlanta StoryBooth, make a reservation online or call 800-850-4406. (If there are no available appointment times, please sign up for our wait-list!) Then, prepare for your interview by reading what to expect, and create a list of great questions using our Question Generator.

Stay tuned to 90.1 WABE to hear stories recorded locally in Atlanta. You can also hear the weekly StoryCorps broadcast every Friday morning on NPR’s Morning Edition.

We look forward to recording your stories, Atlanta!

Outside of StoryCorps, I work at St. Anthony’s Technology Lab where our mission is to educate people and familiarize them with the technological tools of the 21st century. Many of the clients who come in have served sentences in prison, are recovering addicts, or have just never had the confidence to actively learn how to use a computer—much less navigate through the internet. I like to think of the Lab as a melting pot; from Cairo to Kyoto, Sweden to New Orleans, it is as if 60 people from across the globe were selected at random and placed on the 3rd floor of 150 Golden Gate Ave. In other words, it is a perfect place for StoryCorps to capture a wealth of experience and emotion.

(Chris Mardirosian)

Recently, my two different worlds came together for a day of recording StoryCorps interviews at the St. Anthony Foundation. In a quiet room at the back of the lab, we were able to talk with many of the clients about their lives. There was Chris Mardirosian, who was born on an Indian reservation and lost many of his family members by the time he was a teenager, Jim Oxley who taught himself how to gamble and eventually became a professional. There was Stephen Chinazzo, who revealed to us his longstanding passion for ballroom dancing, and Jody Spaziani, who helped his mother through her battle with Alzheimer’s. Each man had a completely different story, but the themes were common: friendship, community, love, adventure, loss and acceptance.

(Stephen Chinazzo)

I see these people nearly every day, but never would have known the struggles they have endured, the joys they have experienced and the lessons they have learned had they not shared with StoryCorps. I was reminded once again of the power of telling one’s story. The ability for people to find common ground if they will take the time to stop and talk to each other. Sometimes it’s that simple.

(William Oberst)

(Jody Spaziani)

“As a 16 year old, being a teenage father, and not having any real concept of what a father looked like, or not knowing what he sounded like, I guess I was really nervous and scared,” Colbert answered.

Colbert now raises Nathan as a single father. As a kid, Colbert remembers that he and his friends had a common bond—most were growing up with single mothers, without fathers in the picture.

“I am so proud of you because you have allowed me to be a father. I am proud of you for allowing my voice to still have meaning in a time and place when our fathers’ voices are becoming echoes. You could have used ‘growing up without a mom’ as a crutch and you have not allowed that to happen. I am also proud of you for allowing me to bring other kids that have been in really rough situations into our home,” Colbert told Nathan.

Colbert has made himself a father-figure to more boys than just Nathan. After working in an emergency shelter for years, Colbert decided he could provide a loving supportive home for others, and welcomed some of the adolescent boys he worked with into his home.

At age 29, Colbert finally searched for and found his own father. Colbert told Nathan, “I wanted you to have a grandfather and at the same time I found myself longing for a father. I had to heal the boy inside of me and at the same time teach the boy in you.” Last Thanksgiving, Colbert and Nathan met their new-found family for the first time. Nathan said, “We went from a small family to a huge one.”

Five days before her scheduled appointment, Kara Durland (middle) emailed her parents to invite them to join her at the StoryCorps MobileBooth in Colorado Springs. Gene & Jeannine Ross jumped in their car and drove to meet her—1700 miles from their home in Chantilly, Virginia.

“Well, when I found out about it, my first inclination was ‘Yeah, I want to go. And I want to drive…because we like to drive a lot,’” Eugene says. In the MobileBooth, the couple described to their daughter their different childhood experiences; their Italian, Irish, Slovak & Czech ancestry; and their love for the road.

Although he was scheduled to fly back home to New York City from Colorado Springs only two hours after his early morning StoryCorps appointment, the time crunch didn’t stifle Ed Riegelhaupt’s enthusiasm for participating. Ed happened to be in Colorado Springs visiting his daughter, Stacey Bloomfield, when she asked him to participate. Stacey wanted to record a specific period in her father’s life. In 1960, Ed quit his job because his wife Joyce Firstenberg Riegelhaupt, a cultural anthropologist, wanted to study villages in Portugal.

“I was working for Union Carbide Corporation…and I knew she had to go into the field as part of her PhD. I knew about this from the very beginning, but wasn’t worried about leaving my job because I knew I could get another job as a financial analyst. I felt really very comfortable and enthusiastic about going overseas with her. It was a chance for a great adventure…”

I first caught a glimpse of Cem Salahifar (above, left) outside of the MobileBooth talking into his cell phone while pointing it left, right, up, down and every direction. He told me later that he was making a video for his fiancee Yesmin in Istanbul. Cem makes his home…everywhere. He’s currently getting his MBA in Colorado Springs, but flies to work in Italy, and from there travels to Istanbul to visit Yesmin. In the MobileBooth, he told me the story of how he rekindled his relationship with Yesmin, a lifelong friend with whom he had lost touch. He talked about their reunion in Turkey only a few months ago, his proposal at Rome’s International Airport, and their plans to marry in Istanbul. At the end of his recording, Cem told Yesmin how much he loved her, both in English and Turkish. He’ll be giving her a copy of the interview soon…when they meet in Istanbul next month.

After driving through snow and sleet, MobileBooth West pulled into downtown Colorado Springs, CO and set up shop in front of the Penrose Public Library. KRCC General Manager Delaney Utterback and Producer Noel Black greeted us warmly and looked on with excitement as we wedged the MobileBooth into its new home. And if a big shiny Airstream trailer wasn’t enough to announce our arrival in town, KRCC went to work producing a short web video providing the curious community with an inside peek as to what StoryCorps is all about.

Set at the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains and the base of the famous Pikes Peak, sprawling Colorado Springs is home to quite a number of institutions and attractions, including the United States Air Force Academy, NORAD, Fort Carson, Focus on the Family, Colorado College, the United States Olympic Training Center and Committee Headquarters, Seven Falls, and the Garden of the Gods National Park (to name a few!). Our partner organizations are just as vast and numerous, including PEAK Parent Association, PHAMALY Theatre, Partners in Housing, the Alzheimer’s Association of Colorado Springs, African Americans in Gerontology, Pikes Peak Community College, Future Self, and more. Given the wide range of various places, communities, and organizations,  MobileBooth West will soon be filled with an equally diverse array of participants, life experiences, and stories!

So far, so good, in Colorado Springs!

Chris was born with a condition called V.A.T.E.R. Syndrome which has compromised the health of his kidneys and led to two surgeries and frequent infections throughout all of his 18 years. While Chris has not had the benefit of a mutant power to help him through the lifelong challenges of his condition, he has had his own kind of healing factor: the love and support of his family, which includes his mom, Jennifer Murray, and his grandmother, Anna Armstrong, who accompanied him into the MobileEast Booth.

Chris’ love of heroes with complex personalities, like Wolverine, the Incredible Hulk, and Spiderman speaks to his own belief that the good and the bad sometimes go hand in hand. “There is darkness in everything, in everybody, but within the darkness there is a glimmer of light,” says Chris. “If you can find that light you can help it shine. I think the light is what we all call faith. If you just believe in it the darkness will go away.”