Tonight on New Hampshire Crossroads, we meet Tj Wheeler, a Seacoast musician with a passion for the blues, a passion that goes deeper even than the music.

The only worse thing than living in a racist society is letting it destroy you.

The music was made by survivors.

And then it's north to Lincoln and the Loon Mountain Ski Area, where they have a program that proves that nearly anyone who wants to ski can.

When you see someone in a wheelchair who is out on the slope, it really gets to you and you want to help.

You want to make sure that more people can do it.

Music And the essence of winter and age captured in the poem An Old Man's Winter Night by Robert Frost.

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 at the art gallery of the University of New Hampshire here at the Paul Arts Center.

And what you see here is the 18th annual juried exhibit of the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen.

And this show, it's a wonderful show, probably as good a show as the League has ever put on.

There's wonderful kicky stuff on it.

You'll see a good deal of it before our program is over this evening and the show runs through April the 8th, so get by.

What do you think of when you think of the blues?

Probably, oh, Mobile or Memphis or New Orleans or Chicago.

Certainly not New Hampshire, although that is changing.

One of the great small blues clubs in America is here in New Hampshire, over in Antrim, a place called Rynborn.

And here in the Seacoast region, we have Tj Wheeler and his Blues Bank Collective.

Now, Tj has devoted a great deal of his life to the study of the blues and sharing his enthusiasm with as many people as he can.

Music There’s been so many heroes throughout all history like Martin and Malcolm who gave their lives to set us free But don't forget the heroes of the blues family tree who laid down the foundation for musicology From Memphis to Chi-town to Mississippi, the blues filled in for (inaudible) Talkin’ bout hope, heroes, and the blues I said hope, heroes and the blues Well those are three things, people everybody can use I'm talkin’ bout hope, heroes, and the blues I said hope, heroes and the blues Well those are three things, people everybody can use Music Music One of the things that blues gave us The sounds that I'm hearing.

These little funny little sounds you're hearing.

Music All those funny little in-between sounds.

Now, they may be come, commonplace to our ears now.

Because if you turn on MTV, you'll see some of everything from heavy metal to oh, I don't know, everybody doing some slide guitar or bending the notes.

But but by bending the notes, going out of the regular chromatic scales we know music, these little gold frets here, these markers, they actually, what they are is, they segregate the notes on the guitar to keep the tones from melting in with other tones.

But the way to get around that is either by bending the string or by the slide and, or they used to call it the jitterbug, which is, see, another just one of many, many things where a lot of lingo came from.

The jitterbug used to be known as a, as a slide.

And this slide slides on top of the strings.

So, it doesn't have to be segregated by those little gold bars.

So you get all the in between notes.

Or what a lot of times we call the blue notes .

Music And these sounds really have revolutionized American music.

But they can sneak up, they can go up through the alley, take you through the woods.

Music The other thing is the intent, the intent that, is behind each note in the blues is so much different than a lot of the other types of music that you’ll hear.

There's so much behind each note as well as behind each word.

Music Now, if I’d only known, known I was gonna get so long If I’d only known, baby, I was going to get so long If I’d only known known I was going to get so long Some western country would have been my sweet home You know they arrested me for murder No, I ain't never harmed a man They arrested me for murder, I ain’t ever harmed a man Now they arrested me for murder I ain't never harmed a man You know, they arrested me for forgery I can't even That's in Clarksdale, Mississippi.

Originally, I started making these trips, of course, without the, luxury of having a video camera or even a tape recorder, for that matter, because I was so poor as a, as a young adult, around 20 years old, something like that.

So when I first started going down to Memphis and Mississippi, the deep South looking for, more or less on a kind of a blues pilgrimage.

I'd been, spending a lot of time back at my home in the suburbs of Seattle, listening to scratchy 78 rpm records and figuring out the music of Bukka White and Muddy Waters and Furry Lewis, Robert Johnson, etc And, I just, even at that age, I knew that, you know, to really, try to get an understanding as well as just the technical technique of the music.

You know, I needed to, I had a longing to see where the music was cultivated.

