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Americana in Focus: Jobs That Last; A Photo-Journal of Jobs That Stand The Test of Time
Aired October 17, 2009 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, again. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. And you're in the CNN NEWSROOM. Coming up this hour, a CNN special devoted to the jobs that stood the test of time. From horseshoes to cheesesteaks, Americans are making many items the same way they have always done. We'll bring you "Americana in Focus: Jobs That Last" in just a few minutes.
First, here is a look at the top stories. President Barack Obama weighed back into the health care debate this Saturday. He's coming out swinging against opponents of his reform agenda, and getting a strong response.
Kate Bolduan joins us now from Washington. Kate, has the president's message changed at all?
KATE BOLDUIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Today, Fredricka, the president has really come out strong, taking on the insurance industry. The president really pushing back on what he describes as efforts to kill reform with smoke and mirrors, and, as he says, filling the air waves with deceptive and dishonest ads.
President Obama, as you know, he wants health care reform passed before the end of the year. He continues to use his weekly radio and Internet address to try to push the ball forward, to keep the debate moving forward.
Today, he took the time to highlight some of the progress that has been made in Congress. All key committees have approved various versions of health care proposals. The Senate Finance Committee just this week. And that essentially now moves the debate -- moves reform on to its next phase, out of committee, towards a wider floor debate.
But at the same time, Republicans, they continue to push back as well, saying that this reform effort is simply moving in the wrong direction. Republican Congressman Kevin Brady of Texas speaking for the Republicans today, says all of the reform proposals that are taking shape in Congress right now, he says, will only add up to more government interference, as he described it. That will only serve to drive up costs that will be passed down to the patient. Fredricka?
WHITFIELD: What's next for the president on this matter?
BOLDUIN: This week, the White House will continue it's -- they are really behind the scenes negotiations, behind the scenes talks. Key Democratic lawmakers, as well as some -- the White House negotiators, one of them being the chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, really sitting down on closed door meetings to continue deliberations over the various health care proposals, as they try to really move towards merging all of them into, they hope, a single bill at some point.
WHITFIELD: All right, Kate Bolduan, thanks so much. Appreciate that.
Moving overseas now. The war against extremism is raging right now in Pakistan. Thousands of Pakistani troops are on a mission to drive the Taliban out of South Waziristan. The military says four soldiers and more than a dozen militants have been killed. As Reza Sayah reports, Pakistan says the days of making deals with the Taliban are over.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REZA SAYAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The much anticipated ground offensive targeting the Taliban in South Waziristan is finally underway. Senior military officials telling CNN the offensive was launched shortly after midnight on Friday, 28,000 troops moving in to the severe and rugged terrain of this district right along the Afghan border. They, according to officials, will be taking on up to 15,000 of the most hardened militants in this region. Among them, al Qaeda fighters and foreign fighters, many of them from Uzbekistan.
According to officials, there have already been several skirmishes. In some of the skirmishes, Taliban fighters actually taking the fight to Pakistani troops, attacking some of their check posts.
With thousands of troops moving in, that means thousands of refugees are moving out of the battle zone, according to the UN refugee agency. At least 80,000 individuals have already registered for relief aid.
Taking care of these refugees certainly a challenge for the government. The severe terrain in South Waziristan a challenge for Pakistani troops. Analysts say the Taliban fighters there know the severe terrain very well, and expect them to use that to terrain to their advantage.
This offensive comes after two weeks of militant attacks that have rocked Pakistan and killed more than 150 people. The Pakistani government insists that many of these attacks are planned and launch from South Waziristan. That's why they describe this as a defining moment for this country.
Also, Washington keeping a close eye. U.S. officials call South Waziristan an epicenter of Jihad activity. They say many of the attacks in Afghanistan, across the border, emanate from South Waziristan.
Reza Sayah, CNN, Islamabad.
(END VIDEO CLIP) WHITFIELD: So, you just heard Reza say that South Waziristan is the source of many attacks in Afghanistan, where U.S. troops are. Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr has more now on what's at stake for the US in Pakistan's war.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The nearly daily chaos is raising more questions about the ability of Pakistan's security forces to maintain control. The last two weeks of attacks are largely the work of an increasingly powerful Taliban organization. It's all impacting the White House discussion about how to proceed with the war.
BRUCE RIEDEL, BROOKINGS INSTITUTE: One should have no doubt about the relationship between al Qaeda and the Pakistan Taliban.
STARR: Experts say, as the White House struggles to decide whether the priority is fighting al Qaeda or the Taliban, it must first understand it's facing a web of inter-connected networks in Pakistan.
