Here you will find people we've stopped on the street or at work to relay a story. Sometimes you'll hear older people reminiscing about their past; sometimes younger people are discussing their future career plans. You may hear hospice patients recording personal memories, or discussing their fears, or saying goodbye to their families. Also, those marked Sonic ID were recorded and played in 2005 for the Chicago Public Radio morning show Eight Forty-Eight, hence the tagline at the end.










John and Doris have been living in the same house in Portage Park since 1951. Hear them describe their neighborhood then and now. They also discuss things like taking their boat to Diversey Harbor and what John's job as a truck driver was like. He had that job for 36 years.










Allen Stryczek has been quite involved with the Edgewater community area ever since moving into it in the early '80s. Listen to him define the area by streets and population, discuss the area's medley of ethnicities, describe how all age members of the community are working toward the beautification of Edgewater with community gardens and more.










Douglas Staszesky is getting treated for brain cancer.  Listen to his stories, though, and you'll hear the voice of a man who, despite the giant black clouds, keeps on looking for silver linings.  Listen closely and hear the IV pump in the background; Douglas was recorded while receiving a chemotherapy treatment at the hospital.








In these four passages, Chicagoan Arthur Bollock describes his 40 years in prison.  We recorded him about a month before his death while he was a hospice patient.





Listen to Frances describe how she survived the "Blizzard of '79."  (2:26)

As a nun in 1979, Frances Ginther got to be an usher for Pope John Paul II's service for "all the brothers in the city" at St. Peter's Church in downtown Chicago. (3:26)
After a lifetime in Chicago, Patrick Dempsey moved to Hyderabad, India in 2005 with his wife Madhuri, below.  Find out what he misses.
 
Madhuri Dempsey (married to Patrick, above) moved to Chicago from India in 1992.  Here she was introduced to the concept of cold weather.


# 1:Sheryl Brown Rivers, an original member of the Chicago Bulls cheerleaders, the Luvabulls. (0:41)

#2: Competition between cheerleader teams. (1:07)
Sonic ID
John Duba, civil engineer, speaks of how close he and Mayor Daley were in the late 1950s.
(2:08)
Melinda Gunn discussing how intelligent horses can be.
(0:49)

Sonic ID
Robert Kane was 45 when he died of ALS. Here he is, two months before his death, speaking to his wife and two children: "It's a great life."

(2:36)


#1:Bobbi Gannello loves buttons. (1:09)

#2: Buttons have always been a part of me.(1:03)

Sonic ID






#1:Georgia Hart: Talks about street cars, Buck Rogers and a dream she had. (1:41)

#2: First birthday party at 40. (0:50)

#3: She became a union foreman.(2:14)

#4: Chicago is a melting pot.(1:58)
Eli, an Asian-American, owns a coffee shop in a gentrified neighborhood he's lived in all his life.

(0:43)

Sonic ID


#1:John B:
Our conversation about death is interrupted when we hear them laughing about caskets on television. (3:49)

#2: Dying doesn't scare me.(2:48)


#1:Mark Hannon discusses the ostentatiousness that was around him as a teenager. (1:36)

#2: Jugs in catholic schools. (2:56)
Fran, a box man, really, discusses his love of (and provides recommendations for buying) Good & Plenty.
(0:55)
Sonic ID
Miki Greenberg, manager at the Old Town School of Folk Music Cafe, describes why— then proves that—a kitchen is a very musical environment.
(1:00)
Sonic ID
A man from the Phillipines explains how coconut water can melt kidney stones. (1:59)
This woman's mom sewed silk underwear for rich people.
(0:19)
Emily Klepacki describes the last time she saw her parents before the Germans took them from Krakow.
(1:43)
Gabriella is called the little vampire because she likes drawing people's blood.

(0:51)
Sonic ID
Carl H. White, who says the 9400 block of Harvard Avenue in the early '50s was like living out in the country, was shipped to Vietnam in 1969.
(0:44)Sonic ID
Kenneth: the news seller in the street.



