On the Road with Steve Hartman: Amazing Earth

[Music] coming up a man makes his granddaughter's winter wonderland dream come true it's good to make kids happy you're basically spoiling her you know that's what grandparents do a new jersey town celebrates the lifespan of a 600 year old tree that made their town whole everybody that's ever lived here has recognized that tree is sort of a symbol of home and i'll share the outdoor hobby that has me sneaking out of the house late at night he goes out at seven o'clock at night and weeds until dark i mean sometimes he's out there past dark all that and more on this earth day special of on the road hello i'm steve hartman thanks for joining us for our cbs news streaming series where every month or so we revisit some of our favorite stories from my 25 years on the road since 1970 we've recognized april 22nd as earth day an opportunity to celebrate the wonders of our natural world and why it's so important to preserve it in this special we're taking a look through the on the road archives at stories that highlight our captivating planet or in some cases the whole solar system first up back in 2017 i had one of the best seats in the house for an amazing natural phenomenon the great american eclipse and i had company take a look under that wonderful waning midday sun i think it started i think so a nine-year-old boy is about to have the greatest experience of his little lifetime a kid so into astronomy he takes his planet book to swimming lessons dressed up as the solar system for halloween and made his third grade new year's resolution to get a shrewd idea of how the multiverse could be real it's basically a theory about having not one but an infinite number of universes and you'd like to understand it better yeah which i already have done this is george yeah my son can would you explain it to me someday i will and me and that is his little brother emmett who would much rather be discussing anything else it's just getting tiring for the whole life to be spaced for amit and the rest of us hartman's it's like living in an astrophysics lecture hall like dark matter is holding them together okay i'm out of here we all laugh about it but it's also been a marvel to witness see george is autistic and one of the many blessings of his autism is this ability shared by many like him to find overwhelming joy in the most underwhelming minutia by a strange cold incidence the moon is 400 times smaller than the sun but 400 times closer to the earth given all that we made a road trip this week to central nebraska found a nice lady who let us use her farm and waited with the locals is this everything you've ever dreamed it was the perfect setting perfect at least for most of us and as the moon made its way to stardom i saw something truly marvelous dad it's so cool so much of parenting is saying no and forcing vegetables but on rare occasion the heavens align and you're in the perfect position to feed a passion one percent left oh my god it's so dark i know a lot of people looked up and saw something remarkable this week but for mothers and fathers like me the more beautiful sight was looking over at the reaction of our precious earthlings let's go george is now 14 and he's moved on to other pursuits things like economics and calculus you know typical 8th grade passions now there's something about natural beauty be it an eclipse a sunset or even the majesty of a grand old tree that man just can't compete with and maybe we shouldn't take a look at this next story at the basking ridge presbyterian church in basking ridge new jersey they don't need stained glass to make their windows breathtaking it was built in 1717. parishioner john clipple says for the entire 300 year history of this church one of the most magnificent oak trees known to man has been filling the pains here the church was intentionally built beside the tree and the town grew up around the church everybody that's ever lived here has recognized that tree is sort of a symbol of home george washington walked past it some of his soldiers are buried under it the tree predates america columbus pretty much everything we know came after this 600 year old oak but now our matriarch is fading after decades of leaning on cables and crutches experts say the oldest white oak tree in north america is on its last limbs local residents can't believe it it just kind of feels like a part of the town is kind of dying with it yeah no one thought about the tree dying you know it's one of those things that was going to go on forever that's what a lot of people thought it's always going to be here but apparently it's not for the folks of basking ridge it is very much a grieving process loss or the anticipation of loss i think it's traumatic i think people have to go through their own steps of reconciliation with it for centuries the tree has been an ever-present metaphor for preachers at this pulpit whether the lesson was perseverance or patience creation or resurrection the tree helped teach it all and soon will come its final lesson maybe a sermon about the cycle of life or maybe they'll just take a minute to stare out the window one last time at the finest stained glass picture god ever created unfortunately the old oak tree was cut down in 2017 but a new oak tree that was grown from acorns of the original was planted in its place we'll have to have our future colleagues at cbs news check in on that in another 600 years in the meantime when we return whether the weather is hot or whether the weather is cold you can bet people will have opinions about it why we're never fully satisfied up next welcome back thanks for being with us on this earth day we've got the perfect example of that old cliche the grass is always greener turns out when it comes to weather that couldn't be more true this year july is a three-letter word h.o.t hot and people are not happy it's been super hot of course folks always whine about the weather but i've noticed this summer the complaints seem especially heated mother nature is disrespectful today and overstated i feel like i'm melting i felt like i was going to die you'd think there was lava in the streets i'm so hot i wish it was winter oh do you now way too hot out here how easily we