(lighthearted music) - [Announcer] Tonight on "Rhode Island PBS Weekly".

- [Pamela] In 1985, former Naval Intelligence Officer, and underwater explorer, Bob Ballard, was sent on a top secret mission to find two lost submarines and- - Guess what's in the middle?

The Titanic.

And the only reason I found it was because of that fact, that there was flanked by two nuclear submarines.

- Is the honeymoon gonna be over when you send out tax bills this year?

- We have lived as a city for the last several years off very generous federal money coming from Washington, and that federal money is coming to an end.

Taxpayers in Providence are likely gonna receive a tax increase this year.

- When my father was dying of cancer his symptoms were not well managed.

We really didn't talk about what was happening to him, and only found out after he died how much he was suffering.

And we need to do better.

And that's a major motivation for the work that I do.

(uplifting music) (uplifting music fades) - Good evening, Welcome to "Rhode Island, PBS Weekly", I'm Pamela Watts.

- And I'm Michelle San Miguel.

American marine biologist Sylvia Earl once said, "Every time I slip into the ocean, it's like going home."

- Tonight we introduce you to a local man who has spent most of his life visiting other underwater worlds.

His adventures are legend.

And while his name may not be well known to you, his discoveries are blockbuster.

- I'm the king of the world!

- [Pamela] Bob Ballard's most remarkable discovery inspired the classic Academy Award-winning movie "Titanic".

- I'm really an earth scientist, but it turns out that most of the planet is under the ocean.

So I'm studying my planet, but in the meantime, bump into things.

- Things such as the real Titanic.

In 1985, Ballard became world famous from his discovery of its remains and the film that followed.

- I'm flying, Jack.

- Ballard says he's seen the movie only a couple of times.

The first with its creator, Jim Cameron.

- I knew that, what I say, the old lady in her grave, I know what the old lady looked like.

Jim so accurately replicated it.

I got to see the beautiful ship that she was.

- The largest ocean liner of its time hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic on its maiden voyage in 1912 and sank off Newfoundland.

More than 1,500 died in the disaster.

Just recently, the haunting original video of the watery grave was re-released.

But beyond Titanic, Ballard is like the Lewis and Clark of the Sea, on a mapping expedition of what he believes is the next frontier.

His voyage of discovery began when the compass pointed him in the direction of the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography more than a half century ago.

Dr. Ballard, you are oceanographer, explorer, adventurer.

You are a Naval Intelligence Officer and Commander, archeologist, author, professor, of all of these titles, which one describes you best?

- Oh, I love an explorer.

I boldly go where no one has gone before on planet Earth.

You can't have a better job than that.

- [Pamela] That job of a lifetime started to take shape when he was introduced as a child to Jules Verne's classic tale.

- I didn't read the book "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", I went and saw the movie when I was 12 years old.

- [Pamela] He says he watched the movie because he couldn't read well.

Ballard has what's known as a learning difficulty but he views it differently.

- I'm dyslexic and I'm very proud of it.

I see things people don't see.

See, I live in a world of complete darkness and so I have to imagine it.

And dyslexics have a powerful ability to form visual imaging in our right side of our brain.

- I gotta stop you there because you have been extraordinarily successful in life.

How did you navigate dyslexia to make the discoveries you've made?

- Well, I did good in school, but I had to memorize everything.

And I would go in to take the exam, close my eyes and see the answer.

- So you see dyslexia as an advantage?

- It's a gift if you go down the right road.

And there's this new research that says dyslexics make great explorers.

We're not afraid of the unknown.

My daughter, who's dyslexic, gave me a little thing for my deck it says, "Not all who wander are lost."

- [Pamela] Ballard credit's dyslexia with helping him envision where the Titanic was located.

- I had to dream up a way of finding it, which was to imagine its sinking.

Dumping out its remains.

Falling down, but then they would be carried by the current.

So I said, let's not look for the Titanic.

Let's look for its footprint.

Let's look for the debris that came off of it.

- [Pamela] Searching for the Titanic was not Ballard's original intent.

It was a cover story for a recently declassified top secret military mission.

At the time the Navy was concerned, two US nuclear subs that had been lost during the Cold War would be found by the Russians.

So they asked Ballard to find them.

If he did, the Navy said he could use the rest of his resources to search for Titanic.

He found the subs and- - Guess what's in the middle?

The Titanic.

And the only reason I found it was because of that fact, that there was flanked by two nuclear submarines.

- [Pamela] Using his newly developed technology, an unmanned submersible vehicle sent back live pictures in the dead of night, finally detecting evidence of the long lost ship of dreams.

- We were in the debris field, we knew immediately to turn north.

And then the boiler of the Titanic came in and we had a photograph of that boiler.

