- Announcer: The following program
is a PBS Wisconsin original production.
- Angela: This week on "Wisconsin Life:"
we meet a woman who's dedicated her life
to uplifting a community,
a trumpeter
who takes the stage on Broadway,
a mentor empowering others,
and a bookbinder keeping a centuries-old tradition alive.
It's all ahead on "Wisconsin Life!"
[cheerful music]
- Announcer: "Wisconsin Life" is funded in part by
Alliant Energy,
Lowell and Mary Peterson,
American Transmission Company,
the Focus Fund for Wisconsin Programming,
and Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.
[door creaks open]
- Hello, I'm Angela Fitzgerald,
and this is "Wisconsin Life."
I'm celebrating my love for books today
as I join the Kenosha Public Library Bookmobile.
The Bookmobile travels throughout Kenosha County
at various stops during the week,
and gives patrons a chance to check out materials
a bit closer to home.
The bookmobile concept has been popular
since its first appearance in Wisconsin in the 1940s.
Today, several counties like Kenosha have bookmobiles.
Kenosha Public Library has two trucks in operation--
one big, one small--
that run continuously throughout the year.
Overall, they have over 10,000 items
for check-out traveling the area.
At each stop, patrons can return items,
browse through books, and take home new resources.
It's just like a library, but on four wheels.
Now, let's shift from stories on the page
to stories on the screen.
[shimmery music]
Now let's continue celebrating
the written word
as we meet a bookbinder
in Arbor Vitae
who restores books
from cover to cover.
[playful horn music]
- Florian Bieschke: Do I read books?
[jolly laughter]
You betcha!
I've been asked if I read books.
That's my form of entertainment.
I'm not fond of screens.
I just like the page,
so I read.
My name is Florian Bieschke,
and I'm a hand bookbinder.
[hammers gently]
[hums quietly]
We do a multitude of things here.
We do restoration of rare books,
we teach workshops,
and we create books.
Originally, I'm from Chicago, but...
I have not been in a big city
since I was 18 years old.
I prefer rural environments.
Right now, I live on a small tract of land
in Arbor Vitae, Wisconsin,
and my neighbors are deer, and squirrels, and chipmunks,
and we get along just fine.
None of it's really rocket science at all.
This stuff is 15th-century stuff.
This is a simple sewing frame,
but it's been around since the 15th century.
Nothing's changed.
The design is exactly the same.
And it works, that's why it's still here.
When we create a book, we start with
a packet of raw materials.
[pounding]
By the end of day one, the book should be sewn.
From there on out,
it's like watching different colors of paint dry.
It's all the same.
Time-consuming.
You have to like that.
You really have to like getting things just right
to be in this
because if you rush it,
there's no hiding the fact that you did.
Challenges are presented minute-by-minute,
depending on what you're working on.
That means
solutions have to come up minute-by-minute.
It requires patience and it requires
an eye for detail
and the ability
to anticipate disaster
because it's around every corner.
- So, the last thing that you did, I see,
is you took it all apart.
I was not here for that.
- And then, there's the preservation aspect.
Keeping the craft alive and passing it on
to other people.
A lot of times, the student's happiness
comes from the fact that
they didn't realize they could do
such precise work
with a few simple tools
and "brother left" and "brother right."
And that's their pay-off, and then, they have their book.
They can always look at their book.
The thing about bookbinding is: once you get bit by the bug,
there's no cure.
It's going to be terminal.
I'm never met a binder
who let it go and just never came back.
I've never met a sour one either.
They just seem to be very happy people.
There's something about it.
It's been around for centuries.
This will slow you down,
and if you're a perfectionist,
this is for you.
* *
[shimmery music]
- Angela: Next up, we head to Kaukauna,
where a mentor uses the lessons of his past
to help guide others.
Joey Smith feels comfortable at home.
- Joey: This is one of my best gardens I've ever done.
- Angela: But that wasn't always the case.
When he was in high school, his home life
was so chaotic, Joey ended up in Tomah
at the Challenge Academy,
a six-month reform school put on by
the Wisconsin National Guard.
- Before the Challenge Academy, I was always hesitant.
I wasn't a go-getter.
[in adolescent voice] I'm going to try and stick it out till the end.
- It was a last chance program
to get his life back on course
with a little military-style discipline.
[yelling] - Let's go, men, march!
- I think before I came here,
I was kinda' slouchy and kind of lazy.
- Angela: Joey graduated with the confidence
to chart his own course.
- I guess you could say,
it helped me realize my inner potential.
After the Academy,
I'm like, I could do anything.
- Angela: He moved out west to find work.
- Joey: I lived out in North Dakota.
I lived out in Wyoming.
I got homesick.
I had to come back.