forget just how much worse it could be which is why i went back in time today to remind us not only of what the weather could be like but what it will be like all too soon welcome back to the dead of winter so what do you have to say to the people of the summer i appreciate every moment you're not missing anything right now it's miserable out you don't want to be here remember this remember waking up to mount honda last winter was the worst since 1978 with record cold stretching all the way to the gulf fountains froze and raleigh this was arkansas need i show more springtime please hurry up god i can't take this weather it's a classic example of the grass is always greener or more wonderfully dormant on the other side of the tree i mean doesn't that look refreshing doesn't that look refreshing i mean wouldn't it be great to just be able to walk on over and warm up cool off in theory yes but like whenever you want something you can't have getting it or not is the last thing you really need what we really need is to accept that humans are relatively delicate creatures our comfort zone is a narrow sliver between 68 and 78 degrees sway either side of that and we get uncomfortable we also need to start looking at the bright side of both seasons in the winter at least you can dress in layers get too hot you can take them off in the summer ain't but so much you could take off without getting arrested and in the summer at least the rain doesn't pile up on your sidewalk stay warm i guess now those april showers don't seem so bad do they isn't it funny how we always want what we can't have for example lots of people myself included were praying for the snow banks to melt but one little girl had another wish thankfully her grandpa delivered let's take a look all month long all along the new england coast folks snowed into their outies have been crying uncle to this ant arctica but a few hundred miles south outside baltimore one young lady has a whole different lament that almost none of that snow has fallen here do you wanna build a snowman for nearly half her life four-year-old sophia white has been obsessing over snow ever since she memorized the movie frozen she's been dreaming of a blizzard to call her own and although so far that hasn't been in the clouds for her her fortunes did start to change a few weeks ago when her mother nicole called up her grandfather in rhode island i said i wish i could just teleport her up to you so she could at least just build a snowman that's all she's been wanting to do is build a snowman so the more i thought about it it's like you know what i could do it okay sophia's grandfather alan queen is the parts manager at a harley-davidson dealership in pawtucket his idea not to bring sofia to the snow but to bring the snow to sofia so far this season alan has twice delivered a bed full of snow from pawtucket rhode island to glen burnie maryland more than 750 miles round trip just to surprise his granddaughter first she didn't get it she didn't really know what it was but then we shoveled some out and she saw it and started playing with it then it hit her cold has never been so warmly received it's no time which is why alan plans to make this a tradition it's good to make kids happy you're basically spoiling her you know that's what grandparents do okay it's in the contract and that obligation to indulge is a big reason most grandparents do what they do for their little angels that makes it worth it right there but more importantly sometimes you have to follow the lead of a little kid to rediscover the joy you've been missing all around you has she made you appreciate the snow you have more now or maybe not i take that as a no hey we got a lot of it up here so so much for my sappy ending what a great grandpa he is thankfully at least around these parts we get more than enough snow to satisfy my kids okay after a quick break come along with us to monaco wisconsin where the stars are aligned for a spectacular view welcome back thanks for sticking with us for our special celebrating earth day you know i met some pretty amazing people on the road but this next man's passion for his craft is out of this world he reached for the moon and painted on some stars take a look here in the north woods of wisconsin a job in a paper bill is about as good as it gets but for 45 year old frank kovac this was his second choice his first was to be an astrophysicist as a little kid he dreamed of exploring outer space later when he couldn't cut the college math he gave up the degree but never the dream and for the past 15 years has been charting his own course for the stars the neighbors thought i lost my mind there was a huge sphere covered up by tarp day and night he was working on it all the time just unbelievable you know robert briggs is town chairman of monaco wisconsin the town where frank launched his space program monaco has a three-pump gas station a two-bit bar and now thanks to frank one remote planetarium this is the most remote planetarium in the world frank basically built it in his backyard to be a planetarium director you need college but if you build your own you can run it frank still works part-time at the paper mill but this is now his full-time passion he opened a few years ago although so far business has been far from stellar how long since somebody's been here it's been about three days needless to say visitors can usually get right in i'd like to welcome all of you to the kovac planetarium well it's just me you don't have to say all of you okay so well my name is frank kovac and i designed and built the world's largest rolling mechanical glow planetarium because frank couldn't afford a fancy projection system to mimic the revolution of our planet whoa he came up with a way to move the heavens instead and as for the individual stars i took luminous paint and i painted every single star that you would see out in the night sky wait wait wait wait wait wait you painted by yourself every star like a friend told me he would have just took the paint and threw it up there and hope they hit the right area there are 5 000 each at its proper location and brightness i never knew it would look this neat it's really a shame more people haven't seen it but friends and