Tonight on New Hampshire Crossroads.

Is polka music the happiest music in the world?

Yes!

(inaudible) Gary Sredzienski of Newmarket is at the center of a polka music revival.

Then, what is it about this unassuming study center tucked away in rural Charlestown that attracts Bible researchers from all over the country?

And 50 years ago, a man named Hannes Schneider arrived in New Hampshire to introduce America to the joys of skiing.

Tonight, we present rare footage that's almost as fun as a trip on North Conway's legendary snow train.

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

Theme Music Presentation of New Hampshire Crossroads is made possible by grants from Shaw's Supermarkets, providing quality and service in all their stores located in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

First NH Banks, serving the financial needs of individuals, corporations, and local governments throughout New Hampshire.

The Union Leader Corporation, publisher of New Hampshire's statewide newspapers.

We’re right for New Hampshire.

And East Coast Lumber of East Hampstead, New Hampshire, Ossipee, New Hampshire and Portland, Maine.

Supplying quality building materials to housing and industry throughout New England.

Now, it is a fact that FM radio signals do not carry very far.

So if you don't live in the southeastern part of the state of New Hampshire, the chances are that you have not heard a radio program that's on every Saturday morning.

The program is entitled A Polka Party, and the host is one Gary Sredzienski.

And he is somebody we thought you would like to meet.

Dick Pillars Polkabration Band and Krakowianka.

Going out to Carl and Alice Szymanski.

You're listening to Polka Radio 91.3 WUNH FM in Durham.

And guys, we're a having Polka Party.

Yes, they sure are.

Well, everybody, one more live tune, all right?

All right.

One more, loud, noisy polka, okay?

All right!

(counting down in Russian) Polka Music Here is a young man, all of 26, who spends his Saturday mornings hosting his own polka music radio show.

And then plays his accordion until way past midnight.

Who speaks unabashedly of moms and dads, aunts and uncles, even grandmas and grandpas, and likes nothing better than to surprise them with a song anyone else his age has almost certainly never heard of.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Let's start at the beginning.

When I was growing up, I remember waking up on a Sunday morning smelling pot roast, and my father, wherever he was, he had a radio next to him.

He's out planting the garden.

He had a radio.

Polka music.

Brings the radio in, we're sitting down to eat.

Polka music.

Everything was polka music.

It's the only music I heard.

Birthday wishes from her two grandsons, Drew and Duncan Szeliga.

And also Aunt Bert.

Thank you kindly.

Well, happy birthday, Lee.

Life is sure good in America.

Polka.

Gary Sredzienki grew up in Connecticut and came to the University of New Hampshire to study forestry.

In Durham, he discovered the student-run radio station WUNH, and a new ambition took shape.

Also in the polka shrine, my polka conscience and polka pop away from home.

Good morning, Dick Olbeck.

Get over here, buddy.

Hey.

Good morning Gary (speaks in foreign language) I've heard a lot of polka deejays in my time.

There's probably five radio shows in Connecticut.

Polka radio shows.

There's nothing up here.

I listen to many of them, but I have to be different.

(speaking in foreign language) Yes, sir, Dick, whatever you said.

Bucky Bailey is back by popular request, and he's here with Singing Machine.

Good morning, Bucky.

Hey good morning Gary.

How are you doing this morning?

I’m doing very, very well, and we've got a real full day, I understand.

Oh yes.

We have a real busy day ahead of us.

Now residing in Hollywood, Florida, Li’l Wally and the Glen to Glen Polka.

Well, I received a nice postcard this week from Georgia.

Hi, Gary.

Will you please play a polka for Melissa, Terry, Linda, Tom and children?

Also Helen Leveque.

We are in Georgia now and have some tapes of the Polka Party.

Sure do enjoy them.

We love all of you and hope you have a good winter.

There's something about, there's a real joy of having by Friday night, having my show all ready to go, full of surprises for my listeners and laying in on them on Saturday morning.

It's such a joy.

Just a, and just to make people laugh and flip people out.

I had a friend from Germany, said, Gary, you’ll stick, your show stick out like a sore thumb on radio.

And he, it does.

You flick through the knobs there, you stop on that show, it sticks out.

All right.

Oh, here it is.

We get a lot of phone calls.

I have the phone off the hook this morning because, like, it's like juggling baseballs here this morning.

And the song's about to end.

The songs are only two minutes long.

Oh, I got the wrong accordion.

This is Buckshot.

Not to be confused with Gary's other accordions, named Sally, Ed, Tony and Alyssa.

