>> This week on Friends & Neighbors.

>> What we set out to do is touch people's lives.

Give them experiences.

Give them a quality visit with your family, with your loved ones, with your friends.

And hopefully, you walk away learning something every time you come.

>> I used to do like softball and stuff, and I just really wanted to try something new.

And they started the lacrosse in Valpo.

It, it- it's fun, I like it.

I really like playing defense mostly, because like contact.

And like, I can like, shove people.

>> What we learned in the feedback from our guests is that they were surprised to learn some things.

I think we pushed people off of the fence in our direction with being honest and truthful about the history for better or worse.

>> I feel like figure skating and hockey have really impacted the community.

And brought something that maybe a lot of Hammond residents aren't used to you know, playing basketball or baseball and stuff.

And this is a newer sport to them, so it just kind of opens their eyes to what other sports are available.

>> Doing as much as you can, as quickly as you can is important to me.

Life is short.

And the earlier we get started helping our community, the, the better off our community will be.

>> I have a very strong connection to other students.

Everyone makes an effort to help each other.

I'll remember the feeling of being here, the feeling that I was a part of a family.

>> Shopping for fruits and vegetables in the Strack & Van Til produce department is a feast for the senses with produce picked at the peak of freshness.

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Find them at your local Strack & Van Til Store.

>> A long lasting legacy of family ownership dedicated to generations of clients is what sets Centier apart.

Trust the integrity, experience, and personal service of Centier, Indiana's largest private family owned bank.

>> Support for programming.

Lakeshore PBS comes in part from a generous bequest of the estate of Marjorie A.

Mills, whose remarkable contribution will help us keep viewers like you informed, inspired, and entertained for years to come.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) >> Additional support for Lakeshore PBS is provided by viewers like you.

Thank you!

(train bell ringing) (train rumbling) (upbeat music) >> We're at the Hesston Steam Museum today.

I'm glad to have you guys out here.

We're gonna have a terrific time looking at all kinds of steam machines, but also riding our steam railroad.

The museum is a living history museum that concentrates really on experiences and really, tells the story of how steam power improved the quality of life of everybody in this world.

The trains are probably the most well known piece of steam machinery there is, but really, the big innovation in the industrial revolution was the stationary steam engine.

And even, the biggest hero of the world, the steam tractor.

And the steam tractor was so important in, in, and arguably more important than the locomotive, because it plowed fields that- to provide food for booming cities, in that turn of the century.

(upbeat music) The real magic behind powering a steam engine, like a big locomotive like this, is the actual steam and the boiler that produces it.

We have a fire that heats up water and expands that water finally turning it into this vapor we call steam.

And that steam actually fills the container, and expands and expands to 150 or 200 PSI.

That means that for every square inch of that boiler, there's 200 pounds pushing out on it.

And we harness that steam and pipe it into the steam engine.

And we feel like it's our responsibility to give back to a community we call home.

So we invite a different school every year to come in in the spring and have a field trip.

And we want to have different learning stations, but we wanna mix in a lot of fun with that too, and a lot of experience.

So the train rides really capture the kids' imagination and we've got three different railroads.

We also had the sawmill running today.

Sawmill is a great exhibit and a great way to show people how a stationary engine works.

And we take power off of it to do work for us.

And sawmills, in particular, were very important, because they provided lumber for modern building, as in 1900 building techniques.

It was much more efficient use of material than an entire log for just a little piece of a building.

Then we have the blacksmith shop and, and that's really an art form and it demonstrates the craft that goes into these types of machines.

Then we have the soda fountain.

And that was- that's just a great way for us to have another experience.

And we make real sodas with real sugar, and just like the days when that soda bar was originally built in 1929.

It's just a wonderful visit in there and a nice time to relax and reflect on your visit the museum.

(upbeat music) >> So I've been coming out here my whole life, but I've been volunteering out here for four or five years now.

You know, now I'm learning to fire locomotives and even, you know, learning some things about running them.

And then up in the winter, I even get to work in the machine shop and start to learn some- how to run the lay and how to run the press.

Not many kids get to learn those things, you know, when they're only 14, so it's a family out here.

We come from a, you know, variety of backgrounds.

Some people actually worked on these steam engines.

Some people come from the railroad.

And then some people had nothing to do with it, and they're just interested in it comes out here.

So there are a lot of great people out here.

>> Everybody is out here is a volunteer.

Everybody has a good time, volunteering their time and coming out here and working.

And building something that we can show off to the community and give back.

This is how we're doing it.

It's fun for both ends of it.

We enjoy us as a group.

We enjoy putting this on for the kids and the, and the adults alike.

