An embryo begun through in vitro fertilization.
Craig Lynch interviews Cubs pitcher Kerry Wood
A diary page from Another Lousy Day
Ready to play ball at Unity Playlot
The Wood-Maxey-Boyd mansion
Catherine Means and two of her children, from Movin' Out the Bricks. Copyright Patricia Evans.
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Babyquest (2004)
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Each year, more than 100,000 women use some form of doctor-assisted artificial insemination to try to get pregnant. Suzanne is one of these women. She's single, in her mid-40s, and has been trying for two years to get pregnant using a variety of methods. Team Long Haul follows Suzanne through her last invitro fertilization attempt – her last chance to have her own biological child – and documents the story of how she got to this point. We're continuing to follow Suzanne in her "quest" this summer, and expect to have another installment in her story sometime in the spring of 2005.
Shamika's Story (2004)
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Shamika is nineteen and already has two kids. She grew up without a father; her mother abused drugs. She rarely attended school. By age twelve, she'd been declared a ward of the state and ended up in a series of group homes. Enrolled in a transitional living program on the south side of Chicago, Shamika tries to learn to be the parent she never had to her own children, as she nears the age when she'll no longer be supported by the state.
Blind Baseball Reporter: Eye of the Beholder (2004)
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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.
Another Lousy Day (2003)
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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:
November 9 – Another lousy day. I wore my blue suit with the pleated skirt and looked sharp. Mike looked but ignored me again and I'm getting so disgusted. I don't care anymore. Besides my other admirer has been around. He came first thing in the morning, unfortunately when Zoya and I were having an argument. But, he talked to me for quite a while – this time we discussed house plants etc. He sure is nice but I wish he was a little older. At last break when I went into the cafeteria he asked me to sit at his table which was filled with fellows and he held out and pushed in my chair. Ate like a pig when I got home.
Long Haul adapted Kodeski's critically-acclaimed, one-man performance piece of the same name for radio. The diary entries are read by Diana Slickman. Thanks to Howe Gelb and Kurt Wagner for their musical contributions. Production assistance from Jerrin Zumberg. The unedited diary entries are all online thanks to David Kodeski. Winner, National Federation of Community Broadcasters award.
Meet Me At Unity Playlot (2003)
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An urban fable that tells how a once-scruffy park in Chicago' s Logan Square neighborhood fostered a movement that took on an entrenched incumbent Alderman – and Chicago's legendary political machine. The result: one of the most surprising city elections in recent history. See photos of the park, and lyrics from a neighbor's song about the battle, Meet Me At Unity Playlot.
Maxey's Mansion (2003)
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Alva Maxey-Boyd, now in her nineties, defied race covenants, urban renewal bulldozers, and two Mayor Daleys, in a seven-decade battle to get and keep her gorgeous 19th-century mansion – only to be left as the last resident on her block of Chicago's South Prairie Avenue. Her epic story suggests, once again, that the more things change, the more they stay the same. The "Wood-Maxey-Boyd House" was recognized as a historic landmark building by the City of Chicago in September of 2003. Historical readings by Phil Ridarelli and John Hildreth; production support by Jerrin Zumberg. See photos of Maxey and her home.
Naloxone: Back From the Dead (2003)
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For the last few years, the Chicago Recovery Alliance, a group that works on the street with intravenous drug users, has distributed Naloxone – a drug that's been used for years by paramedics and in hospital emergency rooms to to reverse heroin overdoses and save lives. The Alliance trains users on injecting Naloxone whenever an overdose occurs – in a living room, in a car, in a park. Since the program began, 172 potentially fatal overdoses have been reversed by fellow users in Chicago. Long Haul's Dan Collison spent an evening in the van talking with health workers and heroin users about their experience with the drug.
Movin' Out the Bricks (2003)
Preferred version (28 minutes): RealAudio • MP3
Original version (42 minutes): RealAudio • MP3
In the fall of 2002, Catherine Means was living on the tenth floor of what she describes as "hell" -- Chicago's Stateway Gardens high-rise housing project. In September , she finally got out from under the "bricks" at Stateway and into her first private-market apartment. Her move was one that thousands of public housing residents are making, as the Chicago Housing Authority systematically demolishes its notorious high-rise projects in favor of redeveloped mixed-income communities and Section 8 apartments. Coco, who, like her mom and grandmother has never had a real job, argues the move will "get me off my behind" and force her to do something with her life. But do things really change when you change your address? Long Haul followed Coco and her kids for over a year, from Stateway to her new apartment on the South Side. Winner, the Society of Professional Journalists' Award for Best National Radio Documentary.
Public Housing Relocator (2003)
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Right now in Chicago, thousands of public housing residents are being forced to move as the Chicago Housing Authority systematically demolishes their notorious high-rise apartment buildings and plans to replace them with mixed-income developments. Since the redeveloped housing won't be available in most cases for several years, many families find themselves looking for an apartment in the private market -- many for the very first time -- using Section 8 vouchers. It's Janine Ingram's job to help find them a place, quickly.
The House of Pain (2002)
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The House of Pain was the gang name for a ten-story high-rise at Stateway Gardens, the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) development that once sat across from U.S. Cellular Field (a.k.a. Comiskey Park) on Chicago's South Side. The building recently was demolished as part of an ambitious initiative to replace Chicago's notorious public housing high rises with mixed-income communities. Here, in the first of a two-part series following building residents through the CHA's "Plan for Transformation," families who once lived in the House of Pain try to figure out where they'll live once their building is dismantled. It's narrated by long-time building resident Andre Williams. More photos and background materials are at The View From The Ground. Winner, the Edward R. Murrow Award for Best National Radio Documentary.
Aunt Mary's Storybook Project (2002)
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For the past several years, detainees at Chicago's Cook County Jail have been reading to their kids. These parents in prison meet in one of the jail's small libraries, pick out a children's book and record it onto a cassette tape. The tape and the book are then mailed to the child. For some, it's the only way to connect with their kids through prison walls.
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