Gary's been playing since he was a kid.

His folks wouldn't allow him to play guitar.

After only six months’ practice, Gary placed third in the statewide accordion contest, and then he started a band called the Hog Hollow Hooters.

It was the kind of band where you learn songs on the spot.

Gary learned a lot of old standards that way.

Music from Wall Groller and the Dutchland Dance.

Well, I received a card saying, would you please play the Blue Skirt Polka for Francis Batchelder of Kensington, New Hampshire, and Mary Charest of Methuen, Mass.

They're twins.

Thank you.

Love coming from Jane.

Well, I don't have the Blue Skirt polka, but I could play the Blue Skirt Waltz live with my accordion, Buckshot.

Polka Music I really would like to take a couple months off from work and possibly going to play at 2 to 300 convalescent homes.

Not to get paid, but, you know, when people smile, that makes me so happy.

Just, it's such a good feeling that you can't put a price on something like that at all.

Actually, today is a special day because after his morning polka show and his late morning Cajun music show, Gary heads over to Newmarket to prepare for a dance and a live broadcast from the Polish-American Club.

And this is our favorite kielbasa.

We have always kielbasa.

These are what we call pierogi.

They're like our Italian, the Italian raviolis.

In the kitchen, Steffi Miller, Anna and Helen Papik, Jean Micucci, Lee Dreschina, and Tony Malik have outdone themselves.

Polka appetites are satisfied here.

(cheering) All coming to you live right here from Newmarket.

So let's not waste any more time.

Hey, let's have a polka party (counting in foreign language) On the bandstand, the Smoked Kielbasa Emergency Polka Unit.

Dan and Joe Blajda on fiddles.

Andy Cody on bass.

Butch Green on drums?

Artie Simpson on reeds, and Gary Sredzienski, the Shredder himself, on the squeezebox.

Polka Music Oh, we just love the polka.

It's a relaxing music.

We just love to come down and let it all go out.

There's no better place than over here at the Polish Club.

We got it on tape down, all of the music this morning.

Art’s taped every Saturday that Gary’s been playing.

So we love, we love it.

I love the polka, too.

Polka music as happy music in my book.

I'm lucky I'm here.

God bless you, everybody.

Polka Music Gary Szredzienski’s Polka Party radio program is broadcast every Saturday morning from 9:00 until 10:30 over WUNH here in Durham.

That's at 93.1 on the FM dial.

And the next Polka Party for the American Citizens of Polish Descent Club over a Newmarket will take place sometime this spring.

We'll let you know.

Everybody is welcome.

When you think of a research center that attracts people from all over the country, chances are you think of someplace that is grand and imposing.

Well, we'd like to show you a place in rural New Hampshire that seems to attract interesting people by being good, but not grand.

They come here to study one particular book.

So Samuel went and lay down in his place, and the Lord came and stood and called, as at other times.

Samuel, Samuel!

Then Samuel answered, Speak, for thy servant heareth.

A message from the Old Testament.

Yes, people still read the Bible.

And here in the hills of the Connecticut River Valley in Charlestown, New Hampshire, is a research center for the Bible.

A lot of people are surprised to find that a facility like this is not supported by any one religion.

The philosophy here is not to tell people what to think, but only to encourage them to think.

The people who come to the Foundation for Biblical Research come from many different backgrounds and beliefs, but what they all have in common is their fascination with this book.

I study the Bible because it's exciting.

For me, it's, it's like food.

It's like.

Or it's like breathing.

And that's, it's really the, the energizing basis of my life.

I'm committed to learning more about Scripture because it feeds directly into what I do, in economics and my, my work with foreign aid and dealing with the world's hungry.

The study of the Bible characters brings out different qualities that need to be emulated in our lives.

And it's, it's a continual source of inspiration.

What other book has been a bestseller for, I guess you could say hundreds of years, year after year after year?

The bestseller is the Bible.

And many of the principles you find on the Bible, and the values that are brought out in the Bible, tie very much in with the new sciences, the science of chaos, science of complexities, and others such like the emergence emerging science of wholeness.

The Foundation was started over 30 years ago by private endowments.

Its purpose is to promote a greater understanding of the Bible.

But the founders wanted more.

They wanted people to take that understanding and use it.

To apply it to problems of the modern world.

When I go into a situation that's very desperate and poor, in different countries around the world, I'm not just looking to report the misery and suffering that's going on.

This gives me eyes to be able to see that there is nobility, there's courage, there's intelligence, there's innovation right in the middle of some of the most desperate situations around the world.

