Journeys into Smart Community Narratives

Podcast: Smart Community Narratives, Media & A Wise Economy

2010-04-21T06:13:00.000-07:00

Eric Model and Della Rucker chat about how Community-based narratives can be a powerful tool to communities, businesses, media, and the public alike.

Della has decades of experience in community planning and economic development. Eric has been chronicling the “offbeat, off the beaten path, overlooked and forgotten” for almost 25 years.

They have gotten together to help make the most of stories that tap into a sense of place and a sense of who we are. They are also narratives that can also provide a “customized branded-content opportunity” through a unique radio-based multi-media platform.

At: http://conversationsontheroad.podbus.com/?p=448

Podcast: Places to Find an Old Fashioned Christmas

2010-01-09T05:56:00.000-08:00

During this holiday season we’ve on the lookout for a Main Street that works for you – a Main Street that is inviting, that makes you feel good, and that provides you convenient access to the goods and services you need – in a way that fosters a sense of community and a sense of place .

In this conversation, we speak with Elizabeth Muse from A Day’s Outing about Christmas Season visits to downtown areas of small towns….. like Stanton, VA , Ashville, NC, Charleston SC.

Access to this podcast is available @ http://conversationsontheroad.podbus.com/?p=334

Podcast: Lincoln Highway the Way It Was: Tiny stretch of bricks keeps Omaha suburb alive

2010-01-08T12:28:00.000-08:00

Folks doing business in historic downtown Elkhorn know that they are in the midst of a much larger city, having been annexed by the City of Omaha a couple years ago. But they still have their brick streets in the mingle of quaint restaurants and shops as well as one of the most pristine remnants of the old Lincoln Highway – in the original brick and narrow lanes. It has sparked a neighborhood revival.

Leona Anderson of Little Scandinavia from Elkhorn joins us to talk about it in this “Journey into Nebraska”.

You can access this podcast @ http://conversationsontheroad.podbus.com/?p=291

Podcast: How a Texas Business Became a Destination: A Nursery, Tea Room & The World’s Largest Teapot

2010-01-08T12:27:00.000-08:00

Located on Hwy 6 in Navasota, 15 minutes south of Bryan-College Station and just an hours drive from Houston, Martha’s Bloomers opened in 2000 as a Home and Garden store and has grown into a dining experience and all-day shopping destination.

We speak with Sturat Thompson, founder of Martha’s Bloomers about how he started this business and how it has evolved over the years. We were especially interested in the World’s Largest Teapot, which came as an outgrowth of a tea room he installed to go along with the garden shop.

It also has one of the largest green houses in the area filled with lush tropical plants.

In addtion, there is a pottery house , which was originally a 90 year old, barn-type treasure, was spared from demolition and moved from its original location in Brenham to Navasota. The pottery house is overflowing with glazed and terra cotta pottery from around the world.

It’s a unique success story that we are happy to share with you.

You can access the podcast @ http://conversationsontheroad.podbus.com/?p=253

Podcast: Orphan Motor Company: Nebraska’s last Packard Dealership gets new life

2010-01-08T12:25:00.000-08:00

Bob Cox lives on a sprawling ranch in the Nebraska Panhandle. He sells ag real estate and insurance. He collects old cars, cars that are now orphans. Packards, Plymouths, Oldsmobiles. He also restores and sells a few, prefers to drive old Mopars like his rare 1963 Chrysler 300H and a 1965 Barracuda. A year ago he bought and restored the state’s last surviving Packard dealership in Scottsbluff. The dealer went out of business shortly after the last Packard rolled off the assembly line in Indiana. Today there’s a 1946 Packard in the showroom again, reminiscent of the one that his folks brought him home in from the hospital.

In this “Journey into Nebraska”, we speak with Bob Cox about the Orphan Motor Company, and just what it has meant to him, others and the community.

You can access the podcast @ http://conversationsontheroad.podbus.com/?p=258

Podcast: A Triple XXX Family Restaurant

2010-01-08T12:22:00.000-08:00

It’s not what it sounds like.

The Triple XXX Restaurant in Lafayette, Indiana is not only a family-friendly place, it has been revered by adults and kids alike for generations.

Based on a famous line of root beer, it is now serving up a new generation its classic cuisine and atmosphere.

Owner Craig Ehresman explains some what continues to make the Triple XXX so meaningful and make it a place to go.

You can access the podcast @ http://conversationsontheroad.podbus.com/?p=267

Podcast: In Pursuit of Elusive American Landscapes

2010-01-08T12:20:00.000-08:00

Vanishing America, In Search of Our Elusive Landcapes – Counterpoint (October 1, 2008), author James Conaway has written a mixture of travelogue and personal narrative. Conaway’s essays offer a depiction of his journeys between Washington, D.C., and Big Sur, California. In it he tries to understand what has become of the places, people, and traditions that were once so precious but have now been irreparably changed.

In this conversation, we speak with James Conaway of his pursuit, what he saw in various places and taken together what it might all mean.

