- Here's what's coming up - Next on "You Oughta Know" we'll hear from a Delaware family who escaped danger in Ukraine as bombs exploded.

- [Regina] We visit a popular south Philly thoroughfare where women businesses are flourishing.

- [Shirley] Summers coming so travel with us to some locations that'll take one tank of gas.

- [Regina] And we take you to a local hideaway where you can find vintage vinyl records.

(upbeat music) Welcome to the show, I'm Regina Mitchell.

- And I'm Shirley Min.

We begin the show with the story we've all been watching unfold, the war in Ukraine.

- That's right.

We've watched millions of people flee Ukraine since the Russian invasion.

- Among those escapees, a family with ties to Delaware.

And joining us now is WHYY's Chris Barrish from our Delaware bureau.

You broke this story, Chris.

Chris, welcome to "You Oughta Know."

- Thank you.

- Tell us about Tatiana Polotko and her family.

Where are they and are they safe?

- They are now in Warsaw, Poland, and in an apartment at least through the end of the month.

Their young children ages seven, three, and two are already enrolled in school, a Polish English language immersion school.

And they think they may wanna stay if they can stay there through June, at least the end of the school year, but they're not sure exact what the future holds.

Senator Chris Coons from Delaware's offices reached out and they've all, and they have some contact that's offered to pay their airfare back to the United States and help her elderly father, Eduardo, who doesn't have travel papers, maybe get a passport.

- Dropping everything, leaving, taking just the bare necessities and getting out of there.

I cannot imagine their emotions, like the fear of the whole thing.

We actually listened to a part of the conversation that you had with Tatiana and we have some excerpts from that, you can take a listen.

- [Tatiana] We heard like the loud noise of helicopters.

And then they started like coming up, like flying really, really low.

The area we are is in the water.

It's on the, the area's called Kyiv sea, it's a manmade sea.

It's a reservoir.

And near it is a power plant, a hydroelectric station.

And so these airplanes were coming up from under the water and like flying extremely low, like right above all those residential homes.

And I mean, like literally above our heads and there were so many of them and, you know, at first it was like, well, it's gotta be ours.

You know, Ukrainian.

I mean, and then our kids, we saw the kind of fire falling on the homes like right next to us and from one of the helicopters.

And so the kids just started screaming.

Like they became hysterical.

And obviously we got scared because for a second, it looked like they're about to shoot missiles from those helicopters.

So we kind of suspected it was not Ukrainian helicopters.

And so later on we learned that they were indeed Russian helicopters that came to attack the power plant at which point we realized that we were in a very dangerous area.

- That's really hard to listen to because, I'm picturing Tatiana, her husband, her three little kids, and her 81 year old father, I just cannot imagine the stress.

So Chris, what happens after this moment in time?

- Okay, they don't have a car, train stations are packed.

She reaches out on social media and found a woman whose child went to her children's daycare and offered the drive them in her Volkswagen Jetta.

Eight of them packed into that car, including her husband who's six foot six, couple of kids had car seats, the ailing father, and they drove 120 miles on mostly deserted roads, but they had to stop at like checkpoints to make sure they weren't Russian saboteurs.

And on one stretch, they're driving, in the middle of the road: tank.

- Talk about your heart in your throat.

Like, you don't even know if you're gonna make it.

You don't even know where you're going.

They're just driving, trying to get to the next destination.

And you know Tatiana from other stories that you've done.

- Her and her husband run an education nonprofit that helps low income children of color get into elite colleges, very successful.

They've been on different stories and shows we've we've put on in the past and I've stayed in touch with them through Facebook.

I didn't know they were even living in Ukraine, but they've been there for a little over a year, running their agency and taking care of her father who's got some health issues.

And when the invasion hit, I'm looking at Facebook, like I do.

And I saw post by them and said, "we gotta get outta here."

And I was like, oh my God.

- Well, why not just come back to the US?

- They were hoping that there wasn't gonna be an invasion.

They just decided to hunker down and wait it out.

But then when the bombardment hit, they said, "we gotta get outta here."

And they said, "we gotta get to the Polish border, or the Hungarian border."

And they spent eight days by train, by car, staying in friends places, and hotels, last six miles by foot where they were in just a parade of tens of thousands of people.

