Tonight on New Hampshire Crossroads, we celebrate earth, air, fire and water.

A production entitled The Four Elements.

It's a collaborative performance that brings together many different styles of music and dance.

Then producer Chip Neal takes us to the library, where things are changing fast, and a reunion at the New England Ski Museum.

Members of the 1936 and 1948 women's ski teams remember how it all began.

I don’t think anyone ever had more fun racing than we did.

Hi, I'm Fritz Wetherbee, and this is New Hampshire Crossroads.

Theme Music New Hampshire Crossroads is underwritten in part by First NH Bank, serving the financial needs of individuals, corporations, and local governments throughout New Hampshire.

Clarion Somerset Hotel and Apartments of Nashua, New Hampshire, where we make living fun.

And Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Hampshire.

For over 50 years, dedicated to providing quality health benefit protection programs for employers, employees, and individuals.

Today, we're in the College Woods out behind the studios of Channel 11 here on the University of New Hampshire campus on an absolutely gorgeous winter day.

Crisp and clear and as pretty as a day can be.

The first story on Crossroads tonight is about something we couldn't do wearing these things.

Well, I don't know, maybe we could.

It's about dance.

It's also about collaboration.

Collaboration between a dance company, some musicians, and the Concord Public Schools.

Now, the principles here are the Celebration Dance Company from Camden, Maine, the Wall Street Jazz Sextet, which comes from New Hampshire, right here, and choreographer Arthur Hall.

Now, Arthur Hall is no stranger to the Granite State.

For the past 18 years, he has been an artist in residence in the schools here.

And when we caught up with him, he was at the Rumford Elementary School up in Concord.

The piece he was working on would finally include oh eight musicians, ten instruments, four dancers, some beautiful masks, and it would be entitled The Four Elements.

Drum Music Fingers go together, palms to the ceiling.

And over.

Back to center.

And over.

Back to center.

Now fold.

(inaudible) And up.

And over, up.

And now here we go.

To find out who goes where.

There we go.

Keep it going, keep it going.

The circle, round this circle.

The earth is in a circle.

Go in a circle.

There we go.

Yeah.

And rest!

Okay.

Got it.

Walter, let me see you.

I’m excited about what we've done.

And I think it's, on time, mainly because we are dealing with talking about our environment.

You know, the elements and the ones who destroy those.

And we are the same, and we need them, and we rely on them.

So I didn't think about it when I first started, but I think it's a good thing just to remind people that, how important the elements are, if, I mean, the sun, the water, the earth and air, and when it's polluted and it's gone, it's not going to be too far before we're gone.

Drum Music 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 No, I should move next to you.

And I'll just come whipping up here.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 And face.

The, the elements are also the place in which most of the traditional choreography comes from.

It either comes from people that are working in movements that are related to work or it's related to animals that are in the area or it’s related to the, you know, the various elements of the water.

Because in the African tradition, God is worshiped through the things that man didn't make.

And those things such as certain rivers, mountains, the sky, all those things are part of the African religious idea, cosmology.

So, I thought that, jazz having African roots and elements in it, why not make a contemporary version of the African traditions using masks and masquerades and costuming and music and make it have a meaning instead of being meaningless?

Give it a meaning.

So I borrowed a lot from the African traditions, and a lot of the movements that the dancers are doing are part ballet.

Here's Tom Shannon.

This is the man whose mask that we're using.

So, we were just talking about you.

Music If it confuses you, you have this line right before the base.

And he's right after.

So if you're, if you're together, it's wrong.

If you're staggered, you're right.

And before you come in with those marimba hits that go up on the chords - One, two, three.

And that will be, that would be smooth.

We want, this is - Very smooth.

I'm just, you know, I'm like, okay, now I’m fine.

I know!

We're going across?

Right.

There's another place, too, we can - Each community has these resources within it that, if we're going to get a balance on earth and on each other, we need to start in our own community.

And so, this whole production here is about the Concord area.

So I think we talking about education.

We need to expand the parameters of education to be able to understand that is, according to how you look at it, everything is in education.

So I think if we took advantage of the things that’s in our community and use those resources, then the educational dimensions can expand because we become a little more aware of the world around us.

So I don't know which one I don't know.

So when we come out, this is where we put our masks when we're dancing.