JOHN NAGL, CTR. FOR A NEW AMERICAN SECURITY: It's impossible, I think, to separate the Taliban in Afghanistan from the Taliban in Pakistan. They are both gaining strength. They present a real threat to the security of this entire region, this nuclear armed region. So it's enormously worrying.
STARR: Remember Mullah Omar, the one-eyed Taliban leader who fled the US invasion of Afghanistan for Pakistan? He's back, big time.
RIEDEL: Mullah Omar has presided over one of the most remarkable military recoveries in our time. An organization which was thoroughly defeated and discredited at the end of 2001 is now, in its mind, on the eve of victory.
STARR: Another Taliban faction known as the TTP also growing in strength. One senior US official says recent intelligence suggest the groups aims to launch attacks beyond Pakistan, perhaps even sending suicide bombers abroad.
The Taliban factions are benefiting from al Qaeda's inability to launch significant attacks. Financial backers are seen as surging Taliban and an al Qaeda on the run.
RIEDEL: Donors, particularly those rich donors in the Persian Gulf states, have been sending their money to those who have been successful in the business of terrorism.
STARR (on camera): Why is this so important? Well, of course, Pakistan is a nuclear power. And the surging Taliban appear to have the goal of destabilizing the government there, if not outright overthrowing it.
Barbara Starr, CNN, the Pentagon. (END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: More Americans are dying in Afghanistan, as the administration debates how to regain the upper hand. Afghans are stuck in political limbo, two months after the election, which has been tainted with fraud. CNN's Atia Abawi has the latest developments now from Kabul.
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ATIA ABAWI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A very bloody end of the week for us forces here in Afghanistan. Several service members losing their lives to IEDs, improvised explosive devices, throughout the country. This has been a very successful and common tactic used by the insurgency here in Afghanistan, particularly this summer, as we saw thousands of coalition forces flooding into the country, hoping to secure it for the elections.
Although it has been a deadly year for the coalition troops in Afghanistan, a top western diplomat tells CNN that it has also been a very bloody year for the insurgency.
In the meantime, the election drama continues. People still waiting to get the final result from the August 20th vote. We expected to get an answer by the end of last week and then this weekend. Still, no word on what will happen next in Afghanistan's presidential elections.
What we are waiting to hear right now is to see if the incumbent president, Hamid Karzai, will take the vote in the first round, or if this election will go on to a second round. We still don't know when we'll get those final results. We are waiting for the Afghan Electoral Institutions to come out with those results. We do expect it in the coming days, but still not clear on exactly when that will be.
Atia Abawi, CNN Kabul.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: Stay tuned as CNN brings a special presentation of "Americana in Focus: Jobs That Last." Our photo journalists show you jobs that really have stood the test of time.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to "Americana in Focus." I'm Tom Foreman, here in beautiful Alexandria, Virginia.
Normally when you see a story on CNN, a correspondent like me is the narrator. The pictures and sound just complete the tail. But our in focus series is different. Here, people tell their own stories. Those tails are captured by the excellent photo journalists at CNN, using nothing but a microphone and a camera.
This time, they have turned their eye upon people who are working, often in jobs their parents or grandparents had. Simply put, at jobs that last.
Maintaining such jobs takes more than just hard work. It can take love and appreciation of your customers, devotion to a craft that many people may think is dying.
Photo journalist Bethany Swain found just that at a drive-in theater outside Baltimore, Maryland, where the job that lasts takes focus.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
D. EDWARDS VOGEL, OWNER, BENGIES DRIVE IN: It's very important to keep these heads clean. Not much has changed in the operation of the drive-in-theater. Being raised in the movie business, third generation. It went from Uncle Hank to me. This to drop every night. I was taught starting when I was nine.
There's an art to projection. That's the heart of the machine. That's what makes it stop every four sprockets.
I was always fascinated with his business.
Bengies drive-in was built in 1956.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ready to open, check.
VOGEL: I tried to make it run the way it did.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, how many? It's going to be eight dollars.
VOGEL: I struggle to keep this venue alive so that it is here for future generations.
It's a very hard earned dollar.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm old enough that I remember when they were everywhere.
VOGEL: At one time, drive-in theaters carried Hollywood. There were more drive-in screens than inside screens.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's a big thing every weekend with your parents, piling up in the car.
VOGEL: If I am walking through, and somebody spots me as the owner, they will say, I just want to thank you for keeping it open. Sometimes, it comes right at a moment when I really need to hear it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whatever he's doing to keep it open this long must be working.
