"The Rough-Skinned Girl" is a Native American story told among some of the tribes in the Great Lakes region of the U.S. and Canada, particularly the Miq-Mak and Algonquin tribes. The title (Oochegeaska in Miq-Mak) also can be translated as "Burnt-Skinned Girl" or, as in a popular book, "The Rough-Face Girl". This is one of innumerable versions of the Cinderella motif found around the world; but in this case the similarity is more than coincidence. Natives apparently heard the popular French tale, as related by French trappers, and adapted it to their own culture.

We present the story with the aid of our guest star Mary, who's been a friend all her life (literally -- she attended Zephyr's first birthday party when we lived in San Francisco). She spent 10 days traveling with us under battle conditions, joining us in Reno as we were frantically trying to get our new show together, accompanying us on our 2000 mile dash to Arkansas, then aiding and abetting us during our show's first two performances in Hot Springs and Conway, AR. What a trooper.

But once the pressure was off, we managed to have some fun, absorbing the local color along historic Bath House Row in Hot Springs, where we also attended an open mic poetry reading at The Poets Loft, the longest running open mic poetry night in the world. Mary wasn't content merely to observe, but also got up and read one of her own poems, followed by her a cappella rendering of "Goodnight Irene" in Japanese. We also spent an evening at The Brauhaus listening to the music of our friends The Itinerant Locals. And in Little Rock we took Mary to the Clinton Library and Central High School, site of the landmark 1957 school integration conflict.

Now she's off to The Bay Area again, and we're off again on another summer tour. See you there!

Happy Listening!
Dennis (Father, Hunter), Kimberly (Sister, Hunter's Sister), Zephyr (Narrator, Sister) and Mary (Rough-Skinned Girl)

Comments and folktale requests 206-426-0436.

Aloha! That's a word that can mean “Hello”, “Goodbye”, or “I love you”. But in this case, it means yes,  we finally took our trip to Hawaii. We had a glorious week packed with activity on the island of Oahu, and we've devoted this podcast to telling you about some of the things we did, interlaced with some sounds we captured at the Polynesian Culture Center.

We spent a day at the Polynesian Culture Center, soaking in the sights, sounds and tastes (a luau was included in our package) of several Pacific Island cultures. We visited Pearl Harbor, where we stood on a platform that overlooks the USS Arizona, sunk in the water a few feet below the surface.We went snorkeling at Hanauma Bay coral reef, where we were face to face with exotic species of fish we'd never seen before – Zephyr even had a close encounter with a huge sea turtle. We also went swimming at Waikiki Beach and Kailua Beach, where Kimberly used to swim when she lived in Hawaii as a child. And in Kailua we met Wally Amos, the founder of the original Famous Amos cookie company, who now owns a cookie shop there, and also is active in promoting reading to children.

Now we're back at “home” (I.e., the Continental U.S.) and it's crunch time to get our new show ready for its premiere on June 11. We're now a two-person act onstage, since Zephyr recently retired, but you can still hear his voice on the podcasts.

Our apologies for the tardiness of this post. In addition to our trip, we've faced a mountain of technical difficulties lately.

Mahalo!

Barefoot Dennis, Flower-Haired Kimberly and Sunburned Zephyr

Comments and folktale requests 206-426-0436.