‘Why do you like space so much?’: A NASA Engineer Talks With His Space-Obsessed Nephew

At StoryCorps, interviews with children can be challenging, but six-year-old Jerry Morrison isn’t your average kid.

Jerry is obsessed with outer space, so of course his favorite person to talk to is his uncle Joey Jefferson, a Mission Operations Engineer at NASA. 

When they get together, their conversations always revolve around one thing…

Top photo: Jerry Morrison and Joey Jefferson at their StoryCorps interview in Culver City, CA on November 14, 2019. Courtesy of the Morrison family.

Bottom photo: Joey Jefferson and Jerry Morrison on Jerry’s first visit to the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where Joey works, in 2015. Courtesy of the Morrison family.

Originally aired January 24, 2020 on NPR’s Morning Edition.  

Original Cast Member of Hair on the Groundbreaking Broadway Musical

The rock musical Hair centers on a “tribe” of hippies who resist the Vietnam War to celebrate peace and love in New York’s East Village.

Mary Lorrie Davis was part of the original Broadway cast in 1968. She came to StoryCorps to tell her friend, Rima Cohn, what it was like to be part of that moment.

Photo: Rima Cohn (left) and Mary Lorrie Davis at their StoryCorps interview in Culver City, California. Photo by Melissa Kuypers.

Roger Alvarez and Antero Garcia

Antero Garcia (right) taught Roger Alvarez (left) in his 9th grade English class at Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles.

That year, the school’s graduation rate was just 42 percent, and Roger was one of the students who didn’t make it through his senior year.

Roger dropped out in 2007 and hadn’t seen his former teacher until the two of them sat down together at StoryCorps.

When they recorded this interview, Roger was working the night shift at a loading dock, and he said he hopes to get his GED one day. Antero Garcia is now an Assistant Professor of English at Colorado State University.

Originally aired January 29, 2012, on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday.