Storm Stories

By Suzanne Kashuba

I live in Buffalo, N.Y. and, true to the stereotype, I’ve seen my share of monster storms -- notably the Blizzard of ‘77 (snow drifts up the rooftops) and the October Surprise Storm of 2006 (no power and tree-clogged streets for nearly a week).

But these pale in comparison to “The Dust Bowl,” the Depression-era, decade-long disaster that Ken Burns brings to life in his latest two-part saga. Even he was amazed at the scope of this tragedy: “It's like a chapter out of the Bible,” he said. “Could you really have locusts and dust storms like that, that actually kill children?”

Get a sneak peek of the film here (and below).

Helping Hands

By Misty L. Harris

As a teen, I never understood the concept of working for free. That was unfathomable until I reached my junior/senior year of high school and realized that as a requirement for graduation I had to complete a certain amount of volunteer hours. Honestly, this bummed me out!

Throwing the Baby Out with the Bathtub Gin

By Annmarie Dean

Imagine not being able to walk into a bar and order a beer. Instead, walk up to a locked steel door, someone on the other side opens a peephole and asks you for the password to get inside. After the password is whispered, it is a speakeasy after all, the locked door opens and entertainment and booze are abundant. The air is seasoned with jazz music full of propulsive rhythms and improvisation. People in attendance include women wearing slinky knee-length dresses and chin-length bobbed hair sipping on illegal sidecars and men dressed in suits drinking illegal old fashions. That is the picture painted in Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s three-part documentary, Prohibition; the series premiers on WNED-TV at 9 p.m. on Oct. 2, 3 and 4.