Yeah.

Oh, cool.

That's really cool.

It's great.

So I just go like this.

That's what we are hoping to see how they work.

Yeah.

Hello!

That's wonderful.

Music Basically, what I think the world is almost about, you know, is a fusion.

The world is moving, you know, in so many various directions, y trying to find one direction and so I think that this piece also speaks about the humanity of people and and the elements as we strive to become one.

And I think in striving to become one, we will see our weaknesses where we, and our strengths, you know, as what we've done to the environment and how to get back to it and how important the environment really is.

Music The Four Elements was sponsored by the Concord Community School, and Arthur has just recently restaged it with Ballet Etudes out of Arizona, and it is being presented this weekend in Arizona.

Arthur himself will be back in the area next month with residencies over in Elliott, Maine, and in Portsmouth.

In our next story, producer Chip Neal takes us to the library, specifically the Dimond Library here at the University of New Hampshire.

And Chip says, if you haven't been to the library in a while, you may be in for a big surprise.

Music If you haven't been to the library recently, you better hurry up.

Hurry up, that is, if you ever want to see one of these card catalogs again.

Why?

Well, these card catalogs are on the way out.

What's on the way in?

Computers.

Computers are changing the way they do business at libraries today.

From the time you walk in the door to the time you leave with your book, you are in the hands of computers almost every step of the way.

Computers were actually introduced into libraries years ago.

The first department to meet the computer some 30 years ago was the circulation desk.

And then about 25 years ago, a project in Ohio called the Ohio College Library Center grew into a national computer database, which libraries all over the country can connect to.

OCLC, as it's called, has grown to include 26 million items in its catalog.

And then 7 or 8 years ago, compact discs with huge storage capacities began to appear in libraries as well.

All of this fueled what we now called the Information Age, and libraries are on the front lines of this information explosion.

In fact, computers have caused a fundamental change in the way libraries serve their patrons.

Michael York, the Dimond Library director, explains.

In the in the past, libraries were identified by their holdings.

What they owned meant that they were a great library.

Now, access to materials is what's important.

So we no longer deal with the term ownership .

We talk about access as being most important in terms of a library serving its patrons, no matter what their needs are.

All right.

This is Peter Crosby.

He's a reference librarian here at the Dimond Library at UNH and Peter, what I want to know from you is, why is this better than the old card catalogs?

The first thing is speed.

You can search much faster.

You also can search by a broad range of methods virtually at the same time.

And the way it is now, if we have purchased a book within the last four years, it is only represented on the computer, not the card catalog.

Oh, so you have to you have to use the card.

So we're gradually phasing out the card catalog.

Does it shrink each day?

Eventually it's going to go away.

It'll never go away completely.

It will be filmed and stored somewhere.

But, the time is coming when every title is going to be represented in the computer.

All right.

Now remember, access is the trend in libraries now.

So besides allowing you to search for your book or document in any number of ways, the computer catalog is also connected to your regional network.

That means it will tell you where your item can be found in any number of local libraries.

And by the way, the State Library is working on a central catalog system, which will connect all five of the existing regional systems into one statewide catalog.

Access is everything.

Now suppose you're looking for magazines or periodicals, as the library likes to call them.

Well, computers have changed the way you do that as well.

The yearly periodical index is out and the CD-ROMs are in.

Each one can hold up to 20 years of information.

Val Harper, reference librarian, explains how they work.

This is a CD-ROM station here.

So let's let's look for something.

All right.

Press enter to get started.

This is the equivalent of Business Periodicals Index on disk.

Okay.

And we'll choose Searching for Information from the menu.

Okay.

And we can type in a term.

Let's do fast food and profits.

All right.

Let's see what we get out of that.

All right.

The computer goes off and searches.

And in very quick time it's located 3800 articles that have the word fast in it, another 62 that have the word food in.

6200.

Yeah.

That's.

Oh that's right.

13,000 that have the term profit in.

Yeah.

But only 53 that have the combination of fast food and the term profit .

So from here it's just a matter of pressing a few buttons to retrieve the location and an abstract of the article you choose.

And in many cases, you can have the entire article printed out right at the workstation and then take it home with you.

That's pretty amazing.