- Angela: One day at lunch,
a co-worker was talking about his son.
- Joey Smith: Having real problems with my son,
He's just not listening.
He's failing in school.
- Angela: Joey had some advice.
- I was a lot like your son,
and I went to the Challenge program,
and it made me a better person.
About a month later,
[chuckles] he's asking me if I want to be the mentor,
and I said, "Well, yeah, sure,
maybe it's about time I give back."
- Angela: That brought Joey back to Tomah
for the first time since graduation.
- Joey: It brought back a lotta warm fuzzy feelings.
[cadets call out response in unison]
It's been 13 years,
but as soon as
the first day that I came back
and did my mentor training, a lot things just clicked.
It was like,
"Wow, I remember marching down that street,"
or,
"Wow, I remember doing push-ups over there."
- Angela: And now, Joey is working with Jake.
- Jake: These are the guys who I live with. - Joey: Yep.
I see a lot of me in Jake.
And that's why I love being his mentor.
That's a younger me.
- Angela: As a mentor, Joey's job is
just to be there for Jake.
- We kinda gauge each other, it's goes in hand-in-hand.
And, right now, as we stand, we're best of buds.
[laughing together]
We're clicking,
and I love it.
He's a good kid.
He's got a really good heart.
He's got a really good head on his shoulders.
- Angela: To measure his journey,
Joey simply has to see how far he's come.
- Instructor: Whatever role you're in in life now--
- Joey: It feels good to give back.
- Instructor: A kid that's totally looked up to.
- Joey: The Academy's done a lot for me.
That's awesome!
It's good seeing you too, Sir.
Having all my instructors come up to me
and shake my hand,
and tell me,
"Wow, you've grown up.
You're doing great."
- Jake: Hey, Joey? - Joey: I'm ready.
That's a feeling of self-accomplishment.
* *
- I'm in Kenosha to join their bookmobile
as it makes its way around the community.
The Kenosha Public Library Bookmobile
is on a mission to deliver books
and keep their community reading.
To learn more about how this program
got its start, I met with
the library's outreach coordinator.
- The Kenosha Public Library has had
bookmobile service since the 1950s.
We have long had
a home delivery program
and a deposit collection program
in nursing homes,
but in the last couple years,
we've really expanded the department
to include a lot of special events
and programs in schools
and programs in parks.
It's a lot of fun. [laughing]
We do what we can to get out into the community.
- Angela: The library has two bookmobiles,
each stacked with hundreds of resources.
- The big bookmobile is designed
to really be a rolling library branch, so we have
things for all ages in all formats. [checkout beep]
We have video games, and DVDs, and books,
and magazines, audio books.
There's quite a large collection for school-age kids.
We have a big collection of teen books
on the big bookmobile,
whereas on the small bookmobile,
because that's what we take to
the senior places, but also to a lot of special events
and also specific neighborhoods
that have a lot of Spanish speakers,
we have a bigger Spanish collection
and some kids books and a lot of large print books.
- And it sounds like part of the mission
of these bookmobiles is to increase the accessibility
of book borrowing to people in the community.
So, can you tell us about that?
- Yeah, we run into people quite a lot
that say that they
had stopped using the library because they can't get to it,
or they don't know how to get there,
or bus fare is an issue,
or there just isn't transportation available to them
on a consistent basis.
- So, given that this is your role,
what's your most favorite part
about working for the library?
- Almost everybody we see is so thankful
that we're coming to where they are.
That, for whatever reason,
they can't or don't
come to a building,
they just really appreciate having things brought to them,
and that the library thinks that they're worth coming to,
and we do.
Everybody is happy all the time to see us.
- I mean, what doesn't make people happier,
at times, than books? - Right.
- Child: I finally found it!
- Man: That's the one you were looking for? - Yeah.
- We're not the only ones
who find joy in the written word.
Along our route, I met Camille,
a library patron who requested the bookmobile
make a stop near her home.
What brought you to the bookmobile?
- Camille Gendusa Bluestein: I looked up
the bookmobile.
I thought maybe there's--
'cause I've heard that they go to different places,
so I emailed.
And then, they called me.
I said, I really--
I need the library,
and have no way of getting to a library.
- That's awesome.
I think bookmobiles, in general,
help with that accessibility issue that some people have
where they can't get to the library, but the library can come to them.
- Yeah, yeah, so that's why I'm here.
- Yes, and I like those books, too.
- Angela: This library on wheels
is worth checking out.
[scanner reads barcode, beeps]
It's nice to see a bookmobile out and about,
bringing a library a little bit closer to home.
[shimmery music]
Next up, we head to Chippewa Falls,
where a young musician
is stepping onto the Broadway stage.