neighbors are confident that will change why they say it's in the stars people who send out good receive good frank is a good man i heard that a lot frank is probably one of the nicest guys you'll ever want to meet frank is obviously genuine and if sincerity sold tickets or optimism was a sight you could see he'd have the next disneyland it's gonna just take off like a rocket to the stars 12 years later kovac planetarium is still open there in monaco wisconsin frank gets about 5 000 visitors a year and he's never stopped improving his show right now he's building an outdoor observatory so folks can check out the real stars on a clear night definitely worth a visit if you ever find yourself in that neck of the woods up next we want to bring you back down to earth for an unlikely love story cut short after 50 years the man you're about to meet is about to lose yet another friend when you're 101 it happens a lot i've lost some good friends hit my age and of course i feel bad but i just thank the good lord we had them so fact is frank knight was devastated at the news that his good friend herbie wouldn't make it he's known him 50 years and in that time has grown closer to herbie than most people ever get to even their closest trees it's a big beauty herbie is a 240 year old elm tree in yarmouth maine obviously herbie has seen better days hear a mere shadow of his former stately self and yet herbie is still easily the most beloved elm on the planet it's nice to see so many people out enjoying the last few moments of his life hundreds came out to say goodbye herbie is sick we don't want him to suffer i mean it's the best thing for him so what made herbie sick and ultimately made him famous is dutch elm disease the fungus swept across america killing almost every element in existence almost the fact that herbie survived all those years all those seasons isn't some fluke of nature rather a direct result of five decades of tender loving care from a volunteer tree warden named frank knight they all said you can't save it and i said damn stubborn and i said i'm gonna try so he sprayed and trimmed and coddled that tree so much his wife used to joke if that tree's name was susie i'd be pretty jealous [Laughter] but she loved it as much as i did all that admiration all that history to let it just end with a thud seemed crazy to the folks in yarmouth which is why after herbie fell last month they cut up the pieces and distributed them to woodworkers across new england those people are now fashioning herbie into everything from furniture to salad bowls the pieces will be sold at auction the profits will go to plant thousands of new trees which should be tremendous consolation to frank i mean you can only save one tree for so long but a forest you can save forever frank later passed away at the age of 103 unbeknownst to him some wood from herpes trunk was actually saved to shape his casket so in a fitting tribute they rest together for eternity coming up next in our final minutes a peek into my decidedly less romantic relationship with mother nature stay with us welcome back we're nearing the end here and for our last story i want to share something a little personal with you a few years ago i decided to come clean about a little habit i have it's one that most people can't stand but i just can't get enough take a look i have a confession to make even though i only do this at my place in upstate new york after the kids are in bed the fact is i have a weed addiction here we go i just can't stop pulling the things oh yeah mugwort canada thistle and leafy goldenrod are some of my favorites and stuff i realized the extent of my addiction only recently after my cameraman interviewed my wife andrea about it he goes out at seven o'clock at night and weeds until dark i mean sometimes he's out there past dark and her point is you know it's not weeding a garden it's weeding five acres four and a half technically see a few years ago i had this idea to turn this weedy hillside into a beautiful prairie full of native wildflowers and grasses i contacted this man who would eventually become my dealer we started with prairie plants neil de ball owns the prairie nursery in westfield wisconsin he got me hooked on weeds through gateway plants like purple coneflower compass plant and smooth aster we're trying to get you hooked yes my product is highly addictive it's called love of nature but here's the problem before you see those flowers in the magazine you often need to spend a great deal of time weeding a new prairie meadow and neil made no mention of how addicting that can be i would come out here every night and dread it and then a switch flipped and i started coming out here and loving it weeding can induce a meditative state and that is therapy for all of us in this crazy world we live in when you can just tune everything out and focus on one single-minded purpose of course the downside to a laser focus like that is that sometimes the rest of the world becomes a blur for example i'm told the prairie actually looks pretty nice now but honestly i can't see the flowers through the weeds i know there are still a lot of them lurking in here and that's okay i mean what else am i going to do at this point just give up on the whole project it would andrea i could live without it you want your husband back i no i don't know if i could live with how defeated my husband would feel if we gave it up i thought that was sweet i'm gonna take her to dinner after the first frost of course after i first shared that story i did much less weeding and ironically the prairie started doing better than ever go figure so that's our special for today thanks so much for tuning in we hope after watching you'll take the opportunity to step outside smell the fresh air and enjoy all the earth has to offer after all it's the only one we've got for brand new on the road stories don't forget to tune in to the cbs evening news with nora o'donnell every friday until then i'm steve hartman stay kind

Channel: CBS News

Views: 86,232

Keywords: Steve Hartman, CBS News, Special Report, Amazing Earth, weather, climate, nature, stars, planets

Id: Nlt4p3zQLd0

Length: 22min 47sec (1367 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 22 2022