They lost Eduardo at one point, he had fallen behind.

He had fallen.

But somehow after eight days, they got across the Polish border and now they've made it their way to Warsaw where they're sort of in a holding pattern.

- That is quite the odyssey.

We can hear the rest of Chris's story online at whyy.org.

- Thank you so much, Chris.

- Thank you.

- The East Passyunk avenue district is home to 150 independently owned shops that balance the best of the old and the new and where women-owned businesses have flourished for many years.

(upbeat music) - East Passyunk avenue business improvement district has been around since 2002.

Our mission is really to help with the ongoing revitalization and vibrancy of this mile long business corridor here in south Philly.

So we have about 200 businesses overall, 160 of those are independently owned, which is a huge number.

And out of that 160, over 45% are owned or co-owned by women, which we're absolutely proud of.

I think one of the things that's really important to note when you're talking about these women-owned businesses is to be aware that they're not necessarily just focused on women patronage.

We're talking about restaurants, we're talking about art galleries, we're talking about healthcare facilities.

So it's a business owner.

(bright music) - I'm the owner of Tildie's toy box and we've been here for about 5 1/2 years here on East Passyunk avenue in south Philly.

Tildies's toy box is a gender neutral toy store, which means we don't have separate toys for girls or for boys.

So we really try to encourage all families and children, to play with all different kinds of things.

All children need to learn all kinds of skills.

And of course, it's fun to be in a toy store so we try to have some really fun things for kids.

We have a lot of demos out, we encourage everyone to come in, have a good time and interact with the things we have in here.

It's really important to support other women-owned businesses and it's really special that we have so many here on East Passyunk Avenue.

We respect one another, and we support one another, we wanna see each other succeed.

So it's great for everyone.

- I've had this particular business, Headhunter's Hair Design for 20 years and I had a salon up the street for 10 years.

So I've been on the avenue for 30 some years as a small business owner.

And when I first started, there were some women-owned businesses on the avenue.

Compared to a lot of places, it's good support.

And it's very important to have that support 'cause that keeps your business going.

It gives you notoriety when the other businesses have notoriety.

So it's just gonna get better and better.

- This is Black and Brew.

My wife, Jennifer, and I own this business.

We've been here for 15 years and we are a full coffee bar, breakfast and lunch restaurant.

So we love it down here.

It's awesome that we have so many women-owned businesses.

But the cool thing is that we have so many ethnically diverse women-owned business cause that's really important and we're all working together, especially for the young people to see, "Hey, I can do this too."

- So looking ahead, we wanna see this growth continue with a diverse array of different businesses and different backgrounds.

Representation really matters when someone sees another business owner like themselves succeeding, thriving, and getting the community support they can take that step and feel comfortable coming into a corridor like ours.

- To see everything the avenue has to offer, including upcoming events, check out VisitEastPassyunk.com.

- I wanted to tell a new story about American history.

- This very watery world, there's this hundred year history of exclusion and that it has present day implications.

- [Man] Do have access to a swimming pool?

Do you have access to a space that is safe for swimming?

And for many, many years, black people in this country didn't.

- That was an excerpt from an upcoming "Movers and Makers" special that looks at the racial history of swimming in America.

- And here with us now to talk more about it is Victoria Prizzia.

She is the creator of the exhibit "Pool" a social history of segregation.

Victoria, thank you so much for joining us.

- Thank you so much for having me.

- Tell us more about your exhibit.

- So "Pool" is a 4,700 square foot museum exhibition.

It's set in a vacant portion of the Fairmont Waterworks Interpreter Center, a national landmark.

And it really provides an in-depth look at this history of segregated swimming and its current day implications that disproportionately impact black and brown communities throughout the country.

- It blows my mind how many different areas in Philadelphia you can just walk past every day and not even realize how important it was, or how special it is.

This was supposed to debut September 2021 and yet Hurricane Ida kind of derailed all of that.

Now you guys are back on track.

What were the challenges that you faced trying to get all this back and going?

And then plus, how have you guys looked at this as a reason for even more we have to have this done?

- Yeah and it really did motivate us.

So I mean, once we got past the heartbreak, then we really had to deal with the debris that was left.