You can access this podcast @ http://conversationsontheroad.podbus.com/?p=238

Podcast: Where They throw Rolls at Those Dining

2010-01-08T12:16:00.000-08:00

Lambert’s Cafe is known as “Home of the Throwed Rolls”. Though it is distinguished from other restaurants by its policy of providing large 32 oz.. drinks, a list of side items that are passed around to all customers, and free refills on nearly all entrees, it is most famous for throwing their homemade dinner rolls to the customers.

We speak with Jerry Johnson from Sikeston, Missouri about the roll-throwing tradition, and how Lamberts has pleased customers from its early days on Main Street in Sikeston until today – where Lamberts touts three locations (Ozark, Missouri and Foley, Alabama) and brings loyal customers from far away.

For more on Lambert’s Cafe: http://www.throwedrolls.com/

You can access the podcast @ http://conversationsontheroad.podbus.com/?p=202

Podcast: The Nebraska Town Where Glenn Miller Honed His Skills

2010-01-08T12:14:00.000-08:00

Andela Taylor joins us in this “Journey into Nebraska”. Andela is the economic developer in Cambridge, Nebraska - a south central Nebraska community that lies along Highways 6 and 34, the old DLD [Detroit-Lincoln-Denver] Highway.

She and her mother, B-n-B owner Gloria Hilton, have been at the forefront of a local effort to celebrate the big band music of Glenn Miller, who played with the Tommy Watkins [he was a Cambridge native] Orchestra in the second floor ballroom downtown known as Thorndike Hall.

The ballroom is listed as one of Heritage Nebraska’s Fading Places and a move is afoot to restore the space. Watkins was credited with finding the young aspiring musician [Miller] in Denver and helping him hone his skills in a Nebraska community.

Miller later moved on to California and started his own band.

You can access the podcast @ http://conversationsontheroad.podbus.com/?p=197

Podcast: The Worlds’ Only Lifesize Chocolate Moose

2010-01-08T12:11:00.000-08:00

Home-made chocoalte is a New England tradition in places like Route 1 in Scarborough, Maine.

Len Libby has been a regional fixture since the 1920’s. But since 1997, Len Libby has become a destination ofr something else as well.

There, at their retail store, one can have the experience of coming across
Lenny, the World’s Only Life-size Chocolate Moose, all 1700 pounds of him in chocolate.

We speak Maureen Hemond from Len Libby about Lenny and other Len Libby traditions.

For more: http://www.lenlibby.com/

You can hear the podcast @ http://conversationsontheroad.podbus.com/?p=196

Introducing journeysinto.com

2009-06-12T08:10:00.000-07:00

Anyone that's been in our neck of the woods knows that we could have used a re-branding a long time ago.

Some good content. Multi-media. But to more than afew folks, it was more than a bit confusing.

With this in mind, we have created a new umbrella place to go. It's called http://journeysinto.com.

Once there, you can take a journey into Hidden America, Canada, Beer or Hockey (with others to follow).

The content and the feel, hopfully, remain. And, with any look, less confusion.

We Can Help

2008-12-31T08:04:00.000-08:00

How ?

Contact us: modelotr@sprynet.com or (201) 967-7853;(201) 694-5933

The Issue Posed

2008-12-31T08:01:00.000-08:00

The immediate problem:

“We are facing the greatest economic challenge of our lifetime, and we’re going to have to act swiftly to resolve it.”

So said President-elect Barack Obama on Friday November 7 in his first press conference after being elected President.

This same statement and its underlying crisis apply to communities around America and their citizens as well.

Yes, times may not be as tough as they were in the 1930s, but they’re still pretty tough, and there is a tendency, in this atomized culture, for people to fend for themselves, even at the expense of their neighbors.

One hopes that our new administration in Washington can inspire us in a way that will help bring our nation, our community and its institutions back to a more enthusiastic and cooperative way of interacting.

In the meantime, however, a crisis looms.

A Crisis for places Pushed Further Off The Beaten Path

Many of the places we like to visit are to be found “off the beaten path” – that place beyond the interstate in what we like to describe as the “Hidden America”.

But recently these places, be they situated in a remote rural county, a city neighborhood or in between, have somehow found themselves pushed farther off a path not so frequently beaten these days, if at all. Many have been brought to their knees by a nasty left right combination – first sky-rocketing gasoline prices that kept people home. Cruelly, the price at the pump has gone down only because our banks, and stock market has collapsed – leaving would be travelers and explorers shaken and worried, even if they are fortunate enough to still have a job.
Seventy-five years ago, the last time our country was close to economic abyss, Franklin D. Roosevelt acted quickly as new president to restore confidence by a tone of shared cooperation, responsibility and sacrifice. He instilled a sense of community and a collective stake-hold. Moreover, he was exhaustive in proposing and pushing through concrete programs to help communities and individuals alike.

As Joe Nocera of the New York Times recently stated, FDR over and over displayed the ability to “move people to realize that they were all in this together”.

As a result we had a New Deal, between 1933 and 1936 with the goal of giving work to the unemployed, the reform of business and financial practices, and the recovery of the economy during The Great Depression.

