Wisconsin Public Television

Transcript: "In Wisconsin"

Original Air Date: August 3rd, 2006

Patty Loew:

Hello everyone and welcome to our summer season of "In Wisconsin." I'm Patty Loew. We're at Governor Dodge State Park in Iowa County today. We'll show you more from the park a little bit later in our program. First, find out why the actions of this young marine from the village of Hobart made him one of the many heroes of the Iraq War.

Ken Jerabek:

So Ryan jumped on the first Humvee. As they went down the road along with the other humvees, they came to an intersection similar to the one similar to the one that is right here. Twenty marines went in and only eight came out.

Loew:

Meet a Mazomanie woman who is trying to presevea folk art tradition from her war torn homeland of Croatia.

Woman:

I think it is just something so simple that means so much.

Loew:

And dig into a green space that serves as a cultural melting pot for those with a common love of gardening. All that, plus we'll tackle the mystery of the missing miles, "In Wisconsin."

As the war in Iraq continues, so do the daily reports of casualties. They're not just names and newspaper stories or television reports. They're our neighbors, our brothers, sisters and friends. Here's the story of one of those Wisconsin soldiers.

Andy Soth:

An intersection is the meeting of two roads, two possibilities. This one is in northeastern Wisconsin, outside the home of Ryan Jerabek.

Ken:

This is where he grew up. He played here, kicked the football around, fished in the pond.

Rita Jerabek:

This was his home. This is where he lived and played and grew up.

Soth:

This is the road where he ran mornings before dawn, training his mind and body because he wanted to become a Marine.

Ken:

Marines who served with him said he was a really special young man and a lot of them questioned what he was doing in the Marine Corps because he was so warm and such a gentle human being.

Rita:

He believed in serving our country in every aspect and every element that he could muster in himself. He was willing to give of himself before he would take another path in life.

Soth:

Jerabek hoped to return to his high school as a history teacher after college. His love of history came from his love of country, so first he chose a different path. When that took him to Iraq, to a place called Ramadi, a stronghold of the Iraqi insurgency.

Ken:

Four men were pinned down in the Euphrates River. Some of them were Ryan¿s friends. He had just come off. He had asked the sergeant to go along. The sergeant told him to stay behind. He had just come off of the night owl patrol and the sergeant said, no, stay behind. Ryan says, ¿No. Make room, I'm coming.¿ So Ryan jumped on the first humvee. As they went down the road, along with two other humvees, they came to an intersection similar to the one that's right here and 20 marines went in and only eight came out.

Soth:

And now this intersection in northeastern Wisconsin is linked forever to that one thousands of miles away. This pond is to the Euphrates River, this lawn where he threw a football to that spot where he lost his life.

Ken:

Ryan was the last marine standing on his gun. We know that he was hit five times, kept his machine gun going, saved the life of eight other marines until the fatal shot.

Soth:

Here the Jerabek family built a memorial to Ryan and the other marines that fell that day.

Man:

Present!

Soth:

It was dedicated in the fall of 2004. It was here, a year later, that the Jerabeks received Ryan's posthumously awarded bronze star.

Ken:

But he wasn't there for the medals. He was there to do his duty and come home. We're proud of him. I hope the state of Wisconsin is proud of him, of what he did.

Soth:

What he did is an extraordinary act of courage. But Ken also sees it as an act of kindness.

Ken:

It's hard. He was such a warm, special young man, so talented and so loving. He always had a hug for everybody. He never had anything bad to say about anybody. He'd always be out to help somebody. That was evident on that day. He could have stayed behind. He could have stayed behind. But his brothers were in trouble and he jumped on that humvee without hesitation and went into combat and lost his life.

Soth:

Ryan Jerabek's life journey was cut tragically short, but the measure of life is not always in its length, but in the way it intersects with others.

Ken:

How much love he had from other people, how people thought about him, how many lives he touched and is continuing to touch.

Rita:

He loved what he was doing. He loved his brother marines and he gave his life to protect his brother marines. And always in his heart was the thought of protecting us.