So, I found that, a lot of the original artists, people like a Bukka White, Furry Lewis, Sleepy John Estes, the late Babe Stovall, Peg Leg Sam, a number of other artists, but through the blues I found hope Well, I learned a whole lot of music, but, I think I, even more importantly, I got, I hope to have picked up a little bit on more of an understanding of, of the music and purpose of the music, which is, to really, I, with a lot of the kids, I especially use the analogy of recycling, that the blues is the original recycling program.

Blues takes what a lot of us consider junk, the stuff that we don't like to look at, that's inside of us, and recycles it into something that's positive and that gives hope to ourselves as well as to other people that are listening.

Music Well, you know, there was so little attention and value placed on African-American culture in this country for so many centuries that we don't, I don't think anybody can tell you, completely, absolutely, where the blues began.

We know, generally, think it came out of field hollers, work songs, and, and, but but the actual sounds, actual notes, those go back probably for centuries, back to Africa.

The quarter tones.

Now, the form, the form, the blues.

When did that start?

You know, I, I don't really consider myself a scholar.

But, I think most people generally begin to, the last part of the century.

Ladies and gentlemen, let’s have a big hand for Mr.

BJ Johnson here tonight.

Music Here we are at Video Movie Makers, business office for Hank and Nancy Madden.

I originally wanted to collaborate with Hank and Nancy to do a, a documentary on the bluesman BJ Johnson, who lived here in Portsmouth, and BJ probably more than any one person brought the blues to New Hampshire.

Music BJ brought the blues.

He was our bluesman in, in this area.

When I decided I was really going to settle down here in New Hampshire, I decided to really try to create and get involved in, participating and creating an organization that would really try to show to the community just how much blues can do for all of us.

Blues you can use.

And that's why I wanted to get involved with creating an organization called the Blues Bank Collective.

Because blues you can bank on.

Music Mr.

BJ Johnson.

Give him a hand!

Music And in a large way, it served as the same function as the church, by recycling people's pain into, into music.

And so you could give it up, you know, you could let go.

The only worse thing than living in a racist society and going through all that is letting it destroy you.

And the music was made by survivors.

Music Yeah!

You gotta face the music.

Music Well, people may not think of New Hampshire when they think of the blues, but they certainly think of New Hampshire when they think of snow.

And that's exactly what our next story is about, snow and wintertime activities.

Now, you might think that winter sports are too difficult for certain people, but there is a program up in northern New Hampshire that makes skiing available to anyone who wants to learn how to ski.

Thank you, everybody, I have some.

On behalf of Loon Mountain - Adam is going to be working with Kelly.

It's another busy weekend at the Loon Mountain Disabled Ski School in Lincoln, New Hampshire.

There is equipment to be adjusted and lessons to be assigned, and although it's cold outside, the snow is great and the enthusiasm is infectious.

Erin DuPont is a fourth grader at the Broken Ground Elementary School in Concord.

Erin!

I enjoy your cute smile.

Yeah.

That's nice, Erin.

Erin has spinal bifida, which is a malformation in the closure of the spinal column.

She used to have crutches, but she didn't like them.

Now she uses leg braces, which help to support her lower legs.

Music Erin’s father, Steve, mother, Nancy, and younger sister Stephanie are also skiers In fact, it was Erin who got them interested in taking up the sport.

Basically, we ski because Erin got us started.

You know, the program got Erin started, she got us started.

You know, it takes a lot to overcome with just the idea of having a handicapped child.

And then you have to see what you can do to to help them make their life better.

I mean, everybody fails at one thing or another.

That's life, you know, you can't be the best at everything.

So, I mean, if Erin, Erin wants to do it and she fails, then that's, that's just normal, you know?

But at least give em a chance to try to do it.

The Loon Mountain Disabled Ski School program began nearly 20 years ago.

Students range in age from 3 to 70.

The program instructs people with disabilities ranging from blindness, cerebral palsy, Down's Syndrome, and autism and spinal cord injuries.

The program has a sit ski and a monoski for quadriplegics.

The first lesson and equipment are free.

Basically, anyone who wants to ski can ski.

Erin is a four track skier, which means she skis with outriggers equipped for her, which help her with balance and control.

The rest is all up to her.

When I came to Loon Mountain, they had a clinic offered for anyone who was interested in teaching handicapped.

So I took the clinic and just fell in love with the idea of it.

Emily Morrison has been a ski instructor since she was a teenager, and first came to Loon Mountain five years ago.