Everybody seems to have a good time when they, when they come out and, and we have a good time doing it too.

It's just a lot of fun.

>> So I've been a volunteer here for ten years this year.

I enjoy working on these steam locomotives and seeing when we have these locomotives operational, seeing what the public- their reaction to how the engine's running, the whistle blowing, the bell ringing.

You know, the engine's making all the noise that they do, how they react to that is just exactly what you know, our, I think our goal is here.

>> I've never seen such a dedicated crew of people in my life.

And I'm just very fortunate and honored to be able to lead them.

What we set out to do and what I've always done, and I believe our volunteers like to do is touch people's lives.

Give them experiences.

Give them a quality visit with your family, with your loved ones, with your friends.

And hopefully, you walk away learning something every time you come.

(train bell ringing) (train rumbling) (upbeat music) >> Valparaiso Lacrosse Club.

It's a youth sports organization based out of Valparaiso, Indiana.

And we predominantly, right now, specialize in kids that age from kindergarten all the way through 14 year old that are, you know, wanna learn the sport of lacrosse at a youth level.

And that will eventually age out into their high school lacrosse program.

Yeah!

We're just finishing up our first year.

It was really good.

We started our season in March indoors before- while it was still snowing.

First season, we ended up rostering 47 kids this year.

So right now we're currently running three teams.

Our U14 team, which is predominantly comprised of our seventh and eighth graders.

We have a fifth and sixth grade team, which is mostly 12 year olds.

And then we have a U8 team, which literally is a mix of kindergartners, first graders, second graders, so we have a real mix.

Our, our goal this year was just to have a U12 team and with 47 kids, we ended up having way more than we thought we were gonna get, which was awesome.

But then we ended up having a co-ed program, so we have a mix of girls and boys right now playing underneath boys' rules.

But it's- I mean, it's an awesomely fun time, like it's great.

(upbeat music) So like- lacrosse is the fastest growing sport in the United States right now.

And at this point, you know, Valparaiso has long been a football community.

We know just based off running a youth program, that there's an appetite for lacrosse.

We also know that there's far less concussions in this sport than in football.

So with concussion protocol going on in football, people are still looking for an alternative to play a more physical sport, but also keep their, you know, kids fit.

And, and we just don't stop running.

This one thing is clock doesn't- clock stops, but we don't stop.

So kids are running nonstop.

>> I love the running.

I'm a contact guy.

So anything that has conc- I'll do it.

>> Most kids jump in pretty quick.

So, often what we do, in order to introduce the sport, is in the off season, we'll run clinics, just for little kids.

So we'll do like our, our whole U8 team formed in one week.

We ran one clinic.

We had 15 kids show up and we had a 90% conversion rate for kids that wanted to participate.

And, and then kids just talk about it.

They're all having fun.

They're coming out here, they're having fun.

You know, you should just come and try it.

Like you don't have to commit, there's no commitment.

I mean, we would open up any day.

Anybody that wants to come to any practice hit me up on Facebook.

I'll, I'll set you up with gear.

We had one person send a message through Facebook this year and- (man laughing) they messaged us.

We had just started practice right here.

I texted 'em back right at the beginning of practice said, "How fast can you be here?"

They're like, "We just wanna try it out."

I'm like, "Come on over!"

They were over here in 30 minutes and they rounded out the rest to practice with us and then they signed up for the whole season.

>> I used to do like softball and stuff, and I just really wanted to try something new.

And they started the lacrosse in Valpo.

So, cause I don't really do like too many sports.

It's not super hard.

It's a little bit hard to like get used to, like cradling and throwing the ball with the stick.

And like making sure you don't throw with your forearm, but after a while it gets a little bit easier.

It's like hard to start going, but easier to master kind of, it, it, it's fun, I like it.

I really like playing defense mostly, because like contact, and like, I can like, shove people.

>> We're well positioned in Valparaiso to have a strong club, because we're literally an hour from Chicago.

We're an hour from Notre Dame.

And that's where your bulk of teams are gonna be, so when you take into consideration that if you wanna play competitively, like you do in the school system.

A club program like this is really well suited for you.

Our goal is to have a high school team at some point, but we gotta figure out the rules.

So we'll start with youth.

I mean, we can just build a youth program first and then we'll see what happens.

And if within we- if we can do it right, we'll have enough kids playing that we can represent the high school in four to five years.

Like La Porte has a team, Chesterton has a team right now.

Munster has a team and Crown Point has a team, but no Valpo yet.

So we just gotta, we got one more step to make and then, you know, we'll be able to make that happen.

But this has been the most successful season that I've had in the last seven years.

