After our lovely stint in Saranac Lake, we drove south through the Adirondacks and ended up just outside of the Adirondack Park in Glens Falls, New York, a small, friendly town appropriately nicknamed “Hometown U.S.A.” by Look Magazine in the 1940s. Facilitator Jenna Weiss-Berman bid farewell to Yuki Aizawa and welcomed a new co-facilitator, Hilary Marshall. We met lots of wonderful people in Glens Falls, including Jane Jacobs, above, who proudly displayed her recording for our post-interview photos. Jane talked about her parents, both immigrants from Italy. Her father was passionate about music and built himself a violin out of a cigar box when he was a child. He eventually got a real violin and played music on the Staten Island Ferry to make money. Years later, he started an orchestra at the Struthers Library Theater in Warren, Pennsylvania, where he played music in the orchestra pit during silent films. Jane grew up around her father’s music and began to play music herself, eventually leading to a scholarship at Oberlin College. She graduated in 1943, sixty-two years before Jenna, Jane’s facilitator, graduated from the same college. Above, Jane Jacobs leaves the booth with her interview partner and friend Ellen Butz. After Jane’s interview, we welcomed Al Posteraro (Right) and his friend Kevin Knapp. Kevin works at the group home where Al lives and brought Al to the booth to talk about his life. Al, who is truly a jack of all trades, has recently picked up a new hobby of writing history books. He also enjoys playing the drums, hanging out with his firefighter friends, and ringing a Salvation Army bell every winter to get donations. Al recently also became CPR and First Aid certified, which he says was the proudest moment of his life.

Inspired by StoryCorps participants here in Saranac Lake like Clarence Petty, who will be 103 in August and attributes his health to spending so much time hiking in the mountains and wandering through the woods…

…and Peter Roland, 84, who came in with his son Peter Roland, Jr. to talk about their lifelong passion for skiing in the slopes of the Adirondacks…

…Yuki and Jenna decided to try to live like these healthy, happy locals and explore the Adirondack Park, in which Saranac Lake is located. They went hiking, boating, nature appreciating, wildflower picking, grilling, swimming, and s’more making. It then occurred to them that if they always lived like this, they too would make it to 103 years old!

After two StoryCorps Door-to-Doors together, facilitators Jenna Weiss-Berman and Yuki Aizawa were ready for the big leagues–the StoryCorps Mobile Tour! We left the?extreme heat of New York City?and headed up to Saranac Lake, New York in the Adirondacks. We parked the booth in beautiful Pontiac Bay Park on Flower Lake, which we soon renamed Baby Goose Pond for obvious reasons.

Senior Coordinator Terry Scott and Yuki set up the booth’s power.

Jenna affixed radio station partner?North Country Public Radio‘s logo to the booth.

And at the end of the day, we went home and sat on the boat dock of our cottage on Colby Lake. The Adirondacks are lovelier than we could have imagined, and we’re thrilled to start interviews.

Among the interview participants were Jerry and Jane Smallwood, who met in high school but didn’t marry until many years later. In fact, after Jerry left for the Navy, they both married other people. But through the years they couldn’t stop thinking of one another, and they were finally reunited. Jerry was injured many years ago when the plane he was piloting crashed, which was most likely the cause of his memory loss and Aphasia, but he hasn’t let his ailments stop him from taking walks on the beautiful beaches of the Outer Banks with the love of his life, Jane.

Jenna and Kemba are now in New Bern, North Carolina and it is HOT! 80 degrees today, to be precise. New Bern is the home of novelist Nicholas Sparks, as well as the inspiration for his romantic classic The Notebook. And I (Jenna) am staying in a home (above) on the Neuse River, with local New Bernian Zelma Peter, that bears an uncanny resemblance to the home that Noah built for Allie in the movie version of The Notebook (one of my personal favorites).

Zelma has lived in New Bern all her life and thinks of it as the perfect Southern town. She’s trying to turn me into a Southerner by cooking me delicious Southern meals and I think it’s working, y’all. In the photo above, we are eating sweet potatoes, collard greens, ham and cornbread.

Speaking of cooking and romance, Jimmie and Tharesa Lee, both from New Bern, came in to talk about their 23 wonderful years of marriage. Jimmie, originally from Mobile, Alabama, loves Tharesa’s cooking, as well as her smile, the way she treats others, and “the way [she] wears her lipstick.”

Another happy couple, Robin Smart and Joan Jealous, met on a bus in the 1960s. They were the only people on the bus, and Robin recalls that she was “the prettiest girl on the bus, as well as the only girl on the bus.” They both moved to North Carolina from England and have been together ever since.