We have CD-ROMs that cover education, titles that cover sociology, psychology, literature, biology, any number of areas.

And you promise to help people that come in here and don't know what they're doing.

Absolutely.

As I said, computers are changing almost everything at the library, even that most hallowed of departments, special collections.

The place where they keep those rare books and the old photographs and documents.

By copying these documents and photographs onto computer disks, they once again expand our access to these records.

They allow us to use them in brand new ways, and they minimize the wear and tear on the original documents.

This is Bill Ross of Special Collections.

What we could do is once we start making CDs with this kind of information on them, or to make copies of those CDs so that we could send them out, maybe even send them interlibrary loan so that people can actually have access to photographs from our collection while we would hold on to the originals.

Dimond Library also happens to be a US government patent search site.

Here, Patrick Yacht of Government Documents uses the computer to help me find out whether there are any other patents for graphite type fishing rods.

And it says since 1969, 53 patents have been issued for graphite type fishing rods.

Well, so much for that idea.

But here's another idea that is really catching on all over the world.

It's called the internet.

A conglomeration of computer networks which span the globe.

Here, Val Harper and I were looking at the computerized catalog of a Swedish university when we began to realize we couldn't read the Swedish directions.

We're stuck in Sweden.

And I think we're stuck with computers, too, so you might as well get used to them.

Why, we might even be reading our books with them someday.

Michael York has this update on electronic books.

The proposals that I have seen indicate that you would use the machines very much like an ATM machine, the automatic teller machine, where you would put a card in and the data that is necessary to put onto that card to establish a book, if you will, will will go on to that card.

You'll use that card in your small laptop or palmtop computer.

I know it's almost overwhelming for some of you, but don't let all this technology turn you off.

There are friendly people at your library who will help you.

The reference librarians here at UNH are willing to help anyone who comes in here and feels overwhelmed by all of the technology, right?

That’s right.

Correct.

Your name is?

My name is Debbie Watson.

Peter Crosby.

Deanna Wood.

Val Harper.

They will help you.

Do not be afraid to come in here.

Or if you go to your local library, people just like this are willing to help you.

See, I told you, the library is not the way it used to be.

So if you liked it the way it used to be, you better hurry up and visit.

But if you're one of those people who is really intrigued by the new information society, the library may just be the place to plug in.

The computer says okay.

Yup All right.

So I told you, from the time you walk in the door, from the time you leave, computers are checking everything you do We’ll see you.

Music Incidentally, the Dimond Library will soon be building a new addition to house books.

Real books.

I guess they don't think the electronic books are going to catch on that fast.

They will also be updating their computer catalog system to a more powerful and faster and more sophisticated computer.

So I guess you better visit the library soon, because our old notions of what a library should be are slipping away.

Up in Franconia Notch, at the base of Cannon Mountain, you will find the New England Ski Museum.

And when you step through the door of that museum, you can see how skiing has changed over the past 60 or 65 years.

Although maybe it hasn't changed that much.

A couple of years ago, the museum hosted an extraordinary reunion of women who helped make American skiing great, and we had the privilege of attending.

Yodeling Ski conditions excellent.

The shockingly new pink color was thought to have a positive psychological effect on the woman skier.

All these women know the details of this wonderful exhibit and things like Clarita Heath when she finished the Olympics and the Nazi flag there, you know, in 1936, there are three women from the 36 team here.

She knows who's kissing her.

And so I'm writing it down because we've got history in the making right here.

These are some of the women who've made American skiing.

Journalists, fashion designers, ski industry pioneers, and of course, competitors.

This room is buzzing with rekindled friendships and surprises and the chance to visit with members of the women's Olympic teams of 1936 and 1948.

Two teams that made history.

I'm Clarita Heath Bright.

I'm Helen Boughton-Leigh McAlpin.

I’m Mary Bird Young.

On January 1st, 1934, we all gathered together to start our training, and we were all floundering in the deep snow, and most of us didn't know how to ski at all.

And Mary came down in her long gray blousy trousers, upright, trousers blowing, and didn't have any trouble at all.

So that was kind of fun.

I don't think it's true.

But anyway.

Music The 1936 Olympics would also include women's events for the first time.

Alice Kiaer and the Amateur Ski Club of New York took it upon themselves to organize a women's team for America.