We've got right now, we have- you can see, we got two coaches over here.

We got another two coaches handling our U8.

We've got myself and we actually have two independent goalie coaches as well.

It's the most coaches we've ever had and we've never had independent goalie coaches before.

To have that level of specialization and to have that level of dedication from a coaching perspective is great.

Our parents are amazing!

Like we've got moms and dads coordinating for every game to make sure kids have hydration, make sure they have snacks, make sure they're happy, make sure they're transported, which is always an issue.

I mean, we'll see parents tag teaming, you know, to make sure kids are getting in there and you know, make sure we're getting to wherever we need to be on time.

>> One, two, three, Vikings!

(upbeat music) (melancholy music) >> The prison was constructed in 1858 was known as simply the Illinois State Penitentiary at Joliet.

It was proceeded by a state penitentiary that was built on the Mississippi river community of Alton, because of deplorable conditions.

And actually as a result of the prison being a, a, privately leased operation, which is an interesting feature.

There was a call to build by 1858, the penitentiary had begun construction here.

53 inmates came up from the Alton penitentiary, quarry the limestone were housed here, and actually built the prison around themselves.

(melancholy music) When we took over, not only did you have several burnt buildings, you had damage structures.

You had a variety of fence lines throughout the site for security reasons, razor wire overgrowth, and just years of vegetation and trees.

And we adopted, what's known as a stabilized ruin.

Essentially, we wanna make sure that the buildings are physically safe, but the presence of the decay and the abandon edness kinda speaks to, you know, these are forgotten people in some respects that put them behind walls.

Not only so prisoners do not get out, but so our eyes do not get in.

Even when it was constructed in the 1850s, this was a notoriously massive, intimidating place Its size was commented on from its earliest days of the penitentiary.

up until today, visitors are really amazed by how physically large the site is.

It encompasses 16 acres inside the walls.

You have almost two dozen outbuildings in there, things like chapels and dining halls and dormitories.

Throughout those years, you always had about a 1000 or 1500 inmates here at any given time, which is a lot.

And you know, in addition to, a couple hundred staff members, guards, essentially a city within a city.

Joliet has had a synonymous relationship with the penitentiary being the prison city.

That was a complicated legacy.

and it was part of the reason that it was okay for the prison to kind of sit empty, because you know, that reputation had sort of underwritten negative perceptions about city of Joliet, you know, in light of the damage, the arson, the vandalism, we collectively decided the prison has defined us for long enough as a community.

Why don't we take this back?

Why don't we define the prison to the rest of the world?

Capture this interest, capture these dollars, you know, and really take this site back, if you will, on behalf of city Joliet.

The interpretation of the site from the beginning was something we knew was gonna be challenging and complicated, because we knew we would wanna be respectful of a variety of viewpoints.

You have incarcerated persons, you have victims of crimes, you have employees that were here, you have the perception of this facility with the city of Joliet, took a variety of research.

It took a strong stomach to talk about some very hard truths.

Whether you're talking about, you know, mass incarceration today and kind of the straight line from the 1860s after the civil war.

Or you're talking about convict labor, things that are still complicated today, You know, we knew we had to be respectful.

We knew we had to be fact evidence based in our interpretation of that.

What we learned in the feedback from our guests is that they were surprised to learn some things.

I think we pushed people off of the fence in our direction with being honest and truthful about the history for better or worse.

There's the morbidity and the, and the grotesque side of this that kind of attracts people.

And that, you know, we do discuss.

I think there's also more socioeconomic cultural takeaways that we want people to have.

And we want people to reflect on what's happening today.

Most people are shocked to learn that it did hold maximum security inmates until 2002.

You are walking the grounds where prisoners of the state of Illinois have been held for century and a half.

When you think about Leopold and Loeb and Richard Speck and these people, you know.

You're, you're walking and you're working in my case, you know where they were.

More importantly, you have Ida B.

Wells, who visited prisoners here 100 years ago, bring attention to the fact that black men were being over incarcerated.

The prison was designed in 1858 to essentially be the only prison that Illinois would ever need, because it was so massive.

Within 20 years, the only prison the state would ever need filled up over capacity to 2000 inmates.

You see suggestions in media, at the time, that that was attributed to post-traumatic stress disorder following the civil war, several financial panics after the civil war, two thirds of thereabouts of the inmates were in here for theft, larceny, and overwhelmingly for crimes against property.

So for, for stealing things, for trying to survive, kind of stays with you.

A term I've heard is emotional residue.

You feel this sadness, you feel hopelessness.

You do feel empathy in that it's complicated and that there are a variety of perspectives.