It was like scoring the winning goal, we yelled and jumped up and down.

And then someone made this innocent comment.

"She sinks in 20 minutes."

It was 2 in the morning, she sank at 2:20.

Then it really hit me hard.

I never expected to be emotionally touched.

And it hit me particularly when we were processing some of the film and we saw pairs of shoes.

So imagine seeing, this was powerful.

A mother's shoes next to her daughter's shoes, where they landed together.

That's a very sacred place.

- [Pamela] The crew held a memorial service on deck.

The following year, Ballard returned in a three person submersible to see the Titanic with his own eyes.

- The amazing moment was going inside.

Now obviously our submarine couldn't fit inside.

Well, I had developed this little vehicle called Jason Jr., and it was like a robot on a fishing line.

So imagine landing on the deck of the Titanic, clunk.

And we landed right where the grand staircase used to be but the glass shattered.

And so we launched our little robot out and it went down in the grand staircase and it goes into this dark void and a light comes on in front of us.

- And what did you see?

- We had a heart attack.

I mean my head went back hit the bulkhead of the submarine.

A light.

We were shining our lights on a crystal chandelier and it was our lights coming back at us.

It's like those movie scenes where the cowboy draws on himself in a mirror.

- [Pamela] As amazing as that underwater voyage was, it's not the only shipwreck Ballard has uncovered.

He's also located John F, Kennedy's, PT 109 boat, German battleship, the Bismarck, and the World War II aircraft carrier Yorktown, as well as almost a hundred other vessels.

Some in the Black Sea.

- [Bob] We found perfectly preserved shipwrecks sitting upright.

Even human remains, from 200 BC, still there, can't beat that.

- [Pamela] There is one enduring mystery that still challenges Ballard.

In 2019, he searched unsuccessfully in the South Pacific for the remains of the plane flown by famed aviator Amelia Earhart.

While many believe she may have crashed and been taken hostage as a spy, Ballard is convinced her aircraft is in the sea off Howland Island.

- Stay tuned for round two.

- Do you think you're going back?

- I know I'm going back.

- Soon?

- Stay tuned.

- Do you think you can find her?

- Absolutely.

It took two times to find the Bismarck.

- [Pamela] Ballard says he's equally excited about findings being made today at the School of Oceanography's Inner Space Center.

He calls it mission control, where six ships are using live telepresence technology, forging unexplored territory in the deep.

- Each of these ships have a very large gyrostabilized satellite that's able to beam what they're doing live back to the Inner Space Center.

- [Pamela] You can see it crystal clear.

- Yeah.

- I mean and we've even seen like the, well here we go.

What's happening here?

- That's, it's gonna pick up a sample I suspect.

That's a manipulator.

And they're going in to probably collect a biological specimen.

- [Pamela] And it is this specimen, which Ballard says is indicative of a whole new ecosystem under the sea.

- Giant tube worm that sticks out its lung and ingests hydrogen sulfide, to kill you, and feeds it to its gut where it's another creature is living symbiotically in the gut of these and can oxidize that hydrogen sulfide and fix carbon and set up a whole food chain.

- [Pamela] Ballard says his finding of the giant tube worm has NASA searching for the same creature in the oceans on the moons of Saturn and Jupiter.

- And they should have life.

Now, I don't think it'll be New York City down there.

- [Pamela] While Ballard can joke about finding a thriving world on another planet, the explorer in him says, time is of the essence.

- There's no plan B for the human race.

We're not gonna leave our solar system.

The laws of physics make it impossible for humans to leave our own solar system.

So let's prove that there's life within our own solar system.

Unless we get back in tune with Mother Earth, we're not gonna survive.

- [Pamela] And so the work continues for Ballard in every direction.

Now in his 80s, he's currently planning a center to showcase all his wonders.

- We're building a new 360 degree dome where you'll be there.

Imagine you're in a room and it's all around you.

We just shot it, footage last week.

When you go where no one has ever been, you can't miss making discoveries.

(uplifting music) (uplifting music continues) - Up next, Providence Mayor Brett Smiley has just finished his first 100 days in office.

Contributing reporter, Jim Hummel, recently caught up with him to talk about everything from building better schools to higher taxes.

(rock music) - We do it once a month with the mayor of Providence.

Mayor Brett Smiley comes in.

He'll take your calls.

- [Jim] From fielding calls once a month at WPRO.

- [Caller] Can anything be done about the trash?

- Hello young man, Brett Smiley, the mayor, who are you?

- Enrique Sanchez.

- Enrique.

So nice to meet you.

Do you know the governor?

- [Jim] To news conferences with state and other local leaders.

(group clapping) - Good morning everybody.

- [Jim] And reading to 4 and 5 year olds at a Headstart program in Providence.

