The Heart of the Story: Honoring the missing
Our Quad Cities News is partnering with award-winning journalist Gary Metivier for The Heart of the Story. Each week, Gary showcases inspiring stories of everyday people doing cool stuff, enjoying their hobbies, and living life to the fullest. Stories that feature the best of the human condition.
A missing World War II soldier's name lives on, thanks to a man he never met. Gary Metivier takes us to the Netherlands to show us how families are honoring military families thousands of miles away in The Heart of the Story.
Gary Metivier has The Heart of the Story above and even more about their story and what happens next on . You can also listen to the . The Heart of the Story with Gary Metivier is available on all platforms — and now .
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San Francisco Chronicle
9 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
The Bay Area's best easy hike has shipwrecks, views and a secret beach
When the Chronicle's data team looked at 1.6 million reviews to find the Bay Area's best shorter, more accessible hikes — 5 miles or less, rated easy and moderate — Lands End Trail came out on top. It is not a controversial choice. Lands End Trail feels like the ending to a great story — a 3.5-mile loop through extreme northwest San Francisco but also an exclamation point of sights and sounds for all of the West Coast. The hike features unique views of the Golden Gate Bridge and perhaps the best sunset-watching in the city, emerging through a canopy of cypress trees to a series of elevated perches that scan the Pacific Ocean horizon. But there are surprises, too, including hidden shipwrecks, a ghostly natural soundtrack and a beach detour that feels like a secret hideout from the 1800s. With apologies to San Gregorio State Beach south of Half Moon Bay, Lands End Trail is the best place in the Bay Area to pretend like you're a pirate. Want to go on a guided history-filled hike of Lands End Trail with culture critic Peter Hartlaub and Total SF friends? Sign up here for the Total SF newsletter and look for details in next Thursday's edition. I arrive on a recent morning, feeling cursed. While most of my journey across the city was filled with sunshine, Lands End and the Golden Gate remain stubbornly socked in with fog. But the marine layer just adds to the melancholy and introspective atmosphere, while making the hike more of an audio experience. The route starts at a small stairway north of the massive parking lot, where you choose which direction to walk. Go counterclockwise, and you'll start on the more elevated and paved southern section that is less transportive and a better opening act. Head clockwise, and you'll see the most memorable sights first. I choose counterclockwise and immediately take the first of three wrong turns, but am met with a friendly jogger, who sets me right. 'Am I going to read about this?' he shouts, fading into the fog. This first part of the loop is more urban, passing by parking lots, the Legion of Honor Museum and several Lincoln Park golf holes, which I hear before I see — the 'thwock!' of a golf club followed by muttered profanity. A memorial for the U.S.S. San Francisco appears a quarter mile in, featuring part of the bridge from the Navy cruiser, which was the U.S. flagship in the Battle of Guadalcanal near the end of World War II. Then a wide wooden stairway curves up to the museum, where the statue 'El Cid Campeador' by sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington stands high on the hill, rearing up in the fog like a Washington Irving character. With Sea Cliff mansions in sight, take a hairpin turn and drop into comparative wilderness, with windswept trees, isolated paths and the Golden Gate Bridge, unveiled halfway through this hike like a magic trick. If fog has hidden the bridge and Marin Headlands from view, consider it an opportunity to focus on the hike's auditory charms. Foghorns in lower and higher registers seem to be in conversation with one another, and the crashing waves feel like they're syncing with your footsteps. Don't miss the best part of the hike, around the 2-mile mark, where a steep spur trail drops onto an isolated beach. This is where Lands End Trail pushes the harder side of 'moderate,' with some rocky climbs out. The bridge is on more postcards, but the descent into Mile Rock Beach is the trail's pinnacle, especially for locals who may not know it exists. Scattered logs and rocks are stacked in artistic towers on the quiet sand, framed by majestic offshore rock formations. The remains of Mile Rocks Lighthouse are visible about 200 yards in the distance. I climb back up and rejoin the trail, which follows the same path as a long-gone 1800s railway to the Cliff House and Sutro Heights. The occasional promontory with a bench offers a spot to rest and watch for shipwrecks at low tide. (The blocky engines of the Lyman Stewart and Frank Buck tankers are the most common sight.) Soon, I'm back in the 21st century near the trailhead — all the better if you timed your walk to one of the best places in the world to watch a sunset. The winding path drops into the ruins of Sutro Baths, Adolph Sutro's engineering marvel that was once a huge structure filled with indoor pools. Sutro Heights Park is up the hill for anyone who doesn't want the day of exploration to end. People used to come to Lands End at the finish of a very long journey across the U.S., taking a ferry from Oakland or Richmond to San Francisco, then that steam train for a slow rumble to the remarkable ocean views. How lucky that we get to experience this as part of a spontaneous morning.
