Inspired by StoryCorps participants here in Saranac Lake like Clarence Petty, who will be 103 in August and attributes his health to spending so much time hiking in the mountains and wandering through the woods…

…and Peter Roland, 84, who came in with his son Peter Roland, Jr. to talk about their lifelong passion for skiing in the slopes of the Adirondacks…

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The Mobile East team was welcomed by North Country Public Radio staffers June Peoples, Ellen Rocco, and Sandy Demarest, as well as several curious folks who braved the rain and cold on our opening day. Our first participants were beloved local character, Forrest ‘Dew Drop’ Morgan and his son Dermott, the youngest of eleven. Forrest’s nickname was given to him by a bully in school who called him “fresh as the morning dew.” In his 85 years, Dew was an Olympic bobsled champion, a World War II bombardier shot down from his plane and held captive by the Russians, and has opened several restaurant businesses in Saranac Lake including the Dew Drop Inn and Morgan’s 11. Long after he left the Booth, stories about Dew kept flowing from the people we’d meet!

After two StoryCorps Door-to-Doors together, facilitators Jenna Weiss-Berman and Yuki Aizawa were ready for the big leagues–the StoryCorps Mobile Tour! We left the extreme heat of New York City and headed up to Saranac Lake, New York in the Adirondacks. We parked the booth in beautiful Pontiac Bay Park on Flower Lake, which we soon renamed Baby Goose Pond for obvious reasons.

Senior Coordinator Terry Scott and Yuki set up the booth’s power.

Jenna affixed radio station partner North Country Public Radio’s logo to the booth.

And at the end of the day, we went home and sat on the boat dock of our cottage on Colby Lake. The Adirondacks are lovelier than we could have imagined, and we’re thrilled to start interviews.