Spotting Wisconsin

Within a few seconds of my pressing record, Peter Laing revealed why he had taken up bicycling on the Interurban Trail in Ozaukee County—to handle his grief. This interview was recorded in August of 2015 at a picnic table on the trail in Belgium, Wisconsin. Please like, comment and share this podcast from Spotting Wisconsin’s Facebook […]

In late August, I was biking in Harrington Beach State Park when I spotted a man with binoculars. He was looking into the woods by Lake Michigan. Turns out, Mark Sulway had flown from across the pond (Wales, United Kingdom) and was bird watching in Wisconsin. Visit with Mark who was spotting ‘lifers’ near the village […]

I stood next to an older man who was sitting on a mobility scooter at the Holland Festival parade in Cedar Grove, Wisconsin in late July.  I learned that the mobility scooter isn’t because he is in his eighties but because at age five, in a small town in North Dakota, his legs were paralyzed from […]

Can you hike for an hour? Can you see yourself biking for fourteen days with two twelve-year-olds? How about walking nearly 9,000 miles around the outer states of the U.S.A.? Three times in four days in late August, strangers-on-the-move through Ozaukee County were on-the-spot interviewed for Spotting Wisconsin. What is a ‘challenge’ is personal. Hearing these […]

Did you know that among us are people who remember spotting teams of horses hitched in town? This episode of Spotting Wisconsin shares portions of an oral history I recorded. I have enhanced this little memory piece with audio from my sound collection. Travel back in time with John Kauffman who now lives in Cedarburg but […]

In autumn, David Schueler and his family walked the beach at Harrington Beach State Park on Lake Michigan near Belgium, Wisconsin. They found coal that could have washed up from a sunken schooner years and years ago. David also talks about a special geological feature in Wisconsin, the Niagara Escarpment. A closer look at the wave-tossed coal.  Like, […]

In early October, I knocked on the door of a hobby beekeeper in rural southwestern Wisconsin’s Vernon County. Their neighbor had pointed it out as a story for Spotting Wisconsin. Tim Fitzpatrick and his wife, Kris, led me down the hill behind the house to the honey bee hives where in the summer an estimated […]

Jim Falkner of Milwaukee sat next to me at a live airing of the humorous Wisconsin Public Radio show, Michael Feldman’s Whad’Ya Know? We ‘yacked’ a little before the show. It made me wonder, what does Jim know? So, a couple days later, I phoned to find out that he had been admitted to the hospital the next morning after the show. […]

Come ride a day in a noisy library that runs on diesel and rolls around on wheels. Even when stopped, it’s noisy, because everything inside, the lights, heat and computers are powered with a generator. It’s the Eastern Shores Library System bookmobile that is driven by two hardy librarians who serve the people in the small towns and rural […]

Slow down! We’re in Colby, Wisconsin. I knocked on a door to ask directions to a historical marker. Eighty-six-year-old Virginia ‘Ginny’ Brown invited me in. With her antique calendar clock ticking, she talks about the early years, the present and the uncertain future—reflections on change, the passage of time, the story of life.

In the month of March, near Eagle, Wisconsin, a big black horse with a rider made wide strides to cross the road down from my van. This was the first time I had stopped a stranger to ask for a Spotting Wisconsin interview. Cyndi Merka eagerly met me at the nearby stable to talk about her beloved horse, Ziglar. A year […]

In the spring of the year, rural Port Washington, Wisconsin, I waved up a long driveway to two silhouettes beside an old farmhouse. A wave back drew me up to hear about fixing trucks, farming and friendship and to contemplate waving to people. In this episode, Bill Powell of the Bay View neighborhood in Milwaukee chats with me about waving […]

As I drove by a house in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, “a town with just the right speed,” I spotted a woman raking leaves in red, rubber boots. Recorded in the yard of Chris and Joy Krogstad, this interview takes us back to Joy’s childhood, through Chris’s challenge to get his degree, to the parenting of […]

I headed to a small town simply because the name, Ladysmith, Wisconsin, intrigued me. I ended up recording a glimpse of the guarded memories of a WWII vet who had been wounded in the jungle of New Guinea, one year to the day after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. When I sat down at ninety-four-year-old Clarence […]

In starkly contrasting audio environments, two men at opposite sides of the state are spotted hauling ‘cargo.’ The out-of-the-ordinary visuals spark conversation to learn, “there’s ways” . . . to be friendlier to the earth. Meet Pastor Steve Minnema from La Cross, Wisconsin and Lindsay Dahl from Milwaukee. Minnema’s photograph is in the very first episode of Spotting Wisconsin. Scroll down […]

When Bethany was eight, her parents moved to a Baraboo, Wisconsin area farm. The barn that held the future for the young family would too soon, tragically, fall silent. But, this September at dusk, lights sparkled and glowed in loops from the rafters in preparation for a long-awaited celebration. Meet Bethany Neuman and Matt Miller. Banjo […]

SPOTTING WISCONSIN is a free podcast. In a few weeks, the first episode will be released. Join Nancy Camden on this journey to discover the human heart in the heartland through on-the-spot interviews with randomly spotted strangers. Camden bikes trails and wanders streets and roads of cities, small towns and the glaciated landscape of rural Wisconsin. Follow by […]