(0:55)
Sonic ID
She lived on the west side (by Sacramento Avenue); her dad was Sicilian and could have been District Attorney but said no due to the Mafia; and her Jewish friend Miriam was pretty. (2:43)





#1: Alix: Hair is like a lump of clay. (0:47)

#2: Great grandpa was a barber also.(0:40)

#3: The beauty of dead people.(0:59)
"You want anything, you go see Fadgi. . . . I'm not gonna say nothin' else." "You can't stop Al Capone, because he opened up soup kitchens for the poor people." (1:28)
Frank West, who taught 42 1/2 years for the Chicago Public Schools, says teaching is a lot like being a farmer planting seeds.
(0:50)

Sonic ID
Joe B speaks of the support he gets from the straight people, even though he's HIV-positive. (2:50)
Kari Lydersen describes the immigrant activists in her book, "Out of the Sea and into the Fire."
(0:41)
Sonic ID
Norty Brill, security consultant, talks about one of the great things about selling security.
(0:45)

Sonic ID





#1:Carol Jallah speaks about finding guitar strings when Liberia was at war. (0:40)

#2:Her mother and father sing African songs.(2:57)

#3:Carol's mother sings a song in the Ewe dialect of Ghana.(2:46)
Some special extracts from Ronnie Woo Woo. Listen closely and hear the Wrigley Field crowd cheer in the background. (Interview was done about a block away from the ball park.) (0:43)
Sonic ID
"Did we have Ukrainian dancing? Yes we did." She then sings a sample of a song she remembers about someone sitting on a feather pillow. (1:32)
Tiffany Ko taught in West Africa (Cape Verde, to be specific) as part of the Peace Corps. She now teaches for Chicago Public Schools.(2:13)
Sonic ID
Dorothy Papachristos of Communities Dare to Care discusses her basketball—and counseling—program for gang members.(0:52)
Sonic ID



#1:Stan, the owner of, Rogue's Gallery Toys, says there could easily be a Betty Ford Clinic for Toy Collectors. "It's an addiction." (0:34)

#2: Anatomically correct dolls.(1:43)
Sonic ID
Two women born in 1913 try to guess who's older. They tell the 85 year old man he doesn't have a chance. (0:57)
Chicago Public Schools Security Guard Alexander Perez Jr. describes opening the doors at 7:15am.(0:39)

Sonic ID



#1:Sally Ann, a floriculturist at Garfield Park Conservatory, throws some people for a loop with her use of nomenclature. (1:02)

#2: In the fern house.(0:46)
Sonic ID
"She talked with the sweetest voice. . . . I said I like the way you talk. But that wasn't really what I had in mind. I was young then." "Whose program will this be on--Opal?" (1:12)
Ed, MRI technologist, describes what happens to the atoms in your body while your body is being photographically sliced like a loaf of bread.
(1:08)
Sonic ID
Doug Brush tells us the history of, describes the wood of, and most importantly—plays the digiridoo for us.
(1:11)
Sonic ID
Jimmie Lee Chess started shining shoes in Mobile 60 years ago as an ace in the hole to keep grits on the table. Now he does it at Midway Airport in 3 or 4 minutes. (2:48)
Sonic ID
"My teachers all said talk so people can HEAR you. . . . Speak kind and loud." (0:44)
Harry Shulman, with no C, was at the big celebration in Grant Park for the end of World War I. He was seven years old then. You do the arithmetic. (Pauline, his wife, is proud of him.) (1:27)
Sonic ID
John Anastasiou, who fixes and installs heating and air conditioning units, says you can get a pretty good flavor of people by what you see in their basements.(0:48)
Sonic ID
"If an argument came up, I shut up. He quit and I quit. It was OK until the next day when we'd start over again." (0:40)
Peter Shannon tells us what it's like to play drums in a band—a blues band that's mom's band—thus, playing the blues with mom.(0:57)
Sonic ID
Gloria Shannon describes how everything came from the blues, thus explaining why she plays blues for children, "because we don't want the blues to die."(0:59)
Sonic ID
Joyce G tells us what it's like being pregnant at 17 years old.

(2:32)