Back then, they had a dozen students.

This year they are expecting 500.

I think it's, it has to do with the freedom that it it gives someone.

When you go skiing, you get the wind in your face, you get an adrenaline rush.

You just feel real good.

It's a lot of fun.

It's very social.

And when you see someone in a wheelchair who is out on the slope with that same feeling, it really gets to you and you want to help.

You want to make sure that more people can do it.

Yeah!

All 30 instructors are volunteers and come from around New England.

Some of the instructors are disabled.

Some specialize in sign language and physical therapy, while others are accountants.

Bank Vice President Mary Lane lives with her family just outside of Providence, Rhode Island.

Every Friday night, they load up the car and come to Lincoln.

The distance they travel doesn't seem to matter.

Their enthusiasm is what keeps them going.

The program is, I don't know what to say about the program.

It's terrific.

Everyone says, why do you guys do it?

It's fun.

Our students are constantly teaching us things.

We're learning new things every day.

It's a thing we can adapt.

We can try anything we want.

And all of a sudden, it works.

So we get such a kick out of it and such a boost.

I go home and wait until another Saturday and Sunday comes along.

Stand up tall, that way.

Good try!

I thought it was a good try.

How’d it feel?

It felt good.

Yeah?

Mary has become Erin's teacher, a bond which has grown for nearly three years.

First time she got on skis, it was basically, I just held her.

I put her between my legs I wrapped my arms around her, and I snuggle-run.

just skiied her between my legs for the day.

And she loved it.

And she was really, you know, excited about it.

And then we had to cut down equipment because at that point we had no outriggers that were short enough for her.

So we cut the equipment down.

And from then it's just been us adjusting equipment because she catches on to everything so quickly.

It's more of an equipment problem than it is a skiing problem.

And she feels, although she has no feeling in her feet, she feels the snow, she feels when she should turn.

She feels when she needs to control her speed.

Music She's the racer of the future.

There are no four-trackers on the.

women four-trackers on the U.S.

disabled team.

I think Erin will be the next.

She's a living example that she can compete with her peers.

She's not just competing with a handicapped population, but in the real world.

So it opens up a winter, gives them winter enjoyment.

She teaches us more than we teach her constantly.

Music The Loon Mountain Disabled Ski School program is a chapter of National Handicapped Sports, which is a nonprofit private organization.

Dependent on volunteers and on contributions.

And on March the 21st and 22nd, up at Loon Mountain, they will be holding the annual Kostick Cup race, which is the only fundraiser they have for this program during their regular season.

So mark that on your calendar.

That's March 21st and 22nd.

Early in his career as a published poet, Robert Frost began writing about the characters that live in the far northern part of New England.

An Old Man's Winter Night tells the story of a retired Yankee farmer living alone on a farm one desolate winter evening.

Music (lighting a lantern) All out of doors looked darkly in at him through the thin frost, almost in separate stars that gathers on the pane in empty rooms.

What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze was the lamp tilted near them in his hand.

What kept him from remembering the need that brought him to that creaking room was age.

He stood with barrels round him at a loss, and having scared the cellar under him and clomping there he scared it once again in clomping off.

Scared the outer night, which has its sounds familiar.

Like the roar of trees and crack of branches.

Common things, but nothing so like beating on a box.

(no dialogue) A light he was to no one but himself.

Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what, a quiet light and then not even that.

He consigned to the moon - such as she was, so late - arising to the broken moon as better than the sun.

In any case, for such a charge.

His snow upon the roof, his icicles along the wall to keep, and slept.

The log that shifted with a jolt once in the stove disturbed him, and he shifted and eased his heavy breathing, but still slept.

One aged man - one man - can't keep a house, a farm, a countryside.

Or if he can, it's thus he does it of a winter night.

The man who was featured in that piece is Leon Briggs, who is himself a retired Yankee farmer living in northern New England.

And this spring, Mr.

Briggs will celebrate his 98th birthday.

How about that?

Well, thank you for joining us.

Next week, in honor of Saint Valentine's Day, we're going to travel over to Portsmouth, over to the Seacoast Repertory Company to attend a rehearsal of A.R.

Gurney's wonderful two person play, Love Letters.

And one of the people featured in that play is one of the truly great lovers here in New Hampshire.

Me.

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