Richard Harley, a journalist and economist, is based at the Harvard Institute for International Development.

His work has taken him to three continents to study innovations which are reducing world hunger.

He's writing a book, working on a television series for PBS, and he feels it's how you look that determines what you see.

I don't feel that the, the kinds of of new life and vision that the, the Bible brought to me are peripheral to my professional work in economics and journalism.

In fact, they give me the ability to see things that I need to see that otherwise would be invisible.

Music About eight years ago, I was working for a local church, and we received an invitation to send people for a lecture here that Helmut Kastner was doing on Matthew.

And I'd never been here before.

And when I came, it really reawakened in me my interest in doing serious Bible study and research.

And I really think it was really planted the seed that that developed.

And I eventually went back to school and went to seminary.

Polly Shamy is now the pastor of Ascutney Union Church in Ascutney, Vermont.

The Foundation had what she needed to change her life.

Workshops anyone can come to, a rich library, and a place to be.

An atmosphere that nurtures thought and study.

There's a scientist who's doing a lot of research, and he's climbing this complex, difficult mountain of research to find the answer in science for a specific problem that he has.

And finally, when he gets to the top, he looks over and he sees a group of theologians that have already been there discussing the same answer.

And again, we find this is a, this repeats itself, as people go finding things in science, they go back to theology, essentially, and they say, hey, that sounds like Moses when he turned to see the burning bush.

John and Susan Littlewood study new branches of physics.

They find they are not the only ones who find practical connections between their discoveries in science and the Bible.

I'm talking non-denominationally.

I'm talking about a scholarly view of the Bible, and trying to understand what they, the writers in the Bible, are actually saying to us and then finding behind what they're saying, what are these principles?

What are these laws that we can apply today to our lives?

And we're finding that the scientists are doing the same thing.

Music The spirit of the Foundation is open minded.

It doesn't dictate any answers.

It encourages the individual to explore.

And what people continue to come here to explore is the Bible.

There's some quality about Scripture that speaks to people in every age.

It's a quality of truth reappearing, tells us that wherever we are and whatever we're doing, this truth will reappear in terms we can understand and and help us to do what we need to do.

Music The Foundation for Biblical Research is open every weekday, Monday through Friday, from ten in the morning till four in the afternoon.

You can stop in any time and use their library.

To attend the workshops there, or to make reservations for lodging, give them a call.

You know, back in the 1930s, there were only two internationally famous ski resorts in North America.

One was Sun Valley and the other was Mount Cranmore up in North Conway, New Hampshire.

Now, Cranmore was famous for two things.

One was the ski mobile and the other was the man that ran the ski school.

His name was Hannes Schneider, and this is his story.

Skiing en masse.

Ski larking at its best.

Music What you see here is history, but not just New Hampshire history.

It is, in fact, world history.

This is Hannes Schneider, the man who invented the modern ski school.

He is also the man who taught America how to ski.

And in his time, he turned Mount Cranmore in North Conway into one of the most famous ski resorts in America.

In 1989, Mount Cranmore celebrates its 50th anniversary.

It is also the 50th anniversary of the arrival of Hannes Schneider in America.

Schneider was 49 years old when he came here from Austria.

He had been teaching skiing in Europe since 1908.

With him he brought his wife, daughter, and son Herbert.

They came here to escape the Nazis.

My father happened to be in Berlin at the time Hitler took power in Germany.

And he saw a few of those things going on, which he didn't like.

And he became very outspoken.

They invited him to take part or watch their parades they put on.

So father did.

And when he saw who all these people were, he's just laughed out loud and they never forgot it, that he laughed at them.

And they were such serious about nationalism and so on.

So, when the Anschluss happened in 38, they arrested father.

They got him out of bed at four in the morning and put him to jail.

But Hannes Schneider was a famous man, and international pressure was brought to bear.

He was released from prison.

The Nazis then offered him a job teaching skiing for the Reich at Garmisch.

But Schneider wanted no part of it.

Meanwhile, in North Conway, a local boy was making big plans.

Harvey Dow Gibson.

He was the son of the local station master, who had gone on to become the chief executive officer of Manufacturers Trust in New York City.

Harvey Dow Gibson had made a bundle and Harvey Dow Gibson loved skiing, and he loved North Conway.

Now, there were a dozen or so Austrian ski instructors already teaching in New England, and every single one of them was a former student of Hannes Schneider.

It was through these instructors that Mr.

Gibson made a generous offer to Hannes to come to North Conway and to start a ski school, and Hannes accepted.