[cacophony of instruments warming up]
Becoming a professional musician
is hard work.
It takes dedication,
practice, [saxophone flourish]
all that jazz.
That's Colin Orth's dream.
- Colin Orth: I want to be a traveling musician.
First of all, I love traveling.
I love going to different places
that I haven't been to before.
New experiences, things like that.
[director claps rhythmically]
- One, two, one, two, three, four.
* *
- Angela: Colin plays trumpet
in the Chippewa Falls High School Jazz Band.
[playing trumpet metallically]
- Colin Orth: I love how it stands out.
I like how you can always hear a trumpet in a band.
There's no hiding when you're playing the trumpet.
[stately trumpeting]
If you ever hide when you're playing trumpet,
you're not playing trumpet correctly.
* *
[trumpets in a jazz sound]
- Angela: The trumpet helped Colin find focus,
especially since his childhood
wasn't always so harmonious.
[trumpeting sustained note]
As a newborn, Colin's skin seemed to bruise easily,
enough to worry his mother, Angie.
- He was bruised frequently,
and when you're the parent staying home
with your new baby, and your baby's bruised,
you start to have some alarm.
The baby's going to the doctor frequently
during those first few months anyway for inoculations,
so I would bring those to her attention,
and she was concerned enough,
after a few months of us seeing this pattern,
that she referred us to Rochester, where he
went to see the hematologist.
- Angela: At five months old,
Colin was diagnosed with severe hemophilia B.
It means his blood is missing a protein
that helps it clot naturally.
- Let's say, if I get a small cut,
it might bleed for a little bit longer than somebody else.
- Angela: It also creates
a much higher risk of internal bleeding
from everyday activity,
especially in joints like the elbows, wrists, or knees.
- Angie Sterling-Orth: A bleed would be
an injury to a joint or muscle that causes bleeding
to happen under the surface
so the bleeding does not stop.
In the hemophilia world, they call it "a bleed."
- Angela: Colin manages his hemophilia with medicine,
an infusion of the missing protein
into his blood every 10 days.
- Colin: I'd say, I have to be
a little more careful than regular people,
but it's nothing that holds me back
from doing other activities and things like that.
- Angela: One day soon,
Colin will leave home
and be on his own.
That's a scary day for any parent,
but especially when
a child's health depends
on a strict self-care schedule.
- Angie Sterling-Orth: He's getting older.
He knows how to take care of himself,
but we're letting him have more independence.
So we're getting to that point
we're going to have to let him go,
trusting that self-care will follow.
We'll see.
- Angela: In 2018, Angie found help
from an unlikely source:
her Twitter feed.
The CEO of a production company
was auditioning teams with bleeding disorders
for a show in New York City.
The title?
"Breaking Through! Hemophilia: The Musical."
- Angie: It felt really surreal,
but I followed the link and I looked at it.
When he got home from camp, I said, "You gotta look at this,"
and I think he thought it was surreal, too.
- Hello, this is Colin Orth,
applying for the "Break Through!"
musical in New York City.
["Love Shack" B-52's] So, I sent him a recording of me singing
some of my favorite songs,
and sure enough,
they emailed back in a couple weeks
saying that, "Congratulations, you're in."
- Angela: Colin flew to New York
to rehearse and perform in a Broadway-style show,
a traveling musician's dream.
When I went to New York, I finally
felt like I actually took my first step
into the professional music business.
- Scene One:
Friends reunite after summer months.
For some, it's their first day in high school.
- Angela: One goal of the musical was
to raise awareness about bleeding disorders.
- * Why was I chosen? *
* Why was it me? *
- It gave me goosebumps and it made me cry.
- * And the pain *
* Doesn't fade *
- Colin: It made me feel really nice
that hemophilia is getting a lot more attention
than it has in the past.
- * I'm still here today *
- Angela: More importantly,
it encouraged the actors to take care of themselves
as they enter adulthood.
- Angie: We've done all this work for 18 years
to prepare, to get him to this next stage.
So, we have to just
jump in and know that it will go well.
- * It's a no, no, no *
- Angie: Some of those messages in those songs
were good "for me" to hear and see that it will be okay.
- * Don't think you're all alone *
* Hard times have made us grow *
* To be the person you're meant to be *
[metronome pulsing]
- Colin: Here's your tempo.
- Angela: Colin plans to double-major in music
and either business or marketing.
[band playing] - Colin: * Ba-dah-buh *
- Angie: I think whatever he does,
whether it's performing as a professional trumpet player,
if it's music post-production, or running
a trumpet gear shop, or whatever it is,
his leadership skills
will really support him through that.
- Colin: I get to play this instrument,
and I might be able to make a future out of it,
and I love doing it.