- This is the construction stuff.

- [Jim] Brett Smiley's first 100 days have been hectic.

He's not paying attention to the calendar but he does take issue with the 32nd president of the United States.

- Well I get angry at Franklin Delano Roosevelt 'cause he's the one that started this whole 100 day nonsense.

There's nothing magical about 100 days.

The reality is, is we've set goals for the first year, and I hope to hit them and I think we're on track towards them.

But there's no magic to 100 days specifically.

- [Jim] The mayor seems to find the magic in the work.

Smiley who grew up outside of Chicago, first came to Rhode Island in 2006.

To run then Lieutenant Governor Charlie Fogarty's unsuccessful campaign to become Governor.

By 2014, Smiley caught the political bug himself.

He ran for Mayor, but dropped out to support Jorge Elorza.

Smiley became all Elorza's Chief of Staff before taking the same job with Governor Gina Raimondo.

Until now, he'd always been the guy behind the scenes.

You've never held elective office.

So what was different when you became mayor?

- Probably the most important difference is that at the end of the day, you set the direction, and you make the decision.

And that's what they get elected to do.

That's what the mayor that I worked for, the governor, and so, you know, the pressure, and burden, and stress of making the final call is different.

And the other thing that's a little different is it's a little bit lonelier.

- Could anything have prepared you for that?

- I don't think there's any training for that.

I think you just had to start doing it.

- If you look at education in Providence, public safety, the pension obligation, there's so many pressing issues here.

Does the enormity of that weigh on you at times?

- The one that weighs on me most is the schools.

The thing about the schools that is heavy is while that in many ways that change will also take some time every year it takes is another school year for some student, who maybe didn't receive the education that they deserve.

And that's different to me like morally, emotionally, than not having a solution for our pension shortfall this year.

- [Caller] Hi, good morning.

I own a business on the east end of Oxford Street.

- [Jim] Back at WPRO for his monthly ask the mayor segment.

He took complaints about everything from crime in Kennedy Plaza to speed bumps, and trash collection - Speed bumps in the last administration proliferated like like bunnies in the spring.

- Why are you doing that, and what do you hear when you talk to people on the radio?

- So part of the reason I'm doing this is 'cause I enjoy it, it's fun for me.

And I think, and particularly in local government, particularly of your mayor, I mean this is a very tangible problem solving job.

And you know, I don't know what ask your congressman, or ask your senator would be like, because the problems that they address at the federal level are pretty, you know, 30,000 foot problems.

For me, and you've heard some of these calls.

It's my neighbor never brings this trash barrel in.

There's a pothole on my street.

And we can solve those problems.

- [Jim] We recently met at a downtown restaurant with Smiley and his husband of 10 years, Rhode Island native Jim DeRentis.

- So are you the first husband?

Are you the first gentleman?

What are you?

- First gentleman is what they call me.

- Is that what it is?

- Yeah.

- Did you approve that?

- I did approve that.

He's usually a gentleman, yeah.

- You're living up to that?

(both laughing) - Depends.

(both laughing) - [Jim] Smiley and DeRentis got married in Massachusetts, before gay marriage was legal here in Rhode Island.

DeRentis was by Smiley's side again on inauguration day.

- It was, I know it was probably the, one of the greatest days of his life, but it was pretty close for me too.

- [Jim] DeRentis is a prominent real estate agent, and a political sounding board for his spouse.

- As your Mayor, I'll make Providence a city that works for everyone.

- [Jim] And for Smiley, working for everyone means back to basics.

It's a theme he hammered home in his campaign commercials.

Smiley and DeRentis are both passionate about Providence, and in lockstep about what taxpayers are looking for in a leader.

- That's what people expect from city government, right?

They're not expecting these grand vision statements and they're not expecting, you know, sort of the stuff that we hear on the national level.

They're expecting that their trash gets picked up, their kids can go to school, the streets get plowed, and that they can live in a safe, nice neighborhood.

That's what people want.

- [Jim] There is a lot on the mayor's plate, and the city's notoriously crumbling schools are near the top of the list.

We recently went with him to a laying of the beam ceremony for a new addition to one of the city's elementary schools.

- [Brett] The voters in Providence and the voters statewide have approved significant amount of school construction money.

And over the next eight years we're gonna see a lot of renovations and new construction in the city, which is thrilling.

- [Jim] He also feels strongly that the state should eventually return control of the school department to Providence.

(group claps and cheers) Smiley recognizes that he's gotten a mostly positive response in his first several months as mayor, but there will eventually be tough decisions that anger some people.

And at some point I'm sure the criticisms are gonna come.

Have you guys talked about that?

'Cause there's gonna be backsplash on you ultimately and how you're gonna handle that.

