HELPERS

Program 03-09-14-B

Listen!

To The Best of Our Knowledge
from Wisconsin Public Radio

Everybody needs a little help, and some of us need a lot. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'll meet some helpers - and they're not all human. We'll visit a stable where they do equine assisted therapy, and we'll hear from a writer who's a volunteer fireman in his small hometown. So's his mother, and two of his brothers. And, dogsleds out-run an epidemic in Alaska.

SEGMENT 1:

Michael Perry is a writer and volunteer fireman who lives in the small town of New Auburn, Wisconsin. His memoir about his adventures on the rescue squad there is called "Population 485: Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time." Perry tells Steve Paulson about his fellow firefighters and what it's like answering calls when the victim may be a family member. Also, journalist Christopher Noxon explains what happened when he formed a personal posse of life coaches in Los Angeles and gives Steve Paulson his take on the personal coaching industry.

SEGMENT 2:

Laney Salisbury tells Jim Fleming about the 1925 dogsled relay that brought diphtheria anti-serum to ice-bound Nome, Alaska which was facing an epidemic in the dead of winter. Dogsleds were the only way in and the whole nation followed their perilous journey by telegraph. Salisbury and her cousin Gay Salisbury are the co-authors of "The Cruelest Miles: The Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race against an Epidemic." Also, John Katz' latest book is "The New Work of Dogs." Katz tells Steve Paulson that Americans are forgetting their pets' true natures and shouldn't expect them to be children with fur.

SEGMENT 3:

Jim Fleming visits Three Gaits Therapeutic Horsemanship Center and talks with Program Coordinator Dena Duncan about their riding programs for people with physical, cognitive and emotional disabilities. She says riding strengthens her riders' bodies and gives them a freedom of movement that is very powerful. She tells Jim about the training volunteers, horses and riders all share, and outlines how she gets kids out of wheelchairs and onto horseback.

Cassette copies are available at 1-800-747-7444. Ask for program number 03-09-14-B.

................................................................

Links:

• Three Gaits, Inc: Therapeutic Horsemanship Center
  
• An archive of stories by Christopher Noxon

Books:

• Jon Katz, The New Work of Dogs: tending to life, love and family (Villard)
  
• Michael Perry, Population: 485 - Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time (Harper Collins)
  
• Gay Salisbury and Laney Salisbury, The Cruelest Miles: the heroic story of dogs and men in a race against an epidemic (Norton)

Music:

• Button after Perry: “What Will the Children Do?” from Home Again Thom Rotella Digital Music Products, Inc. DMP cd 469
• Button after Noxon: “With A Litle Help from My Friends” The Beatles Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band
• Option after Noxon: “For No One” Trio Rocco Norwegian Wood RCA 74321 22488 2
• Button after Salisbury: “Sound of Panting Dogs” from Inuit Throat and Harp Songs (old LP) Canadian Music Heritage Collection Box 292 Station A Toronto Ontario M5W 1B2
• Button/Option after Katz: “Wendy’s 2-Step” Jim Hurley Finger Painting Open Strings OS CD01 466 So., N. St. Livermore, CA 94550 (510) 443 4057

• Alternative Close Music - Yes We Can Can The Pointer Sisters

Distribution dates:

week of 09/14/2003 - hour 2

Listen!

................................................................

Questions and comments can be addressed to: flemingj@wpr.org

our shows :: about us :: search :: home