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- Look around John Bambic's basement in Milwaukee,
and you'll find quirky characters in every corner.
- For years, John's hobby has been
carving "whirligigs."
They're whimsical wooden figures
that come to life with a little wind.
- Each one tells a story.
But to understand the stories in John's basement,
you have to head upstairs to his kitchen table,
and watch as John and his son
thumb through a lifetime of memories.
- Then, we come up to America that a way.
- John grew up in the nation of Slovenia,
then part of Yugoslavia,
in this centuries-old house.
- His life on the farm wouldn't last.
[mortar shells exploding]
In the early 1940s, war broke out in Yugoslavia,
between royalists and communist-led partisans.
At 19 years old, John was drafted.
- Forced from home, John spent four years
living in a displaced persons camp in Austria.
There, he met a young woman named Mary.
The two married, and in 1950, they moved to Milwaukee.
- In the 1960s, Slovenians living in Wisconsin
set out to build their own cultural park.
As they cleared the brush, John had an idea.
- With no formal training,
John began carving.
He made noisemakers and whirligigs...
objects he remembered from Slovenia.
There, they were used to keep birds away from crops.
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- In the years since, John's made hundreds of whirligigs,
raffling many of them off
to benefit the Slovenian Cultural Society.
The characters come from his memory,
inspired by his childhood in Slovenia.
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- A lot has changed since John started carving.
In 1992, he returned to Slovenia
after almost half a century.
In 2014, his wife Mary passed away.
And John has grown older.
- But for all that's changed,
there's plenty that has not...
John still has his children and grandchildren...
- He also has a lifetime of memories
and one home-grown hobby.
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