So the water comes in, it fills the building, and then luckily it recedes.

And so within 24 hours, actually, the water was pretty much out of the building.

But it left the sediment and that's really what we had to deal with.

So Karen Young was incredible, the executive director of the Fairmont Waterworks Interpretive Center, she went above and beyond to get the professional disaster responders in and that's how we're opening in March.

But it definitely put an exclamation point on this idea of how we're going to look at water into the coming decades.

And most likely see these more extreme weather events becoming more prevalent.

- We think about access to water, a lot of times we're thinking about clean drinking water, but not necessarily access to pools and even life saving swimming lessons.

But that is something that you kind of put a spotlight on with your project.

- Yeah, and well, when you consider that if you're born black in this country you're six times more likely to drown than if you're born white, that is significant and it should be unacceptable.

And so we look at this, and someone like Ronda Harper, who is the founder of Black Girl Surf, she makes this point in the exhibition and she says, "you cannot have environmental justice," which is something people often think about water as related to, "without social justice."

Environmental justice, social justice go hand in hand.

- Wow.

And segregated recreation kind of created organizations like the Nile Swim Club, which is huge in my community.

How do you hope that this exhibit kind ignites something in people to be a force in their community?

- Well, I think the Niles Swim Club is such a great example.

And we have the president of the board, Anthony Patterson senior, as one of our featured speakers.

And they have a program and a motto called "no child will drown in our town."

And that is the reframe we think we should all be singing from coast to coast, across the country.

And that's something we can do.

And so I'm so excited for people to come in and meet people like Charles Jackson French who is a hero in World War II, Mimi Livingston who is an 18 year old who helped desegregate Maryland's public pools by writing a letter to the paper.

We also have someone like Simone Manuel who talks about her experiences as being the first black woman in the history of the world to come home with Olympic gold medal in a solo swimming event.

So these are the voices that "Pool" is really amplifying and these are the people that we want you to know.

- Victoria, thank you so much.

- I can't wait to see this exhibit.

- Me either, I'm just blown away by everything that you've told us.

It sounds amazing.

And if you would like to see the exhibit, it is open Wednesday through Friday and on Saturdays.

Here's how you can learn more.

- [Shirley] And be sure to catch "Movers and Makers" on Thursday March 31st at 7:30 PM right here on WHYY TV 12 for an in-depth look at "Pool" and how this project is impacting our region and beyond.

- Summer's coming and we're not gonna let those gas prices keep us indoors.

So we asked travel expert, Catherine Smith, from "Her Bags Were Packed" to show us some destinations we can get to on one tank of gas.

- With so many great places, just a tank of gas away, I'm ready to hit the road this summer.

(bright music) If you're looking for great coastal spots, you can check out St. Michael's Maryland.

It's only 120 miles from the city.

It is a charming small coastal town voted one of the 10 best small towns for shopping by "USA Today".

Another great small coastal town is Cape May.

It's got great charm, great history.

It's fun for folks of all ages.

And it was also voted in one of the best small coastal towns in the country.

We also have Annapolis, Maryland.

They are home to the Naval academy.

They've got tons of colonial architecture, delicious food, incredible history.

If you are a wine lover, these three regions are all within 250 miles of the city.

We've got the Shenandoah valley in Virginia, you've got the finger lakes region in New York, and Monticello in Virginia.

We also have Baltimore.

They have seven food halls and they are actually home to the country's oldest, continuously operating public market system.

Providence Rhode Island, an incredible food scene.

There's a thriving art scene.

They have fascinated museums and a zoo that is great for all ages.

If you are a history and culture buff, you're gonna wanna check out Saratoga Springs, New York.

It's known for horse racing, but it's also big on supporting the performing arts.

It's the summer home of the Philadelphia orchestra.

And while you're there, be sure to check out the mineral baths at the Saratoga Springs national park.

Another great spot for history and culture buffs is Stanton Virginia.

It's located in the Shenandoah Valley.

It was the childhood home of Woodrow Wilson, that's where the presidential library is.

And there's even a haunted hotel, the Blackburn Inn, which was previously a mental health hospital.

And of course, there's plenty of hiking in the Blue Ridge mountains.

