Salon.com > Salon on The Story

I’m a ferry boat captain

Sat, 19 May 2012 14:00:00 +0000

To celebrate what would have been the 100th birthday of oral historian Studs Terkel, the radio show “The Story” is running a series devoted to his work and his influence. (Read an interview with Terkel here.) As part of the series, host Dick Gordon conducts new interviews with people working today, like ferry boat captain Jenny Brown, who was laid off from her job and found an adventure she could not have imagined. A segment of her interview is below. You can listen to the entire interview here.

We were really starting to feel the crunch. I think two years prior to me being laid off we had to cut our hours back and so everybody worked and got paid for 90 percent instead of 100 percent of the time. So everybody had one day unpaid every two weeks. And so that was the first big sign that things were getting bad. And then it just continued to spiral until we couldn't keep as many people on. And I was the low man on the totem pole. I was the assistant planner, which is the lowest step, and also I was the most recent one hired so I had the least seniority. I knew about almost six months before I was actually going to be laid off, they'd already told me that it was me.

I made this knife

Sat, 19 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

To celebrate what would have been the 100th birthday of oral historian Studs Terkel, the radio show “The Story” is running a series devoted to his work and his influence. (Read an interview with Terkel here.) As part of the series, host Dick Gordon conducts new interviews with people working today, like knife maker Joel Bukiewicz, who is interviewed below. To listen to the radio program, click here.

You were a writer. Were you losing your enthusiasm for it? Or you weren't happy with what you were producing?

No, the stuff was pretty good. For some reason it wasn't feeding me like it once had, I guess. Writing into the void on a daily basis was a hard thing and I did it for a couple years, where you don't know where your story's going. It's a fight. And I think I got to where I liked the fight. There was less of that.

Did you have a plan B?

Studs Terkel: American genius

Fri, 18 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Oral historian and writer Studs Terkel made history by doing something very simple: He talked to people about their lives. In his book “Working,” he spoke with Americans about their jobs, but what emerges is nothing short of a portrait of the human condition. To celebrate what would have been his 100th birthday, the radio show “The Story” is running a series devoted to Terkel, featuring conversations with Eudora Welty, Dorothy Parker, R. Buckminster Fuller and Mahalia Jackson. Also, host Dick Gordon conducts new interviews with people working today. As part of Salon’s partnership with “The Story,” we’ll bring you some of his fascinating interviews over the next few days. We kick off with host Gordon’s 2002 interview with the man himself, who passed in 2008. To listen to the radio program, click here.

I notice in your conversation with the veteran from Vietnam [from the Studs Terkel book, "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?: Reflections on Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for a Faith"] he tells you right at the beginning that your interview gave him stuff he would think about for a long time. And it got me wondering about what that interview was like. How does Studs Terkel sit down with someone and get them spilling their inner selves about life and death? What's the secret?

“None of you are getting out of here”

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 17:03:00 +0000

When the earthquake shook northeast Japan last March, Carl Pillitteri was leading a team of technicians in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Pillitteri eventually led his team out of the building and retreated to a hillside where he saw the approaching tsunami slam about 100 feet from him. He was one of some 40 Americans working at the plant that day, and he spoke exclusively in this interview with Alex Chadwick, featured here as part of Salon's partnership with the APM radio show, "The Story." You can listen to the full audio interview here. It is also part of the radio documentary series "Burn: An Energy Journal."

I still remember it. The first shock of it. It was just one big hammer.

I turned to my two American friends Danny and Jeff and said, "Earthquake." They didn't feel it. They looked at me, and cocked their heads a little bit. And then she hit. We were in a turbine building that is built, for lack of a better term, like Fort Knox. The entire building was shaking.

Your favorite Salon essays on “The Story” from American Public Media

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 22:54:00 +0000

We're pleased to announce a new partnership with "The Story," a terrific radio show produced by APM and carried on NPR stations across the country. Now, fans of Salon's personal essays can enjoy them in another medium -- as the authors recount their own tales to host Dick Gordon.

The partnership is a natural fit: "The Story" offers fascinating first-person accounts on engaging, timely topics, much like Salon has since its inception. Though "The Story" has run pieces inspired by our Life section before, today marks the launch of our official alliance, as Marcelle Soviero, author of "Making peace at my ex-husband's Seder," offers a poignant account of interfaith marriage and life after divorce. Listen to Soviero tell her tale on "The Story" by clicking here.

Find when "The Story" is playing on your local public radio station here, or subscribe to the podcast.