Ken:

As long as I'm alive, I'll keep this alive and keep it growing so the people of Wisconsin and the nation don't forget the sacrifice.

Loew:

Ryan Jerabek's family is holding a memorial walk and run in Ryan's honor. The event will be held August 12th at the Four Seasons Park in Hobart. The event begins at 9am. You can find directions and more information on our Web site at wpt.org/inwisconsin.

The Mazomanie woman featured in our next story originally is from another war-torn part of the world. Stephanie Lemke-Vuljanic was born in a Croatian mountain village and immigrated here in the 1970s. She brought with her a vibrant heritage she's trying to preserve through an interesting form of art.

Liz Koerner:

For Stephanie Lemke-Vuljanic, creating embroidered eggs is more than artistic impression. It helps her feel connected to family in Croatia and to happy memories from childhood. It's also a way to cope with some of the difficulties that have come her way.

Stephanie Lemke-Vuljanic:

I think it is just something so simple that means so much.

Koerner:

The style of decorating eggs is unique to the area where Stephanie grew up, south of Zagreb in Croatia. It's called Pisanica.

Stephanie:

Pisanica is a Slavic word for writing. So it would be like Pisanica, you know, like writing with thread.

Koerner:

For hundreds of years children were given these beautiful eggs at Easter. Stephanie learned how to create this art form from her mother. On a visit to the old country, Stephanie discovered that this art form has almost died out.

Stephanie:

This thread you would grab when you come from the side.

Koerner:

She's keeping tradition alive here by teaching others, including her granddaughters, Madeline and Lauryn.

Stephanie:

I give them plastic needles and I put the thread on and they are doing it and they are so excited grandma's eggs.

You are making one for me? Oh, you darling.

I'm going to pass the tradition on because I think that we need to look back where we are from, you know.

Koerner:

Stephanie grew up in a mountain village in Croatia, an area where faith and art go hand in hand. The traditional pattern embroidered on the eggs is called a God's eye.

Stephanie:

We would call it God's eye.

Koerner:

In Stephanie's family, the God's eye pattern was not simply a decoration. She still remembers what it meant to her mother.

Stephanie:

She would use like the egg, and she would point the God's eye in front of us, and she would say, Now focus on the center of that egg. Then she would move the egg from side to side and she said, See, now the eye, you can still see the eye, and that's how it is with God. God can see you no matter what you are doing, so God is always watching over you. That was enough to scare us for good.

Koerner:

The beauty of Stephanie's intricate creations is even more remarkable for the effort it requires from hands crippled by rheumatoid arthritis.

Stephanie:

I have severe rheumatoid arthritis for about 30 years now, and I have plastic knuckles, and I have plastic elbows, and metal knees, and spinal fusion. So I'm like the bionic woman. My hands have little nodules which are normal for people with arthritis, but not so many. It doesn't bother me, you know, except sometimes people look at them and they are afraid of them or something, or like my little granddaughter says to me, one time she came to me and she hugs me and she kisses my hand and she says, "Oh, Bacca, I love your hands, but you know, sometimes when I look at them, I feel like running. They look like monsters' hands."

Koerner:

A sense of humor and a passion to create often carry her through difficult times. While healing from elbow surgery, Stephanie couldn't manage the two-handed art of egg decorating. Instead, she took up a paint brush, inspiration again came from her childhood.

Stephanie:

My first painting is the painting of my mother in my house making the eggs. She is sitting there by the table, and we are sitting around waiting for the eggs to be done. We were very poor, and so to have an egg for one person was like a special gift. You know, a big family, close family. My great-grandmother, my grandma, my mom, dad, and my dad's father, my grandfather, lived together, and then five children. All in a one room house with a dirt floor.

Koerner:

Another early painting depicts a favorite Easter memory.

Stephanie:

In that painting you see was the Easter fire that is burned at 4:00 in the morning, and all the children and all the people in the town wake up and are united in this particular moment in hopes for better future. It was such a magical moment, you know, that it stayed with me for up to today, you know, and I will carry it until I die, because it was just so beautiful.