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Yahoo
Thousands come to World War II Weekend for ‘genuine experience'
The trip from Tolland to Bern Township isn't a particularly short one. The route from the Connecticut town stretches about 260 miles, down the eastern seaboard to Newark and then west through Allentown. At nearly five hours, it's quite the hike. That's especially true if, like Robert Garabedian, you happen to be a century old. But sitting inside a hangar at Reading Regional Airport late Saturday morning, a steady drizzle tapping on the ground outside, the 100-year-old Army Air Corps veteran was happy he made it. 'I think this is just spectacular,' he said, gazing at the displays honoring the Tuskegee Airmen and other pilots who served during World War II. 'It has to be one of the best events I've ever been to, and I've been to a lot of places in my life.' Saturday was Garabedian's first visit to the Mid Atlantic Air Museum's annual World War II Weekend, an event celebrating its 34th anniversary. For him, the experience — seeing pristine World War II aircraft, watching reenactors clad in military uniforms and carrying rifles, visiting a model of a 1940s French village — sparked a lot of memories. This year's event began Friday and concludes Sunday. A native of Boston, he decided as a teenager to serve his country in World War II by becoming a fighter pilot for the Army Air Corps — the predecessor to the Air Force. After putting in a lot of effort, going through training and passing tests, he finally got his wings and commission in December 1944. He was then assigned to a fighter group that was scheduled to participate in the invasion of Japan, but before he could deploy America dropped a pair of atomic bombs on Japan, effectively bringing the war to an end. 'I finished all of my training and was ready to go over, but they dropped the atomic bombs,' he said. 'I think word leaked out that I was coming, so they gave up. I hate to take credit — I didn't win the whole war.' 'I still have my sense of humor,' he added with a hearty laugh. Robert Garabedian, 100, was training to be a pilot when WWII ended before he was deployed overseas was a guest during the World War II Weekend on Saturday, June 7, 2025, at the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum in the Reading Regional Airport. (BILL UHRICH/READING EAGLE) Garabedian went on to attend Boston University and met his wife, with whom he would have 12 children. He is still a member of the Connecticut National Guard, serving in a unit that participates in funerals of deceased military members. Garabedian said he was invited to participate in the World War II Weekend by an organization that connects veterans to events like it. 'The interest and attention that we get from people, and the appreciation that they have shown to veterans like me is so wonderful,' he said. 'You know they call us 'the greatest generation.' Thanks very much for saying that, but anyone who puts on the uniform and wants to serve our country deserves the appreciation of all the people who aren't doing that.' Giving that kind of appreciation is exactly why Oliver and Ben Knesl try to make it a point never to miss a World War II Weekend. The father and son duo have traveled from New Jersey to spend the weekend at the event for more than a decade Oliver said his love for history drew him to the event, but the talent and commitment of those who help transport visitors back in time keeps them coming back. 'This is a super show — one of the best in the world,' he said. 'The breadth of the reenactors and the attention to detail that goes into this is just phenomenal.' That authenticity is what inspired them to dress the part themselves. A native of New Zealand, Oliver was wearing a uniform representing the Long Range Desert Group — a reconnaissance and raiding unit of the British Army. Ben was dressed in a uniform worn by the British 1st Airborne Division. Ben, 18, said he loves learning something new each time he comes to the event and that he meets a lot of interesting people along the way. It's an immersive experience, he said. 'A lot of people don't really know about this stuff and this provides a genuine experience,' he said. 'It's like a living museum.' World War II Weekend isn't just a special event for visitors but also for those helping to bring history to life. Tim Kuntz of Ephrata, a member of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders reenactment group, talks about the unit during the World War II Weekend on Saturday, June 7, 2025, at the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum in the Reading Regional Airport. (BILL UHRICH/READING EAGLE) Saturday morning a group of 12 of them — reenactors decked out in full uniforms — were stationed under a brown tarp. The actors were sitting around their encampment decorated with items from the era. They were portraying the 7th Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, which fought in France before being stationed in northern Africa and Sicily. The battalion also took part in the invasion of Normandy. 'We are as authentic as possible,' said Tim Kuntz of Lancaster, who has been a reenactor since 1986. 'We have the rations they would get, the weapons they would use, the uniforms they would wear to show how the soldiers lived, fought and, unfortunately, sometimes died.' Kuntz said he enjoys being able to show a different, perhaps unfamiliar perspective of the war. 'The American and British relationship really grew during the war through mutual defiance,' he said. 'And those close ties they formed then remain to this day.' Most of the members of the reenacting group hail from Pennsylvania and New York and travel around the region for events. 'I like the teaching aspect of what we do,' Kuntz said. 'When I talk to the kids about the alliances that were formed and see the lightbulb go off — that's why I do it.' Laura Adie of Montgomery County is part of the group. She portrays a member of the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the women's branch of the British Army. For several years Britain conscripted women to join the war effort. Unmarried women under 30 had to join the armed forces or work on the land or in factories. 'They did a lot of the behind-the-scenes tasks,' she said. 'I work as a public museum educator so I have always been interested in living history events. 'And it's much more compelling to me to portray the British involvement during World War II because they were so much in the thick of things' she added. 'There was a more immediate threat and impacted their daily lives in a way that Americans did not experience.' Members of the Argull and Sutherland Highlanders reenactment group recreated a scene from Cairo. (BILL UHRICH/READING EAGLE) While learning more about the details of World War II is a big part of the weekend, some visitors said they stopped by mainly to check out the cool planes. Becca Burke, an aircraft mechanic from Lebanon County, said she is in awe of the effort it takes to restore them. 'I really love old warbirds, especially those that are still airworthy because there is so much effort that goes into keeping them that way,' she said. 'A lot of the techniques working with fabric wings are just lost to time. So every time I see one of those flying, it's so exciting.' Saturday was Burke's first time at the event, and she said she was hoping the weather would clear up so she could see some aerial demonstrations. 'It's just a really great event,' she said. 'It's so cool.' World War II Weekend concludes Sunday, running from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tickets are available at the gate.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Table Rock State Park completes improvements to Campground 2, ribbon cutting this week
BRANSON, Mo. — Table Rock State Park has completed improvements to Campground 2. The renovated campsites are available for reservations immediately. The improvements include new 50-amp sewer, electric and water services for 22 campsites To give the public the opportunity to see the improvements and visit with park team members, a ribbon-cutting ceremony is scheduled for 11 a.m. Wednesday, June 11, at the campground. Reservations can be made by contacting Missouri State Parks' Reservation Call Center at 877-422-6766 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. or by visiting Table Rock State Park is located at 5272 State Highway 165 in Branson. For information about the park, contact the park office at 417-334-4704. Additionally, for more information on state parks and historic sites, visit Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
