- [Narrator] Coming up on Nebraska Stories, conversations with animals, helping African coffee farmers from the heart of corn country, the glory days of Sunday baseball, and a musical ode to nature atop a bluff at Chadron State Park.

(steady rock music) (upbeat music) - Hi, come here.

Yay!

- [Narrator] Cindy Downing wants to bring animals and humans closer together.

- Is she not cute?

- [Narrator] She says animals are smarter than we think, they hear us and there's a lot we can learn from them.

- Here's my girl, there's my girl.

They're here to help us live our lives, bring us joy, they're here to teach us stuff.

I mean, every animal that meets up with their human is here for some reason.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] How does Cindy know this?

She's been talking to animals since she was a little girl.

And she says, they talk back.

- [Cindy] When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time by myself.

I had my tea parties with my invisible friends.

We had cats when I was growing up and I would, I would talk to them.

To me, it didn't seem abnormal, I would just talk to them.

They were my friends.

(laughs) - [Narrator] When Cindy started school, her mom said it was time to say goodbye to her invisible friends.

- My mom said, "you're gonna make real friends "as opposed to your invisible friends and the animals."

- [Narrator] For the next 30 something years, Cindy's invisible animal friends were barely a memory.

And then suddenly one day after a serious health scare, the conversations picked up where they left off.

- My husband loves it.

At first he was like, "don't tell anybody what you do."

You don't know how people are gonna respond to this.

- [Narrator] Cindy says she hears and sees words and images.

Sometimes the messages require a bit of interpretation, but when she's on the right track, Cindy says she gets goosebumps.

Understandably, people are skeptical.

- Unfortunately, there's scammers.

I always tell people, you should be able to validate the information the person is giving you.

It doesn't have to be 100% but I would say at least 75%, 80% of the information that they're giving you, you should be able to validate.

I always tell people I am not a vet.

- [Woman] We have two eagles up here, one of which- - [Narrator] Cindy reads animals of all types, wild and domestic.

She even volunteers at animal nonprofits.

Betsy Finch with the Raptor Conservation Alliance, - Wow, oh my God she's beautiful.

- [Narrator] Wants to release this young bald eagle in time for migration.

But the raptor is making a slow recovery from a broken wrist.

- [Cindy] She knows she's beautiful, wow.

I just want her to tell me if she thinks she's ready to go free.

Because the wing is, is a little wobbly yet.

She's telling me she's really gotten a lot of strength since she's been here.

-[Betsy] Yes.

- Like from zero to 95%.

-[Betsy] Okay.

-What would you say?

- [Betsy] Yeah, yeah, because she couldn't fly at all when she came in.

- So I'm getting goosebumps and she's telling me she'll get even stronger 'cause she's limited.

-Even though this is huge.

-True, true.

She's telling me, "I can't go".

Oh wow, I'm about to cry.

She's just so brilliant.

She said, "I need to soar with the wind currents."

And the eagles are supposed to soar, is what she's telling me.

How fast can eagles fly?

- [Betsy] 30, 40 miles an hour, maybe.

- Because she's telling me that when she gets out of here, she will be able to fly really fast.

- [Betsy] Good.

- [Cindy] Wow.

- [Betsy] All right, lady, take it easy, thank you.

- [Cindy] And she's telling me to tell you, you're really special and thank you, thank you for doing the work.

Wow, I tell Betsy the pictures that I see or the feelings that I get and I'll ask Betsy, does this make sense to you?

Because I don't, I don't know, this is not my environment.

- Yeah, I'm a trained biologist and medical technologist.

So science is, you know, is basic to me but I am open to ideas like this.

- [Cindy] But she's saying that she's blessed to be here.

- I needed to know if she thought she was ready to go because she does fly just a little crooked.

(wings flapping) - I'd love to have her come every day.

(laughs) But if, if there's a bird or something that again, is having issues or that I'm concerned about, I do, I'll call Cindy and she's been really helpful, really helpful.

- [Cindy] Hello.

-[Jane] Hello.

Hi.

- Hi, I'm Cindy.

- [Narrator] Just north of Lincoln, Jane Shanahan is meeting Cindy for the first time to have her do a reading with her horse Lou.

- Okay, I'm getting goosebumps.

Okay, first thing I heard as we were breathing, "handsome, handsome, handsome.