Here is his arrival in 1939.

I hope to see you there very soon, and I hope you'll find good snow when you get there.

Good.

That much snow.

Lots of snow, much snow.

Good skiing!

Yeah, yeah, everything, everything.

A little more.

(speaking in German) Hannes Schneider fitted right into the scheme of things at North Conway and found his staff of instructors cheerfully awaiting his arrival.

In peaceful America, Mr.

Schneider found crossed ski poles and not bayonet the order of the day.

For Hannes Schneider, a new beginning in a new setting.

You will note that Mrs.

Schneider, Ludwina, was radiant.

On this day, there was no indication she would be dead of cancer in six months.

With Benno Rybizka, a Schneider, instructor, and Mr.

Gibson, skimeister Schneider received his first scenic eyeful of Cranmore Mountain.

Music So Schneider and his staff of capable assistants write preliminary chapters in the budding American art of ski instruction.

That Hannes Schneider was here in the US was an irresistible story, and the press played it for all it was worth.

And overnight, North Conway became the ski Mecca of the East and launched something brand new.

It was called the Ski Train.

In those early days they used to run a so-called Eastern Slope Express out of New York City.

It would leave New York City Friday night and stay here over the weekend and go back Sunday night so people could come up here weekend and be back at that job in time, because the train would get back to New York City around seven in the morning.

So put on their business clothes and they'd be in the office by nine.

The beginning of a healthful excursion.

And the novelty of the holiday is just what the doctor ordered for city cliff dwellers who crave a definite change.

Music Arriving at North Conway, everyone's eager to get going.

And there's snow enough to go around and then some.

Music And the destination for this crowd?

The destination was the ski mobile, the most romantic ski lift ever made.

And the most long-lived.

In fact, this is the oldest continuously operated ski lift in North America.

They did have other kind of tows back then.

I mean, yeah, they had rope tows all over Europe.

Rope tows was the big thing in those days.

Chairlift that just started.

They, they had a chairlift built over in Stowe, Vermont in 1936.

And there was the one up in Sun Valley.

Why didn't we do a chairlift here?

Mr.

Gibson had a little problem.

There was a Swiss by the name of Victor Constam, who owned all the patent rights.

And being a Yankee, he wasn't going to give anybody any money if he didn't have to.

And the ski mobile turned out to be so good that it is considered a national treasure.

And another national treasure was Hannes Schneider, who died in April 1955.

As a matter of fact, two days before he died, we went up on the mountain here, laying out a slope, which we refer to now as the East Slope.

And he laid all that out and, he died of a heart attack, very unexpectedly.

Hannes Schneider died in his son's arms.

And now it's 50 years later, a long time from the bear trap bindings to the fiberglass wonders of today.

Some skiing techniques have changed.

But, you know, the Schneider teaching method is still used around the world.

And skiing?

Skiing has become just what Hannes Schneider predicted it would become, a great, fast, downhill sport, with millions and millions of people doing it.

And Cranmore too, has grown from a single lift to an enterprise worth millions.

They now have snowmaking and five chairlifts to the summit.

And on February the 11th, a bronze statue of Hannes Schneider will be unveiled.

50 years to the day that he arrived here at Mount Cranmore.

That day that changed ski in America forever.

Music During their 50th anniversary celebrations, Mount Cranmore is going to unveil a statue to Hannes Schneider.

Now, we were not able to show you that statue because the official unveiling isn't until next month and we'd be jumping the gun.

Well, that's our show for this week.

Join us next week when we visit the studios of Nashua artist James Apanovich, a man whose paintings are so realistic that looking at his canvases through the frame, you might think that you were looking at the actual objects themselves.

And I will follow in the footsteps of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and tell you the story of Benning Wentworth, New Hampshire's most notorious governor.

We're going to close our show this evening with some more historic footage from Mount Cranmore.

This is entertainment night at the Eastern Slopes Inn.

Til next week, New Hampshire Crossroads, I'm Fritz Wetherbee.

Music Presentation of New Hampshire Crossroads is made possible by grants from Shaws Supermarkets, providing quality and service in all their stores located in Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts.

First NH Banks, serving the financial needs of individuals, corporations, and local governments throughout New Hampshire.

The Union Leader Corporation, publisher of New Hampshire's statewide newspapers.

We’re right for New Hampshire.

And East Coast Lumber of East Hampstead, New Hampshire, Ossipee, New Hampshire and Portland, Maine, supplying quality building materials to housing and industry throughout New England.

Music