They first recruited Helen Boughton-Leigh, who was racing with the British at the time.

Well, it all happened really, because as far as I know, I was the only American girl with any experience in international racing.

Well, the idea was to produce what we could in the way of a team in 35 in preparation for the Olympics.

And in 36, we really rounded up the most likely material that we could find from, from coast to coast.

But I don't believe any of them had had any experience with international skiing.

What was the race course like?

Was it anything like the race courses today?

Oh yeah, it was icy for one thing, wasn't it?

Oh well Innsbruck was sheet ice and had to be postponed.

Yeah, that was shortened.

But Garmisch-Partenkirchen was fair until two days before the race.

Hitler ordered snow and down it came and he had the troops to pack it.

And it was nice for the races unless you got off the course where it was very deep snow, and some of us did.

Music It was not unnatural either, in those days, for the boys to find out where the girls were.

And the girls ski team happened to be a most attractive group at that period of time.

There was Betty, and there was Mary, and there was (inaudible) and Helen Boughton-Leigh and a whole marvelous group of kids.

Any of the girls should out-ski me, but I could keep up with them.

And we all had good fun together.

Why did they call the team the Red Stockings?

Can you talk?

Oh, cause we wore red stockings.

Oh, did we?

We all had to collect our own uniforms.

You know, the men were given gorgeous uniforms, but the ladies got together some kind of a white jacket, some kind of blue knickers and some kind of red socks.

The reds were all different.

The knickers were all different.

But that was those days.

The red white.

Music Well, I don't think anybody ever had more fun racing than we did in the early days.

And it was like a brotherhood of skiers.

And there was everything from prince to peasant, and you knew them all, and they would move around from one center to another.

The whole spirit of geütlichkeit as they call it, over there, that wonderful word, camaraderie, was just absolutely bottomless.

Of course, actually, the, the training wasn't as strict as I really thought it should be.

I always loved the story.

We were supposedly were allowed five cigarettes a day, and I'll never forget Mary Bird saying, you know, I don't think I can smoke five cigarettes a day.

Music After the war, skiing entered a new era.

The 1948 women's Olympic team included Andrea Mead, Paula Kahn, Dodie Post, and Gretchen Fraser.

Gretchen was the first American woman ever to win an Olympic gold medal.

It was very interesting because this was the first team after the World War.

It was the first time we really met all the different nations except for the Swiss, who were came to Switzerland, to America the year before.

So.

So we had a way to gauge ourselves against the Europeans.

Andrea Mead Lawrence went on to win two gold medals in the 1952 Olympics.

For me, I think it's a great good fortune.

It's a gift, really, to have been a part of a sport when it's new and just beginning, because it has this great enthusiasm and weren't particularly self-conscious about it.

We were just out there doing what we love to do.

We're having a great time.

The reason I stayed that long with the team from 42 to 1950, is because of the kids that were in on the team.

That's right.

Really, it was such a wonderful group like you see us now.

Yeah, and it's still the same group.

And we haven't changed.

Much.

No, we haven't changed at all.

I mean, I mean, what lives in here is absolutely not changed one whit.

In fact, I've regressed to childhood today.

You have.

I noticed.

You noticed that, didn't you?

Dodie noticed that.

Herd you around again.

Age 15.

There I was, right back there again.

Music Well, I have some good news.

It used to cost a dollar to get into the New England Ski Museum.

And now admission is free.

And they find with free admission that they are making more money because they are selling more stuff in their gift shop.

And incidentally, you can buy some wonderful T-shirts and sweatshirts that feature those beautiful old ski posters.

Boy, they are gorgeous.

Well, thank you for joining us.

Next week, we're going to spend some time with two of the finest puppeteers in America, Bonnie and Andrew Periale and their Periale Puppet Theater.

Until then, for New Hampshire Crossroads, I'm Fritz Wetherbee.

Theme Music New Hampshire Crossroads is underwritten in part by First NH Bank, serving the financial needs of individuals, corporations, and local governments throughout New Hampshire.

Clarion Somerset Hotel and Apartments of Nashua, New Hampshire, where we make living fun.

And Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Hampshire.

For over 50 years, dedicated to providing quality health benefit protection programs for employers, employees and individuals.

Theme Music