Ira Lewis, 89 (L), and his daughter Margaret Ann Lewis Rose, 67 (R), were our first Beaufort participants. Ira grew up on Harkers Island, a very small island near Beaufort that only recently had a bridge built connecting it to the mainland. The absence of a bridge kept the island completely isolated for hundreds of years, which explains the roots and remnants of what is known as the “High Tider” accent of the islanders, a beautiful combination of Elizabethan English and a slow Southern drawl.

In his interview, Ira referred to the building of the bridge as the “downfall of the island,” because it lead to lots of development and a loss of much of the beach front, which was once owned by fishermen and now belongs to wealthy outsiders. Ira has many wonderful memories of growing up in what felt like one big family, and he knows that no matter how many new people move to the island, “no one can take away our memories.”

Dorothy Guthrie, 96 (L), also from Harkers Island, came in to the booth with her son Heber Guthrie, 57 (R), to talk about her childhood there. The island had no electricity, and the small school was heated by fires built with wood that the school children collected. The island was so isolated when she was a child that she didn’t see her first car until she was a teenager. When the car approached her group of friends, they all jumped and hid in the bushes.

One of the biggest perks of being a facilitator: we get to hold babies like little Hallie Jean Burciaga!

Aaron then sent in his friend Francisco Castillo (R) and Francisco’s daughter Amanda Castillo (L) in for an interview. Francisco told Amanda stories about his rowdy childhood and his love of exploring the woods, which included a couple of frightening but exhilarating encounters with bears. They also talked about Francisco’s wife, and Amanda’s mother, who is a Marine currently deployed in Iraq. She has been away since September and comes back this Friday, and Francisco has been taking care of their four children, including Amanda, in her absence. Amanda is very excited for her mom to came home because, among other things, she is an excellent cook. Cooking is not Francisco’s specialty, and, Amanda tells him, “I’m sick of eating steaks all the time!”

Speaking of Marines coming home, Camp Lejeune and the area surrounding is decorated with hundreds of signs welcoming Marines back.

Facilitators Jenna Weiss-Berman and Kemba Bloodworth went along with the Mobile Booth on the five hour trek from Charlotte, North Carolina to Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina.

We were greeted by our gracious Marine escorts Corporal Meier and Lieutenant Thomas, who both work in the Public Affairs Office at Camp Lejeune. We parked the booth in front of the base’s own department store, the Marine Corps Exchange.

Corporal Meier and Lieutenant Thomas then took a look around the booth.

Some of our first interview subjects were Marines Nick DiOrio, of CaÒon City, Colorado, and Patrick Fleischman, from the Bronx, New York. Both men are combat journalists in the Marines. Nick takes his video camera wherever he goes, and Patrick is a photographer. Patrick knew he wanted to pursue combat journalism, and he told us that he could think of no better way to do that than by actually joining the military and being among the people he wanted to document. Nick recounted his time filming the current war in Afghanistan, where he was exposed to an entirely new, different, and interesting culture and way of life.

Facilitators Kemba Bloodworth (L) and Jenna Weiss-Berman (R) rolled into Charlotte, North Carolina, to record the stories of any Charlotteans who would share them with us. We are working with Charlotte’s very helpful and supportive NPR station, WFAE.

Opening day brought in a wonderful array of southern charmers, including Alys Honey (L), 94, and her great great grand nephew, Michael Stuart (R), 11. Alys talked to Michael about how much the world has changed since she was his age. “You live in a world that I could have never dreamed of as a child,” Alys told Michael.

Angie Forde (L), 58, came to the booth with her friend Dawoud Assad (R), 62, to talk about his very interesting life as an internationally traveling electrician, his conversion to Islam, and his current predicament–Dawoud is homeless. After a home foreclosure a year and a half ago, Dawoud has been living on the streets of Charlotte. Dawoud never imagined this life for himself, but he told Angie that “homelessness can happen to anyone.” He recently got his Paralegal Degree and is currently looking for a job, and he gets support from our wonderful partner organization, the Charlotte Urban Ministry Center.

Jae Nale (R), an Orlando resident, always knew she wanted a baby, and she was determined that coming out as a lesbian wouldn’t change her chances of having one. Jae was artificially inseminated in the early 1980s, which was almost unheard of among lesbians in the south. She came in with her daughter, Stacy Nale (L), a psychologist, to talk about Stacy’s often difficult experiences being raised in rural Mississippi by a lesbian mother. Stacy then told her own coming out story. Both women have worked hard to change people’s conceptions of lesbians, and, in Jae’s words, “they can only stereotype us if they don’t know who we really are.”

Later, Stacy and her fiancÈ, LeShun Stadom, took us out dancing!

And then we talked Stacy (R) and LeShun (L) into coming in for an interview of their own. LeShun talked about being raised by her loving grandparents after the death of her mother, becoming a firefighter in Orlando, and meeting Stacy, the love of her life.