Koerner:

But these beautiful memories are also colored with sadness. Stephanie grew up in a region of Croatia ravaged by war.

Stephanie:

A lot of men lost their life in the war there. Therefore, the region was the poorest region and most households were headed by women.

Koerner:

It was poverty that forced Stephanie to leave her homeland. She found a job in Germany, then moved to America in the early 1970's. She's traveled far from her childhood home and faced a great deal of physical hardship along the way, but through it all, crafting her eggs has been a constant, a way to keep going through good times and bad.

Stephanie:

This is what I think is important to find in life, just something to do for the times when you don't feel like doing anything, you know. You just go on, you know.

Loew:

Our next story also features a group of people who are passionate about working with their hands. Troy Community Gardens in Madison covers 25 acres and was begun as a conservation easement. The gardening space is also a gathering place. Author Marge Pitts and Videographer Wendy Woodards spent a year capturing the changing seasons and spirit of Troy Gardens.

Narrator:

Winter. Gardening is over in winter. I'm not sad. I'm tired. I don't remember the lust for digging I felt in the spring. The thirst for the smell of compost, the zest for the rake. Gardening roots a person in time as well as space. Winter is not the time for toil. Winter is for roaming. Troy Gardens is more than just vegetable plots. The property is also acres of open space, a prairie and woodland with a fine path weaving through it. Spring. Each plot in Troy Gardens is an expression of one gardener's personality and experience. The best thing about Community Gardens is the boundaries around each plot. Beyond each border is the realm of another gardener. Each gardener is free to impose his or her own order. My Hmong garden neighbors use the same techniques they used in their homeland a world away. I like to think that seeing their plots take shape every year makes them feel at home here. A feeling of wholeness and connection inevitably comes to us when we open our hearts and minds to a relationship with the natural world. All we need is a place to experience it. That brings us to Troy Gardens.

Woman:

Come way down low. Bring it down low, honey.

Narrator:

Summer. In midsummer of a perfect year, time stops, like a dog panting hard on a cool floor, the world is both throbbing with life and completely idle. At this point there's nothing to do but relax, sit back in your row with a few small weeds that can't compete with your huge growing vegetables, and listen to the day sounds of Troy Gardens. It's a blistery hot afternoon. I'm working my garden up one row and down the other on my knees, barefoot, straw hat pulled down low. Sweating so freely, I feel nude, as if my clothes have melted off. I can smell the living soil on the uprooted weeds, the tang of the tomato plants I'm pruning, and the watery, mineral smell of my sweat. Two blocks away a boom box is playing traditional Hmong music, while a woman and a boy work. The music is discordant. It seems to have no beginning, middle, or end. I can't understand it with my mind, but I'm not using my mind in the garden today. I'm using my body and my senses, and with these I know that the music, the heat, and the work are as perfect as Eden. Like Eden, the afternoon passes away, but the memory, like the archetype, remains whole and perfect in my mind, which alas I have resumed using. I have faith that if we can learn to grow beans, we can learn to share this green earth in peace. Fall. What goes around comes around. That's why they call it a revolution.

Girl:

I'm starting to pull it out.

Narrator:

Gardening is just one dance. Busy as a polka to fresh air, bird songs and long horizons. But I like to waltz, too. Slow dreamy circles that drift me into creation. My partner in this dance is Wink, a big dog with short legs, who thinks of himself as the kindest emperor the world has ever known. The delight of rambling across the landscape together, the pleasant company of a beautiful dog as I do my chores, the happiness of having a simple agenda. These are harmonies, one music, one joy. All we need, animals and humans, is a place to experience it, and that brings us back to Troy Gardens.

Loew:

Time for this week's Wisconsin Retro report. This one takes us back to 1991 when reporter Art Hackett hit the highway to solve a mystery.