"I'm handsome, handsome, handsome."

- [Jane] People do tell, tell me that he is gorgeous.

- He's telling me he's really a gentle heart.

Very gentle, very kind, he's a gentleman.

He's telling me you got him at a good price.

- Well, he was free.

- I saw him.

- Oh, my God.

(Cindy laughing) - Sight unseen.

- That's a good price.

- Do you have any questions for him?

- Like today, we went over the bridge and he just walks across the bridge, no problems.

When we go riding with my friend, he stops at everything and makes, almost makes the other horse go first.

Why does he do that?

Because he's been over these bridges like maybe 12 times a week.

First let me ask, are the bridges wood?

-Yeah.

-Okay, because that's, I'm being shown wood bridges.

I'm being told he's a gentleman, he's letting, and I'm getting goosebumps.

He's letting others pass by.

Watch when you, the next time you guys go riding, because he's showing me, I'm riding, riding, and maybe this horse is behind me and we get to the bridge and then it's kind of like, he just takes a step or two over.

-Okay.

- Like the other, okay, you can go first.

- Okay.

- You're not the sacrificial lamb, I'm just being the gentleman.

- Okay.

- Because he did say at the beginning he was a gentleman, wow.

- [Narrator] A few days later, as Jane rode with a friend, her horse, Lou, behaved just as described.

- [Jane] Okay, go ahead.

He was letting the other horses go first and not having him go first, which is awful sweet.

You know, he's, you know, he seems like that, it's just right up his alley.

(steps thudding) - I've been telling her all week, she's gonna be a movie star.

- [Narrator] In Bellevue, Keith and Terri Taute and their dogs, Izzy and Morty have a session with Cindy.

- I kind of feel like she might need an upgrade in food or something.

So she's the queen.

Would you consider her to be the queen of this house?

The queen bee.

- Absolutely.

- Oh my God, I'm getting goosebumps.

And I'm being shown that she really likes food.

I'm being shown cheese and hot dogs, and to me it looks like lunch meat.

Is that stuff she eats?

-Yes?

-Since I've been working from home, I make a lunch meat sandwich every day and she gets a piece of lunch meat and cheese.

There you go.

And we'll give Morty some too.

- Did he have a KONG?

Because he showed me, "I haven't had the KONG in a long time."

- He gets that on the weekends and we were gone last weekend.

-And he demands it.

-And he, yeah.

And he didn't, we didn't have it with us.

- [Cindy] So did he get it since you've come home?

-No.

-[Keith] No.

Okay, you might wanna work on that today.

He doesn't like soap operas.

I have no idea why he just told me that.

Do you watch soap operas?

- I did, I gave them up though, during COVID.

-Okay, there you go.

-Yes, yes.

- I'm like, why are you bringing that up?

"There was a hole in daddy", is what she's telling me, "and I was here," and I'm getting goosebumps.

"I was here to fill the hole."

So did you, somebody depart or did you have an animal depart or did, maybe a human or an animal depart?

-No, his princess.

His princess Bobo, yes.

- Oh, so she had passed, she had crossed the rainbow bridge.

- Yes, yes.

- Oh, okay.

Oh, no wonder she showed me the princess again and she's going like this and she's showing me queen.

I'm not princess, I'm queen.

- [Terry] Bobo was the princess.

-[Cindy] Wow, wow.

-Absolutely, wow.

When I was taking a breath to get hooked up to her, linked up to her, she showed me princess and she put a big X over it and then she wanted me to know she was not a princess, she was higher than that and that she was the queen.

- [Keith] She mentioned the princess, that was my little dog, Bobo.

Bobo kind of filled a void for me.

When she passed, it was really, really difficult.

She saved me.

(soft music) - [Narrator] Even for those who remain skeptical, Cindy hopes humans can be open to one important message from the animal world.

- Be kinder, kinder to the animals, kinder, kinder to your animal and kinder to your fellow human beings.

The world needs a lot more kindness.

(soft music) (upbeat music) (grain pouring) - [Narrator] Nebraska is a long way from the African Coffee Belt, but it's here in the heart of Corn Country where Laban and Cora Njugana are hoping to stem the loss of coffee growers in Laban's native homeland of Kenya.

(soft guitar music) (grain grinding) - For us the way coffee started was somebody when we were in Kenya just asking us, can you help us market our coffee?

