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Morse's Pain Became Invention
- Samuel F. B. Morse raced home after a courier's delayed note and found his wife had already died.
- That loss drove him to invent the telegraph to collapse distance and prevent similar heartbreak.
Family Stories Make Places Live
- DiMeo recounts family stories that tied his youth to ancestral moments, like driving the same steep Providence hill his grandfather once struggled on.
- Those repeated tales made the past feel present and informed his interest in memory and place.
When Birthdays Became Draft Numbers
- The 1969 draft lottery read birthdays live, turning private dates into life-changing numbers for millions of men.
- Listeners experienced terror and communal suspense as their fate hinged on a seemingly arbitrary drawing.