Now DC is worth mentioning because you can go to all the Smithsonian museums, including Mizu, for free.

The final stop for history and culture buffs is Berkeley Springs, West Virginia.

It's home to a mineral spa that has been in use since colonial times.

And you can even go see George Washington's bathtub.

Have a destination in mind, have some activities planned, but keep a loose schedule.

Feel free to explore anything intriguing that presents itself along the way.

So most importantly, this is a vacation, you should be having fun with it, be creative, and just give yourself the freedom to explore and engage with the world again.

- Oh, vacation sounds so nice right about now.

And those seem like some fun family friendly getaways for the weekend.

- While Firefly on the Delaware state fair are back again this year, tourism director, Liz Keller, highlights other fun activities and events happening in the first state.

And the good news is you don't have to travel far to make some fresh memories.

- 2022 Is gonna be an exciting year in Delaware.

We have a lot of new exhibits of tours that are opening.

We have tours are coming back, which is really exciting.

- [Shirley] Liz Keller's office has compiled a list of 22 things to do in 2022 for visitors and Delawareans alike.

- The eating Rehoboth tour is a really exciting experience that's coming back.

What you do is you can join either by yourself, as a solo travel experience, or with a group of friends on a curated tour to some of the best restaurants in Rehoboth and you have a tasting at each location, but also receive a lot of facts and history about Rehoboth beach along your tour.

- [Shirley] Keller says you can appreciate nature at Trap Pond State Park, which is the Northern most point to kayak among bald Cypress trees.

And for all the golfers: - The BMW PGA tournament in Wilmington is a really big deal for Delaware and a really big deal for Wilmington.

We're gonna have some of the top golf players coming in from all over the country to play here.

In Northern Delaware, we have a lot of really exciting things going on in our historical and cultural attractions.

So Winterher, beginning in may, we'll be having a Jackie O exhibit commemorating her time where she really learned from the professionals at Winterhur about historic restoration and preservation.

It will give a behind the scenes look of what she did in taking her lessons learned back to the White House.

We have the Delaware art museum with a Tiffany exhibit, beautiful stain glass.

We have The Museum of Natural History, it has gone through a huge revamp, including their name and their exhibits.

- [Shirley] And in central Delaware, Keller is happy to announce Dover Days is back.

The festival celebrates Delaware's heritage.

- We also have new this year in May the Dover Air Show.

We'll have a really incredible display with the Thunderbirds.

- There's lots to choose from.

Downtown Wilmington is undergoing a culinary Renaissance right now.

So you can check out some of the new and exciting restaurants opening up.

And of course the Delaware beaches, beautiful time of the year.

We'll link you to "22 Things to do in Delaware" on our website.

- Who knows?

You may even see the president at one of the Delaware beaches.

Now to Philadelphia, where there is also lots to see this summer and a great way to take it all in is to board one of those purple buses you see in center city.

(upbeat music) - The Philly Flash downtown loop hits center city using Market Street, primarily, it's the purple bus looping around the city.

Flash is river to river.

It's easy.

It's convenient.

The idea is it brings you directly to the top destinations for either locals or tourists to see.

Flash begins its service in the spring seven days a week, it's after labor day, Friday to Sunday.

Flash service runs every 15 minutes, 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM.

But it does a continuous loop the entire day.

You'll notice at each Flash stop, there's a set of wings and a map to identify where you're at, where you're boarding.

And then at the bottom of each map, it will tell you what time the first Flash is arriving and what time you can expect to hop on the last Flash to get you back to your stop or destination.

You can hop off right at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, catch that Rocky Statue, run up the stairs, hop back on the Flash, head east towards the Liberty Bell, and then we head out west on the zoo loop.

So at the art museum, you can connect and take that right to the Philadelphia zoo and Please Touch Museum.

The Flash is affordable.

$5 all day for an all day pass, $2 for a single ride.

If you have a SEPTA key pass, you ride free.

If you're a senior 65 and over, no matter what state you're from, what country you're from, seniors ride free.

Anyone coming to Philadelphia for the day, park, leave your car in one place, whether you wanna park on street or in one of the parking lots, but take the Flash.

- Philly Flash is the way to roll if you are planning to visit center city.

- Music is a universal language.

