The Story

Mel Miskimen has been listening to our series on summer jobs and how they can change us. Mel just knew she had to tell us her job. Mel took a summer job as a “toe checker” at the local pool after graduating from high school. It involved looking carefully at all kinds of people – and their feet. Mel tells Dick that she used this low-paying job to take revenge on middle school snobs by enforcing the rules and making them wear unattractive bathing caps. And she paid her way through college.

It was the Spring of 1973 when Kevin Love responded to a friend's call for help. What happened next is an adventure involving three VW Beetles that Kevin will never forget.

Producer Dmae Roberts travels to Taiwan with her mother. Together they grapple with her mother's harrowing childhood during World War II. This story is highly personal and inventive, a journey of sound and story.

Mike Anderson spent 17 years in prison for murder. It was his poetry, and his desire to evolve, that helped him get out of prison early and successfully re-enter society. Mike now has a job, and a family, and he's working with young people - as he says, "polishing souls."