And that once you, you see and walk these grounds, you really, you know, gives you a unique perspective.

We have stoked conversations in the cars on the way home if you will, that we've changed some minds.

That we have created an empathy for not only incarcerated people, but department of corrections workers, just how complicated and sometimes a messy incarceration can be.

And, and it tells us a lot about our society for better or worse.

But you also do feel sense that we can and we will and we want to do better.

It's emotional experience as just as much as it's an educational experience.

It was built in an effort to want to do better, but like many things in history, it, it evolves.

It's, it's old, but it's still with us.

If you want to know and learn about a society, you know, look at its penitentiaries.

Look at the history they present.

>> The idea was to give opportunities to kids that we didn't have for the local rinks.

So that, that was one of the big drivers that we felt was important.

My brother, Stan Sobilo and his partner, Frank Buck, we always talked about having something in the area for hockey for a long time after Omni closed in the late seventies.

There was no indoor ice rink.

So you had large population of people in Northwest Indiana that really didn't have anywhere to go.

So we felt there was still a need for, you know, somewhere to play hockey.

The one thing we always say is this is a, a hockey rink built by hockey players.

So we have several programs, Introduction to Skating, Learn to Skate.

We have an adult learn to play.

We had, you know, a group of guys that, you know, maybe they played a long time ago.

Maybe they played a little bit when they were younger, maybe they haven't played at all.

So that gives them an opportunity to get on the ice.

We also have public skating.

We have open hockey, which at a rink it's called rat hockey.

We have stick and puck, which is a fun thing where maybe a dad could go out there with the son and, and, and or daughter, and just pass the puck and shoot the puck.

So we have opportunities like that, where you could- don't have to rent the ice.

You could come out and, and enjoy.

We, we felt that it's very important to have a strong figure skating program at, at the rink.

So we hired Denise Darling, who's an experienced instructor.

>> Well, lessons for figure skaters are a little bit different than what we call learn to skate.

Learn to skate is what you saw today.

The classes with all the little kids learning basic skills, things that are gonna help them in their avenues to go do figure skating or hockey.

So edge work, controlling their steps, being able to go backwards.

Then we have figure skating.

And that's where you see the things that you see on TV.

The jumps, the big spins, the- all the twirling, all the exciting looking stuff.

>> Air Kube is a trampoline park that has also a ninja course.

The callow jump machines, the callow climb, which are sort of like video games in a sense.

The Air Kube side started with just kind of a, along with the dream of the ice rink.

It was something new to be brought to, to Hammond area.

And that's good for the residents and that's good for Northwest Indiana.

And it's, you know, a family atmosphere.

This is a family business and they wanted something that would bring attention in and bring a family to come in and have fun.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) >> To see the advancement of some of the kids that have started either on skating or hockey and to see how they've developed through our program.

Basically starting when we open, you know, that, that, that makes you feel like it's worth it, because you're seeing the growth of maybe individual players and some of the players that- they're having success in their, in their team.

It's also great, great to see Munster and Bishop, now have home ranks.

We don't have facilities at the school, so you have to, you know, rent something.

But it's nice to have fairly prime time ice slots and have the ability to maybe grab an extra slot to get a little bit more practice.

We were successful since we started practicing this arena.

We have a varsity and JV state championship.

Munster has a JV state championship.

We have a league championship in the last year.

So it's helped us, you know, that extra practice, one practice a week adds up.

So the improvement of our teams and our players and our programs have benefited from, from this rink being open.

>> I feel like figure skating and hockey have really impacted the community and brought something that maybe a lot of Hammond residents aren't used to you know, playing basketball or baseball and stuff.

And this is a newer sport to them.

So it just kind of opens their eyes to what other sports are available.

(upbeat music) >> Doing as much as you can, as quickly as you can is important to me.

Life is short.

And the earlier we get started helping our community, the, the better off our community will be.

>> Almost every single professor I've had, I'm on a first name basis.

By building that relationship with faculty, I was able to get involved with research.

It's one thing to read about an idea and a book versus physically doing it and seeing the results.

>> Strack & Van Til is your wedding planning partner.

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Visit Strack&VanTil.com for details.

>> A long lasting legacy of family ownership dedicated to generations of clients is what sets Centier apart.

Trust the integrity, experience, and personal service of Centier, Indiana's largest private family owned bank.

>> Support for programming.

Lakeshore PBS comes in part from a generous bequest of the estate of Marjorie A.

Mills, whose remarkable contribution will help us keep viewers like you informed, inspired, and entertained for years to come.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) >> Additional support for Lakeshore PBS is provided by viewers like you.

Thank you!

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