Long Haul: Public Radio Documentaries to Go!

The River Valley High Mustangs, in the southwest Michigan town of Three Oaks, lost eighteen football games in a row from 2003-2005. But it's not just the number of consecutive games the Mustangs lost, it's how soundly they were beaten. During this stretch, River Valley was outscored by its opponents by a total of 949 to 38, or an average of 53 to two per game. For a stretch of games in 2005, the t...

The presidential election of 2008 was particularly acrimonious in rural America. At Long Haul, we saw it first-hand in our own neighborhood when a neighbor, who'd had his sign stolen one too many times, encased his Obama for President sign in barbed wire. Thus, this story, produced in 2008.

Throughout America, a growing number of communities have selected their own poet laureate. Among the smallest is Three Oaks, Michigan – population 1,800 – located just across the lake from Chicago. Like countless other rural towns, Three Oaks' economy was decimated by farm consolidation and factory shutdowns, but an influx of artists and creative folks has given it new life, and the newcomers are...

"David Lynch goes into clean neighborhoods and finds the germs and bugs beneath; I go into dirty neighborhoods and find the life." That's how filmmaker Tony Buba describes his twelve documentaries about his hometown of Braddock, Pennsylvania. Buba is the son of Italian immigrants, part of the wave of Europeans who came to America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to work in the...

On January 4, 1988, 63-year-old Emma Gresham became the first black mayor -- the first mayor in a half century -- of Keysville, Georgia, winning the election over her white opponent by ten votes. In the town courthouse, a trailer mounted on cinderblocks, a banner reads "Justice Knows No Boundaries," a constant reminder of both the town's troubled history -- residents live in extreme poverty, with...

For more than 25 years, Frank Pease was the primary portrait photographer in LaPorte, Indiana - a town of about 20,000 just south of Lake Michigan. Starting in the mid-1940's, Pease took tens of thousands of black and white photos at his Muralcraft Studio: engagement photos, baby pictures, family portraits of the people of LaPorte. Pease kept thousands of uncollected proofs in boxes, and when he d...

The Roxy, a private nightclub on the main drag in Lockport, Illinois, may be the only one of its kind in the nation. The club's sole clientele are people with serious mental illness. There, customers can socialize, dance, or just hang out without feeling self-conscious. Occasionally the Roxy holds special events; Long Haul spent an evening at the big Valentine's Day Dance, and produced this audio...

From songs and literature, folklore and fishing, the catfish occupies a special place in American culture. It's also replaced cotton as the number one cash crop in many parts of the Mississippi Delta. Produced in 1994; this description is from that broadcast.

Part one of the story behind our mystery puppy – allegedly a Chocolate Lab/Golden Retriever mix -- as heard in 2011 on All Things Considered.

Part two of the story behind our mystery puppy – allegedly a Chocolate Lab/Golden Retriever mix -- as heard in 2011 on All Things Considered.

Back in 1934, a group of eight women in Milton, Massachussetts gathered with a goal: to create an uniquely tuneful pet canary for American homes. The result of their breeding experiments was the American Singer Canary, specially-built to produce the sweetest song imaginable. Today, there are 41 chapters of the American Singer club throughout the United States and Canada, many of which hold “song t...

Usually when people dial the wrong number, it's pretty annoying. But, here at Long Haul, we're actually intrigued by these calls-gone-awry – as long as the person calling leaves a message. We produced this in 2005.

The Harrington family explains how they catch gigantic catfish by hand on the Ross Barnett Reservoir in Mississippi. Produced in 1994.

Little narratives we crafted for the joy of it.

A month with a minor league basketball team: trying to make the team and life on the road. Produced in 1997.

Oral histories of men and women who worked on the homefront in civilian industries -- shipbilding, textile manufacturing, the postal service -- during World War II. Produced in 1995.

On August 31, 1987, one of baseball's most peculiar plays took place in the minor leagues in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was a variation of the age-old hidden ball trick, except it involved a hidden potato. In this story, produced in 2002, we hear from the man responsible for the play and two people who witnessed it.

A 1993 profile of veteran baseball scout Al Lamachia at work in Florida.

Craig Lynch has been to thousands of Chicago Cubs games at Wrigley Field, and he's reported on hundreds more for a small Illinois radio station – but he's never actually seen a baseball game. Blind since birth, Craig is still passionate about baseball, and his vision of the game, while not conventional, is wholly beautiful. Produced in 2004.

A few years ago, Chicago writer David Kodeski found two diaries from 1960 and 1961 in a resale shop. The diaries' author, a single, working woman who lived on the city's South Side, wrote meticulously about her everyday life: how she flirted with her co-workers, fought with her Dad, shopped for things she didn't need, and searched for happiness as she worried about her weight and hairdo. Long Haul...

When a partner dies, romance doesn't have to. Team Long Haul followed single seniors as they try to date again, beginning at the city of Chicago's 2005 Sweetheart's Ball for Seniors, where women outnumbered men by a ratio of eight to one. There, we spoke with widows eager to defy the long odds.

Once, workers at the Pantex weapons plant in Amarillo, Texas, built nuclear weapons -- now they dismantle them. Produced in 1994.

Profile of an undocumented immigrant, working as a cleaner, trying to make her way in America. Produced in 1995.

Once Jimmy Roy owned half the businesses in Braddock, Pennsylvania, a steel town just outside Pittsburgh. Braddock's decline paralleled Jimmy's; he now sells jewelry out of a family restaurant. But he's managed to remain optimistic, and argues he holds the secret to being rich and happy. (Produced in 1999; this description is from that broadcast.)

An obituary for "Diamond" Jimmy Roy, who Long Haul originally profiled in 1999.