And my response at that time was no, we're not in coffee, I don't know anything about coffee, I don't even drink coffee.

(grain pouring) - [Narrator] Raised in the capital city of Nairobi, a city with a population of 5 million people, Laban's parents were the first generation in his family to receive a formal education.

His father is a college graduate.

- My dad is more conservative, behind the desk kind of guy.

My mum is out there figuring how things work, and she's not as scared to try anything.

(grain pouring) When it comes to work ethic and being bold, that was my mother, and I have a little bit of that in me.

- [Narrator] Cora was raised on a family farm near Aurora.

Like Laban, she also grew up in a close-knit family.

- We would ride all over the farm.

We would find trouble to get into.

(Cora giggling) too out there.

Play with our dolls, build forts, stuff like that.

I learned a lot just hanging out with my mom, about how to be an adult, how to raise a family.

- [Narrator] Family would be at the heart of many future decisions made by Cora and Laban.

- We wanted to be closer to family, have that support system as we began our family and started raising kids.

And so that's how we ended up in this part of Nebraska.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] It's also how they ended up in the coffee business.

As a boy, Laban spent holidays on his grandmother's farm, helping with chores like harvesting coffee.

- My grandmother is still alive.

She is a hundred and five years old, cannot read and write.

In Kenya, coffee was always a very serious cash crop.

So my grandmother tells us that's how I fed my children.

So you tend to find that a lot of people are really emotionally attached to this product in Kenya, because that was their source of livelihood.

(dramatic music) - [Narrator] On return visit to Kenya, Laban's grandmother asked him for help.

It was a request Laban found he couldn't ignore.

- I get a little bit emotional when I talk about my grandma.

A lot of farmers in Kenya had uprooted, or have uprooted and continue to uproot their coffee.

They move to other things.

- [Narrator] Laban's grandmother was among those who quit growing coffee.

- Why is it when I look at the American market, Kenyan coffee is one of the most expensive coffees, but when I look at the farmer, they are some of the poorest people anywhere in the world.

So I started digging in, just trying to understand the coffee trade in the US.

The market side of things.

What are they looking for?

Why don't they carry Kenyan coffee on a consistent basis?

- We spent probably two years just building relationships, both in the US and Kenya.

But the more I went to Kenya and the more I learned, and the more I talked to producers and co-operatives and things in Kenya then, I think I started seeing what some of the challenges were and how we could overcome that.

- When I was done with all this, I figured out, you know what?

This problem can actually be resolved.

The only way the Kenyan coffee farmer is ever gonna get a just price for their product is accessing the market directly.

- [Narrator] Zabuni is the first American Specialty Coffee Auction House to directly connect the Kenyan coffee farmer with the American consumer.

It's success is dependent on the personal relationships the Njugana's are cultivating in Africa.

- I have to go to the rural areas in Kenya and talk to friends and family and relatives.

I have to sit in their homes and answer questions about who is this consumer?

Why do they like my coffee?

What do they look like?

Why is my coffee important to them?

We have to answer those questions.

So for us we just felt like that bridge is not there.

There's no one truly representing who the American consumer is to people in the origin, but there's also no one representing this producer in a very effective and honest way to the American consumer.

- [Narrator] The producers ship their coffee here to Nebraska, where it is sold through online auctions to small coffee roasters in the Midwest.

- It would not have been possible with people in this community, and even in Kenya, this would not have been possible.

- You wanna bring it up and get that really good with, hit the cup sometimes that releases some aroma.

- People just getting involved in ways that they didn't have to be, beyond their professional capacities, and wanting to see a business like this in a community like this, in a part of the country like this just succeed.

- The oils, the fruitiness, the characteristics of that coffee is now gonna come out and shine in this part.

(utensils cluttering) (people chattering) - [Narrator] But it all circles back to Laban and Cora's commitment to family, and a promise a grandson made to his grandmother.

- We haven't been able to bring my grandma's coffee here yet, but I did assure her that some day, for sure we'll make sure we get her coffee and the group of coffee farmers that she's with.

Get their coffee here and for us to be able to sell it.

When I say that this is personal, this is not just a product to deal with, it is personal, and you can't mess with grandma or her stuff.

We've got to do right by her, and by those other women in her village and where she comes from.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) ♪ MUSIC ♪ ROGER POLLMAN: I didn't play for fun.