- Everybody always asks the question, how are you doing, how are you holding up?

And you know, I'm not as thick-skinned as he is.

I'm Italian, you know, I'll be the first one to admit it.

And you know, I have a tough time sometimes with certain things and I know not to respond, I know not to go on social media, I know not to send an email, and I know not to send a text.

(laughs) But man, my cats listen to a lot.

(laughs) - [Jim] What's the one thing people watching this should know about Brett that maybe they don't know?

- He is very thoughtful and deliberate about how he approaches this position.

He's got great people around him.

He's assembled a team that I think is second to none.

And you know, he's able to come across, cool, calm, and collected, so you know he's in charge.

But I can promise you he's thought a great deal about it.

He's thought about what the impact would be, he's thought about who it would impact, he thought about how it would impact.

I find it amazing because it really is a very strong quality in a mayor.

- Is the honeymoon gonna be over when you send out tax bills this year?

- The honeymoon will be over at some point, that's inevitable.

But we have lived as a city for the last several years off very generous federal money coming from Washington.

And that federal money is coming to an end.

As a result, we need to start to prepare for that money to expire.

And so taxpayers in Providence are likely gonna receive a tax increase this year.

(uplifting music) (uplifting music continues) - This week Mayor Smiley released a budget that calls for the first increase in residential property taxes in a decade.

He said the previous administration used federal COVID money to create "Irresponsibly low tax rates".

And finally, tonight we hear from a woman who supports people as they approach the end of their lives.

This is part of our continuing My Take series.

- There's a quote by Woody Allen that I think speaks to this.

His quote is, "I'm not afraid of dying, I just don't wanna be there when it happens."

(Bonnie claps) My name is Bonnie Evans and this is my take on end of life.

In my career, I really have focused in palliative and hospice and end of life care for the past 25 years in the role of a nurse practitioner then transitioning into the role of an end of life doula in the last three years.

An end of life doula could help with advanced care planning or maybe sitting vigil at the bedside when somebody's close to end of life.

Or they could help with grief support just practical support for the caregiver.

When my father was dying of cancer his symptoms were not well managed.

We really didn't talk about what was happening to him and only found out after he died how much he was suffering with his end of life.

Looking back, I think we could have done it better and that there was unnecessary suffering because we were sort of struggling in terms of how to take care of him.

And we need to do better.

And that's a major motivation for the work that I do.

I've seen what can happen when people don't know their options, when they don't know what questions to ask.

I wanted to reach out to my own community and have been able to contribute to a column called Life and Death.

And it's in the Bristol Phoenix newspaper.

I think if I were to explain sometimes what it's like to be there when someone is actually dying, it feels like a very sacred place similar to what it feels like when a baby is born.

And then there are times where I've been at the bedside and you can see that this person is comfortable, that they're ready, that the family is okay and comfortable at the bedside.

It's what people wish for, but it doesn't always happen.

And when it does happen, it's just a beautiful, beautiful thing.

I had an experience once where the client that I was visiting was very uncomfortable with having me come out to see him.

And the wife clearly looked like she needed all the support she could get.

So I ended up, during this visit, sitting next to his bed and in the conversation I could tell that he was wrestling with the decision about continuing to get treatment or what he really wanted to do was stay home.

Often when I'm talking to clients we tend to focus in general on some of the negatives.

And I like to ask the question what brings a smile to your face?

What brings you joy?

And that can often be an important, the answer to that can sometimes be very important to help you understand that person.

And when I asked him, what brings a smile to your face?

At first he couldn't answer.

And then as I was leaving and he called me back into the bedroom and he said, "I want you to see this."

And he went over to his laptop and he opened up and it was Pavarotti singing "Nessun Dorma".

♪ Nessun dorma ♪ ♪ Nessun dorma ♪ (crow cheering) - And he stood there weeping.

And it was just a moment I'll never forget.

Yeah, I knew I'd lose it.

(singing "Nessun Dorma") When someone's approaching end of life I see their focus narrow as, as the days are numbered.

I don't hear people saying I wish I spent more time at work.

I wish I had made more money.

It's about the love and the people in their life and that's what really matters.

And you know, sometimes all of us need that reminding.

(Bonnie claps) My name is Bonnie Evans and this was my take on end of life.

- And that's our broadcast this evening.

Thank you for joining us.

I'm Pamela Watts.

- And I'm Michelle San Miguel.

We'll be back next week with another edition of "Rhode Island PBS Weekly".

Until then, please follow us on Twitter and Facebook and visit us online to see all of our stories and past episodes at ripbs.org/weekly or listen to our podcast on your favorite streaming platform.

Thank you and goodnight.

(lighthearted music) (lighthearted music continues) (lighthearted music continues)