As part of this process, Roosevelt was keenly interested in rural issues and remote areas (now described as “off the beaten path”). Major programs addressed to their needs included the Resettlement Administration (RA), the Farm Security Administration (FSA), the Rural Electrification Administration (REA), the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and rural welfare projects sponsored by the WPA, NYA, Forest Service and CCC, including school lunches, building new schools, opening roads in remote areas, reforestation, and purchase of marginal lands to enlarge national forests.

Another cornerstone project of the New Deal era was the WPA American Guide Series of the Federal writers Project. This project put to work more than six thousand writers, archivists, researchers, creating a detailed and lasting portrait of America at the time. The most remembered aspect was the creation of state guides. Each guide ran more than 500 pages and featured original unsigned material on a state’s history, literature, art, architecture and public transportation, its flora and fauna, industry and agriculture. Many included essays on topics unique and particular to a state: the movie industry in California and dairy farming in Wisconsin; on marine lore in Michigan and tall tales in Oregon. Each guide also featured detailed descriptions of towns and cities, maps and guided tours as well as original photographs (Eudora Welty took photos for the Mississippi guide; Ben Shahn took ones for Ohio).

One author in a preface to a 2008 book describes the project as “an extraordinarily ambitious project, guided by the will to describe, by intrepid curiosity, by raw idealism and by reinvigorated sense of national pride…”

Today, we find ourselves in a similar place – both in terms of the desire for such content to travelers and arm-chair travelers and also for the need for such a practical tool help communities survive and get past these tough economic times.

We have places whose economies, always fragile, are now at a point of jeopardy. Municipal budgets are in shambles. So are local economies. People are hurting.

Many social and political commentators have suggested that the first task facing President-elect Obama, (after eight years of what some describe as “misguided economic policies”) will be to begin the recovery -- or at least forestall a further decline. Many are also advocates a commitment to “infrastructure” in a program that would increase economic activity, national income and productivity, thus generating revenue for the government.

Ou proposals are practical ways to help our citizens, our community and our economy. We have found that these days our “On The Road” narratives are more compelling than ever - for not only are they entertaining and informative, but they can provide a catalyst for journeys of discovery – journeys that can help re-invigorate our collective confidence and start to rejuvenate our economy.

In fact, these narratives can serve as a platform for a modern day equivalent of a New Deal WPA - a lifeline to communities and places off the beaten path so battered by recent events (first gas prices and then the economy) that they have been pushed farther off a path now less beaten.

In essence, it seems that our “journeys into America” can provide communities, governments and appropriate private sector partners/sponsors a unique “infrastructure” tool for relief and revitalization.

About Eric Model

2008-12-31T05:35:00.001-08:00

Eric Model background page:
http://ericmodel.blogspot.com

Backgrounder: State by State - A Panoramic Portrait of America

2008-12-31T05:31:00.000-08:00

"50 writers, 50 States" - Modeled after 1930's WPA Writer's Guide

http://www.harpercollins.com/books/9780061470905/State_by_State/index.aspx

Backgrounder: Book - The Enduring Legacy of the WPA

2008-12-31T05:27:00.000-08:00

On American-Made, The Enduring Legacy of the WPA - When FDR Put The Nation to Work
by Nick Taylor
http://www.randomhouse.com/bantamdell/wpa/

Backgrounder: NY Times Editorial - "Mr. Obama's Intenet Agenda"

2008-12-30T15:08:00.000-08:00

President-elect Barack Obama recently announced an ambitious plan to build up the nation’s Internet infrastructure as part of his proposed economic stimulus package. Upgrading the Internet is a particularly smart kind of stimulus, one that would spread knowledge, promote entrepreneurship and make this country more competitive globally.

Mr. Obama, who had notable success with online fund-raising and voter turnout, spoke during the presidential campaign about the transformative power of the Internet to improve Americans’ quality of life. He argued that it could, among other things, reduce health care costs, create jobs and make it easier for citizens to participate in government decision-making.

“This is the Eisenhower Interstate highway moment for the Internet,” argues Ben Scott, policy director of the media reform group Free Press. Restoring America to its role as the world’s Internet leader could be an important part of Mr. Obama’s presidential legacy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/16/opinion/16tue3.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=mr%20obama

Backgrounder: David Brooks on A National Mobility Project as Infrsastructure

2008-12-30T09:08:00.000-08:00

From The New York Times:

By DAVID BROOKS
Published: October 31, 2008

"...The smart thing to do is announce a short-term infrastructure initiative to accelerate all those repair projects that can be done within a few years. Then, begin a long-term National Mobility Project...."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/31/opinion/31brooks.html

Backgrounder: Joe Nocera - 75 Years Later, a Nation Hopes for Another F.D.R. (NY Times)

2008-12-30T08:51:00.000-08:00

From The New York Times:

By JOE NOCERA
Published: November 7, 2008

“We are facing the greatest economic challenge of our lifetime, and we’re going to have to act swiftly to resolve it.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/08/business/08nocera.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1230656475-BPjzDroGuhx8cM5bWPwJOg

Backgrounder: Thomas Friedman on The Need to Reboot (NY Times)

2008-12-30T08:50:00.000-08:00

From The New York Times:

"Time to Reboot", by Thomas Friedman, NY Times, December 23, 2008http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/24/opinion/24friedman.html?_r=1