Posts by ewuerffe
Growing Up Rural
“It was a lonely life. But there were woods and creeks and meadows and places where you can just sit on a hill under a tree and let the sun shine on you…” Produced by Rich Elliott. Transcript for Growing Up Rural I live in the country, it’s halfway between two towns, Valparaiso and Chesterton.…
Read MoreHow We Ended Up Coming to Gary
“It was the dirtiest place in the mill. But I guess they made a decent salary. So he encouraged my father to leave Florida and move to Gary.” Transcript for How We Ended Up Coming to Gary We grew up in the neighborhood that was near Pulaski School. My grandfather lived in the neighborhood. He…
Read MoreBethlehem Gave Up the Ghost
“We saw the writing on the wall, we knew it was coming.” Produced by Rich Elliott. Transcript for Bethlehem Gave Up the Ghost Bethlehem Steel’s a conglomeration of other steel plants that were merged or brought in from other areas. And it was all back east—you had Maryland, you had New York, you had Pennsylvania.…
Read MoreA Wonderful Childhood
“We had a village out there in Small Farms.” Transcript for A Wonderful Childhood I grew up in the Midtown section of Gary. It was a place called the Small Farms. It was called that for a reason because where I lived there were no sidewalks, no paved streets. I remember as a kid, we…
Read MoreI Was All Over That Mill
“I got to watch that. This was big for me. It was something that I just dearly loved…” Produced by Rich Elliott. Transcript for I Was All Over That Mill Bethlehem Steel had just opened up this whole new steel mill just a few miles away, and I always wanted to get into the engineering…
Read MoreIn My Own Skin
“I think it’s the exact opposite. I think those are the reasons I can do it.” Produced by Carmen Vincent Transcript for In My Own Skin I was born in Texarkana in Texas. It’s a city near where Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana come together. And then when I was two we moved to Northwest…
Read MoreGreen Light to Go Out of Town
“Did you want to take a stand… or was it just an inevitability, ‘Man, we can’t stay here any longer?’” Transcript for Green Light to Go Out of Town It didn’t take a lot of, “Let’s sit down and have a Ward Cleaver moment with Beaver, you know, and tell him what’s going on in…
Read MoreLiving with Mental Illness
“We should all be allies to each other for mental health, and for everything else.” Produced by Carmen Vincent Transcript for Living with Mental Illness When people say bad things about you, it’s sometimes hard to let them go, especially when you have anxiety and depression. So I was born in Texarkana in Texas, and…
Read MoreFences
“Just leave me alone. I’ll leave you alone. We’ll be good.” Transcript for Fences Ok, what I think makes a good neighbor is fences. That’s what I think makes a good neighbor, and that sounds mean to say that, but when I was living in Portage, one of my neighbors wanted to put up a…
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