Weekend America

Home With Dana Gould

This Saturday after Thanksgiving, we're focusing on home and what it means to us. We're checking in with some Weekend America regulars to see what they're up to since we didn't put them to work on Good/Bad/No. Comedian Dana Gould offers travel tips with primates (a.k.a. young children) and how to consult T.V. guide to pick the most auspicious time to travel home.

Homes for No Pay

When we think about home, of course, we usually think about houses. The companies that build residential homes rely on Hispanic workers, many of them foreign-born. Much of that work has dried up with the housing bust. There's still work to be found--for less money, and in some cases, no money at all.

From Projects to Suburbs

In the 1970s, the government funded a desegregation plan to move more than 3,500 black families from Chicago to the suburbs. One of those early pioneers was Valencia Morris. She moved to a suburb called Woodridge with her three daughters. Laurie Stern of American RadioWorks picks up the story of one of those daughters 32 years later.

Weekend Soundtrack

Weekend Soundtrack: "My Pillow is the Threshold" by The Silver Jews

A weekend soundtrack can be the song you hear on your iPod or just in your mind all weekend long. Our latest story comes from Shay Robertson in Evanston, Ill. Her soundtrack is "My Pillow is the Threshold" by The Silver Jews.

Poetry Radio Project

Bringing Poetry Home

Home is a subject poets have been scribbling about in stanzas since the days of Homer's epic poem "The Odyssey." This year, some poets put their own spin on the topic at City of Asylum Pittsburgh's annual jazz and poetry reading. Two of those poets come from very different places: Liberian-born Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, and native South Carolinian Terrance Hayes.

Vegetarians Falling Off the Wagon

Weekend America asked a delicate question of listeners recently -- and yes, it turns out there are more than a few ex-vegetarians who lapsed during the holidays. We hear their stories.

The Tragedy of Stuff

Your house becomes your home when you have your stuff in it. But what if you have a lot of stuff? So much that your home starts to feel like a storage unit? That's what happens to people sometimes referred to as hoarders. They collect things and have a hard time organizing them and letting go. Cathy Duchamp was married to someone she prefers to call "chronically disorganized." Here's her story.

On the Road With Pico Iyer

Pico Iyer has been called "the Nowhere Man" and a "privileged homeless person." The travel writer and author was born in Britain, to Indian parents, and eventually wound up in America. He now divides his time between Japan and California, but most of his life is spent six miles up in the air on the way to his next destination. John Moe talks with Iyer about his portable idea of home, finding sanctuary and what it was like losing his home to the California wildfires in 2000.

Your Stories of Home

We asked you for your stories of home and you sent dozens of great stories, thoughtful essays about the meaning of home and entertained us with your housing adventures. We hear some of our favorites.

After the Projects

The Ida B. Wells housing projects on Chicago's South Side opened in 1941, when housing segregation was still legal. By the '70s and '80s, Wells was caught up in the violence and squalor that became synonymous with Chicago public housing. Michael Whitehead's six-story building was no exception.

Conversations with America

Conversations with America: Moustafa Bayoumi

In Brooklyn, there are several different neighborhoods that have relatively large concentrations of Arab Americans and of Muslim Americans. Probably the most important one is Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. And then the older neighborhood in Brooklyn where there are a lot of Arabs and Muslims would around Atlantic Avenue. They sell a lot of cassette tapes and pamphlets, and there's Chinese food that's halal.

Shooting with Nancy French

We're home for the holidays today and we released our Good/Bad/No panel from their duties. But we thought we'd check in with a few of our regulars to see how they're spending the weekend. Nancy French is the author of Red State of Mind: How a Catfish Queen Reject Became a Liberty Belle. She reports live from target practice on the front porch of her parents' home in Paris, Tenn.

Every Bunk Tells a Story

Sometimes the most unlikely places feel like home. There's not much that's warm and cheery about the troopships that took young soldiers to war in Vietnam in the late 1960s. The ships were hot, sweaty and packed with up to 5000 men at once. But some soldiers saw these troopships as a last secure refuge before the uncertainties of war.

Running Across New Hampshire

I drive along Route 9 as the sun dips behind the mountains. I'm looking for two runners - Nate Sanel and John Lacroix - who are somewhere along this road, on their way to running 124 miles across the state of New Hampshire. Or at least, attempting to do so. When I finally spot them, they're 12 hours and 60 miles into their run - almost half-way done.