- No matter what happens, [Colin playing piano]
his brush with Broadway gave him the confidence
to keep hitting those high notes.
- * I'm feeling free *
* And loving life *
- Never let the other people
that have negative comments toward you
bring you down.
Know that you have an entire community
of people like us.
- * Life *
- Colin: That will push you up
and never let you down.
[applause and cheering]
[audience cheers, applauds, and hollers "Whoo!"]
- Angela: Now, we meet another Wisconsinite
empowering others as we head to Madison
where the founder of a local magazine
continues to impact her community.
- Milele Chikasa Anana: These are some photos
from the March on Washington in 1963.
We came there to protest
that our democracy wasn't working.
I don't see myself in any of these pictures,
but I'm sure
that one day, I might
find myself listening to him.
[saxophone melody]
My name is Milele Chikasa Anana.
I have been a publisher,
an editor,
a social worker,
an activist,
and...
...general Hellraiser. [saxophone playing]
I came to Madison
in 1968.
In that era,
when I would look at newspapers or the news,
I saw
only stereotypical images of black people,
and I thought,
"This story is not balanced.
"There must be something more,
must be something missing here."
[conversation and laughter]
- Ms. Milele, we so appreciate
the legacy
that you have made with the "Umoja" magazine
because it is history.
My son could tell you--
- Anana: We started Umoja" magazine in Madison
in 1990
to portray
the positive attributes
of the Black culture.
[jazz music]
I did everything.
I took photos,
interviewed people,
I wrote up their stories,
I edited.
And all the spelling mistakes were mine. [chuckles]
- Woman: But also, it's her power of persuasion.
- Well now, that might have something to do about it.
- Dana Warren: She thinks it's important that people
are rewarded for
the good things that they do,
and I think that's what she's done with "Umoja," yeah.
- It helped me a lot
because, coming from Chicago,
it did expose me to
a black community here.
And to really see positive news
about black people,
I just really appreciate that.
- When Milele chooses you to be a part of a story,
that's a big deal
'cause she's like, "I think it's important
that people know what you do."
- Anana: What we found
over the years is that
if you feature a black person
who has done something,
other black people say, "Oh, I can do that too."
So, that has inspired a lot of people
to know that others had these dreams,
but didn't know whether they could do it or not.
- Did you have difficulty
securing artists for the covers?
- No, it was exposure for them. - Woman: It was exposure.
- Anana: I knew I didn't have the resources
to make a cover portrait,
so I decided
to use black artists
to portray our experience.
- Jerry Jordon: The idea behind the mural, I wanted
to paint something that would
represent who were the people
or the community that helped
make Madison what it is today, and
I didn't see it would be possible
not having "Umoja" magazine
represented in this mural. [Milele chuckles] - All right.
- Jerry Jordan: I work in oil, pastel, charcoal,
and I usually work with the human figure.
I've painted a lot of covers
for "Umoja" magazine over the years.
I suspect around
12 or 13 covers.
She has given a lot of artists
an opportunity to get their work seen by the community.
- Edith Hilliard: The artwork is absolutely beautiful!
Maybe artwork that you wouldn't normally see,
so that was an excellent idea
for her to do that.
- Jerry Jordan: I'm very proud of
my partnership with Ms. Milele over the years.
She would demand the best out of you,
and you want to live up to it,
so you always give your best.
[somber music]
- Anana: I grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
It was a segregated society,
and my mom said
that no human being is greater than another one,
no matter what they may look like.
I never will forget that.
I was sitting right on the edge.
I think I was so close, I heard--
Somebody told Martin Luther King
to tell about the dream,
tell about the dream.
When young people ask me why I went to
the March on Washington, I look at them and say,
"Because of you."
We went there to make
a larger impact on the world
and we did that.
I worked
on "Umoja" magazine
for 29 years.
I wish that there were a "Umoja"
for every community
in the United States
to celebrate the good things happening
in the Black community.
- When anybody thinks of positive things
that are happening in Madison,
that's where they heard about it, from "Umoja,"
so I think that's her legacy.
- Anana: In the Swahili language,
'moja' means one.
When you add 'u', it becomes
'together, all of us.'
[beep]
- It's time for me to check out,
which means we're wrapping up the show.
If you'd like to learn more about the Kenosha Public Library
and any of the people or places you've seen today,
visit WisconsinLife.org.
If you have a story to share,
email us at Stories@WisconsinLife.org.
I'm Angela Fitzgerald, and this is our "Wisconsin Life."
Happy reading! Bye.
- Announcer: "Wisconsin Life"
is funded in part by:
Alliant Energy,
Lowell and Mary Peterson,
American Transmission Company,
the Focus Fund for Wisconsin Programming,
and Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.