I played to win.

I was a sore loser.

(laughs) LARRY BORNSCHLEGEL: Every small town it seemed like, as I was growing up, had their own team.

And they were competitive.

These guys played ball and they played it seriously.

LYNN CHELEWSKI: Almost in every little community you can imagine who now maybe don't have teams, but they did.

LARRY: The 30's, 40's, 50's and most of the 60's were big in Nebraska baseball.

ROGER: The whole area around here had neighborhoods, you know like we don't have anymore.

And if you had a neighborhood, even if it wasn't a town, they're likely to have a baseball team.

BOB STEINKAMP: Lone Elm, Kansas.

There was one building and it sold gas and beer.

And the ballpark, ball field was right south of that and it was called Lone Elm, Kansas.

Nobody lived there.

LYNN: They had a ballpark and they had a team.

And you go by there now, it's almost like I just picture ghostly images.

I've been by there and you see a building.

You see this elm, you don't see anything else.

You don't see a ballpark, but you knew, back in the day you could hear the crowd cheering.

(Crowd cheering) ROGER: I lived for baseball.

I really did.

That was my everything.

I had the-I think it was 52 or 53.

Fifty-three I think I had the scout from Chicago White Sox, Hugh Alexander come down and scouted me as we played Liberty one Sunday.

It was all Sunday games in them days cause nobody hardly had lights you know.

As soon the game was over, I hadn't even got off the field, there he was talking to me.

And he wanted me to go to Oklahoma and play in the minors down there.

And my brother was in the Army at that time in Korea and uh, dad wasn't feeling good and I wanted to go and dad said, if you go, we're gonna lose the farm.

BOB: It's amazing how many of them actually did sign professional contracts.

So many of em would then say, you know, I had a chance to go, but I couldn't because I was the support of the farm and I had to stay home and work.

Many, many situations like that.

ROGER: It wasn't easy.

I had that in my mind, I thought I'll run away from home when I go down there.

And I got to thinking well, if I make it, I'll be okay.

I can send some money home with dad and help things- keep things going, but I thought if I don't make it, I'd probably better never come home again.

LYNN: And that was their story for a lot of men that had kids or had family or a wife, you know, we just-we can't afford to play professional baseball.

But they had a long legacy semi-pro.

♪ MUSIC ♪ RON DOUGLAS: You had your church and then your chicken dinner and then baseball.

There wasn't any other distraction.

Baseball was pretty much it in the summertime.

LARRY: It was a social night for the whole community.

RON: They'd pack em in.

I mean farmers would come from all over just- not just the townspeople.

BOB: There'd be cars parked all the way around the ballpark and they'd draw three thousand people.

LARRY: It was a topic of conversation all the time.

They took pride in it.

Each town had their own team and they loved that team.

They supported that team.

RON: That was a-I really enjoyed that.

That was a great part of life and I feel sorry for the people that didn't get to participate in that.

There's nobody that shows up for the game and there's no rivalries.

They just played.

They're just playing baseball for the love of the game and they-that's okay, but they don't get that other-that other stuff that we got.

ROGER: To this day, it bothers me.

I wish I'd a went and not made it.

I'd feel a lot better than what I do now because I never will know.

That's the big thing.

I'll never know.

LARRY: The pictures on the wall, the memorabilia that we showed, we can identify with those old boys how important it truly is to keep it alive.

♪ MUSIC ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ It's hot, summer, yeah ♪ We've been waiting for this season ♪ To ease our pace ♪ Finally we've made it to this time of year ♪ Filled with love and sweat and cheer ♪ Could you meet me at a 11 am ♪ Let's get brunch and maybe we could get it in ♪ Dress ourselves in what feels nice ♪ Will make you right, ohhh ♪ I guess you could say our skin ♪ And then round and round, driving around ♪ Through the town, trying to get lit ♪ Say we stay lit, trying to get lit ♪ Say we stay lit, trying to get lit ♪ Said we stay lit ♪ Ticking to the beat in each other's hearts ♪ Each other's hearts ♪ You could say we win ♪ Win, sunshine (steady rock music) -[Announcer] Watch more "Nebraska Stories" on our website, Facebook, and YouTube.

"Nebraska Stories" is funded in part by the Margaret and Martha Thomas Foundation.

(steady rock music)