♪ I love music, any kind of music.

♪ You have skills, you're really good.

Well, you can probably find the Ojs and many others at an area record shop.

- That's right, they're more than 4 million recordings there, but don't let us tell you.

Here's a local celebrity with an iconic personality with more.

- Hey gang.

I'm guilty of being Jacky Bam Bam from 93.3 WMMR and we've been rocking, we've been rolling coming up on 54 years.

And you oughta know about a guy that powers my show.

His name is Val Shively.

He's a Philadelphia treasure.

It's R & B records Garrett Road in upper Darby.

I started going to Val Shively with my dad, Papa Bam Bam, when I was a little, little, little boy.

I'm gonna put one of these records on Pier Rober's turntable right now, 'cause this is how we do it.

- My name is Val Shively, and I guess I'm the owner of this place.

(upbeat music) This is a warehouse.

If you know what you want, we can do business.

This is the, the deal.

This is what I'm about, okay?

- [Shirley] Val Shively used to collect coins and stamps when he was a kid, but it wasn't until vinyl records that his real passion emerged.

- In 1956, I heard "Don't Be Cruel" by Elvis Presley.

Went nuts.

Oh my God, this is like, oh my God, where'd this record come from?

I didn't know who he was.

I never heard of him.

And I got that record, right?

And I had it and I used to play it, play it, play it, play it and never stopped playing it.

That was the beginning of me into music.

- [Shirley] As a teen, acquiring more records became somewhat of an obsession.

- I was always working since I can remember.

Anything and everything to make money and especially to buy records.

And I bought records like there was no tomorrow.

(bright music) I meet this guy who says, "hey, I hear you talking about music."

I said, "I love music."

He goes, "you ever hear Blavat?"

I said, "Blavat, what's that?"

And so he tells me Jerry Blavat, which is in Camden, New Jersey on WCAM.

- [Shirley] After listening to Jerry Blavat, Val was inspired to collect records from do-wop and male vocal, harmony groups of the 50s and 60s.

- Things like "Desiree" by the Charts.

And "Please Say You Want Me Too" Schoolboys, and "Zoom, Zoom, Zoom" by the Collegians.

I to want list wherever I went, I knew this is what I was looking for.

- [Shirley] After years of collecting hit records, Val's passion turn into a successful business with the help of his loyal sidekick, Chuck.

- Chuck came in here when he was 14, 15 years old.

He's been here for 45 years.

- [Woman] What is your role here?

- It could be clerk as long as the check clears at the end of the week.

Well, I feed the cats first, go through eBay see if we sold anything, check the emails see if anybody ask for anything, and so forth.

- [Val] I got a guy who's been with me forever.

You know what?

I treat him gold because without him, I don't exist.

In the beginning, I only sold what I liked.

All that's stuff that I heard from Blavat, I'm doing mail order and I'm doing business all over the country and I'm doing good.

- [Shirley] Records from juke boxes were always a good get.

- I ended up buying a big load from New Orleans, a million records from a place called Tack, slang term for nickel, you know, for jukeboxes.

Two 48 foot tractor trailers filled with records.

That's exciting not knowing what was in there.

I sell hits.

You can say anything you want, I got it.

I'm real known for having something nobody has.

That's where I come to life.

I don't sell a lot of anything, I sell a little bit of a lot.

Everything has a shot because if somebody out there's looking for it.

I don't wanna tell you what I got 'cause I don't have time.

You tell me what you want and watch me, because I got it.

I'm one of the people that if you could do anything in the world, I would do this.

This is a dream.

If we don't have it, you don't need it.

- We have to go everybody.

Thanks for coming to R & B Records with Val Shively in upper Darby.

That's a rock and roll party, I'm Jacky Bam Bam for 93.3 WMMR and you outghta know where to go to find some vinyl.

Goodbye everybody.

- That was an icon in the collecting business and a big personality along with it.

- Ya think?

Well, if you're looking for one of a kind recording that you can't find anywhere, check in with Val, because chances are he has a right in his collection.

- Absolutely.

Two very interesting characters.

Well, that's it for tonight.

- Thanks so much for joining us and we hope to see you next week.

Goodnight everyone.

- Bye.

(upbeat music)