Narrator:

Ladies and Gentlemen the story you're about to see is true--

Woman:

You mean somebody actually got paid to do this?

Hackett:

This is the city, Los Angeles, California. It was easy in Los Angeles, but that doesn't make any difference since we were in Eau Claire. We were working the day watch out of public affairs. My photographer's Bruce Johnson, my soundman Tom. My name's Art Hackett. I'm a reporter.

Bruce Johnson:

Say, Artie.

Hackett:

Yeah, Bruce.

Johnson:

Did you ever notice about these signs?

Hackett:

What about them?

Johnson:

They don't add up.

Hackett:

What do you mean?

Johnson:

When you're in Eau Claire, Madison's 95 miles from Tomah.

Hackett:

So?

Johnson:

When you get to Tomah, Madison's 99 miles away. It doesn't add up.

Announcer:

One Adam 12, a 415 man with a gun. One Adam 12, no warrant.

Hackett:

A check of the signs along I-94 showed Bruce was right. Somewhere along the way, six of those miles were missing. The list of suspects was a mile long. Maybe it was part of an elaborate CIA disinformation campaign. An effort to confuse Canadians incase they invade. Maybe they vanished as part of a cheap space time trick pulled by Ponds and Fleischman after they were turned down for a cold fusion research grant at UW-Eau Claire. Maybe they were moved to Milwaukee by way of a late-night amendment by the Joint Finance Committee. Maybe they had been vetoed by Governor Thompson. To check it out, we headed to the district DOT office in La Crosse. One guy there didn't want to give his name, but claimed it might be because sometimes distances get measured by different points. He says it happens all the time.

Man:

We have one here just down the Highway 14 between Westby and Viroqua, which are only five or six miles apart. On one sign it says, from Viroqua to Westby it's five miles, from Westby to Veroqua, it's six miles. It's because of where they measure the destination point.

Hackett:

So what happened to the mile that's missing.

Man:

It's not really missing.

Hackett:

And there was another fellow that said he was retired. He wasn't sure that was the case here.

Man:

That shouldn't be because everytime they tell you it's so many miles from, it should be to the same spot in Madison I would think.

Hackett:

It just doesn't add up. You're retired you said? What are you doing here? The guys in La Crosse were right about one thing, Westby is closer to Viroqua, than Viroqua is to Westby. But still, it just doesn't add up. Our investigation dragged on for several weeks. We eventually wound up at the top, the state DOT Headquarters, talking to a guy named Chuck Spang. He claims he's in charge of signs. When you're in Eau Claire, it says that Tomah and Madison are about 96 miles apart. By the time you get to Black River Falls, they're 100 miles apart. It doesn't add up.

Chuck Spang:

Human Error. Because you're going through two different districts. Highway districts

and as the plans are prepared and one district does their set of plans and then you go into another district and they do their signs and plans. There's a lack of coordination back and forth.

Hackett:

A simple explanation, two DOT districts, two sets of numbers, numbers that just don't add up. But something else didn't add up in Spang's office, or signs. I see you still have some former governors here too. Is this incase those guys get back in again.

Spang:

No, we're just cleaning up bins and corners of different buildings and we came across these.

Hackett:

In the following weeks, more investigations were held. In a moment, the results. The mileage sign near Eau Claire was found to be in error. It really is 100 miles between Madison and Tomah, not 94. The sign was scheduled for alteration. This man was commended for outstanding sale of chicken dinner tickets. Chuck Spang was implicated in a plot to return Martin Schrieber and Lee Sherman Dreyfuss to the governor's chair.

Loew:

A sign supervisor for the Department of Transportation tell us the signs have been updated since that report originally aired. That's our program for this week. "In Wisconsin" will not be seen next week. Instead, you can tune in at 7pm next Thursday night and see "Birds of Wisconsin, an "In Wisconsin" special. We'll be back in two weeks on August 17 with another episode of "In Wisconsin." Until then, enjoy this final look at Governor Dodge State Park. For "In Wisconsin," I'm Patty Loew. See you next time.