VOGEL: We want you to have a great time. I welcome each and every one of you to my house.
Bengies is blessed with the biggest movie theater screen left. We are 152 by 120 feet. One car or a hundred cars, I'm going to light that screen, and you are going to see the best show possible.
If I have my way, it will be here for a very long time.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOREMAN: When we come back --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The smallest detail, we take and make it perfect.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOREMAN: The sweet sound of generations working in harmony and building a business over time.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Richest person in the world can't buy one extra minute of time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOREMAN: Life among the time machines when "In Focus" continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FOREMAN: A man, a woman and a tuxedo salesman walk in to a bar -- if you want to hear the rest, you will probably have to go to your local barber shop. Barber shops have been around ever since men needed places to share stories and laughs and get their hair cut too. As photo journalist Joel De La Rosa found in Dallas, they are not going anywhere anytime soon.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're at Mustang Barbers in Dallas, Texas. A shave, a hair cut, shoe shine, a full service barber shop. I have been barbering for 35 years. The shop has been in the neighborhood 40 years or so.
The old-fashioned shave with a hot lather and a straight razor. The techniques for cutting it hasn't changed a whole lot. Because of that, there hasn't been a need for change.
Cuts are all the same. Once you learn the basics, you just go from there.
The whole experience is you come in, tell the barber, give me the usual, get a haircut, a shave. You tell a few dirty jokes. Usually, leave with a laugh.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've been doing this for 17 years. We have families where we do the grandfathers, and the fathers, and the sons, and the children, the whole family. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'll bring my son here when he gets a little older.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of us grew up going to barbers with our dads and grand dads. Everything else in the world changes so quickly. I think there's something about going to a place that's stayed relatively the same for 100 years.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think all my clients are friends as well as clients. People feel comfortable here. I could see myself doing this forever. I think it will be around for a long time, because my son will take over when I decide that my wife will let me quit.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Barbering will never go away. It's been around forever and always will be.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm glad to see that there are shops like this, and shops, I'm sure, in every city and every small town, that haven't given up on the old way of doing things.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Looks great.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: See you next week.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have a good day.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOREMAN: With so many people losing their jobs, and companies going under, and people pushed out of their homes, it seems like the whole country has a bad case of the blues. Here in Alexandria, Virginia, singing the blues is not a bad thing. It's a labor of love, as photo journalists John Bena found when he met a man on a musical mission.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CURTIS BLUES, DELTA BLUES: This is one of our oldest settlements here. If we had been here 200 years ago, behind us there would be many, many big, tall ships. The Delta Blues era really started around 1900. For the last 14 years, I have been here behind the factory in Old Town Alexandria, right on the boardwalk.
I'm Curtis Blues, and I'm a preservationist of Mississippi Delta Blues.
I'm preserving an acoustic style of music that was invented by African Americans in the south. The blues poets of this era were really expressing the human spirit. It wasn't only expressing their time and place.
They would actually just show up on the streets, on different corners, and they called it cutting heads back then. They would have to perform vigorously to attract a crowd, and don't forget the money to eat that night. The term in Europe is called bucking. For bucking, the idea is that you are turning a stranger into a paying customer in just a few moments.
Out here, I'm actually able to play it in the same way my heroes did, with no microphones, preserving it here in Old Town.
Part of my job out here is not only to perform my art, but to educate the public to support the art. This idea of live music, that when they bring their kids by and they come across a person performing outdoors, without a microphone, that this is something of value that we should treasure and we should support.
The future of the blues is very bright because the human spirit resonates and relates to the blues.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOREMAN: In a moment, weaving stories and baskets from the past, connecting with the future.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Julia is truly a national treasure.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOREMAN: And in the battle of South Philly, the steaks could not be higher.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's easy to get to the top. Staying up here that's hard. I just won't allow anybody or anything to beat me, as long as I'm breathing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(NEWS BREAK)
FOREMAN: Seventy three years ago, Julia Parker arrived at Yosemite National Park as a seven year old orphan from an Indian reservation. For the last 40 years, she's been telling visitors all about the history of that ancient land and the people who lived there long before the rock climbers and campers arrived. She's also been creating beauty from the beauty the surrounds her, as photo journalist John Torigoe shows us.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JULIA PARKER, BASKET WEAVER: My first sound that I heard when I came to Yosemite was water rushing. My name is Julia Florence Parker. This is our willow patch. I'm gathering for a basket. See if the willows are going to like us. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She started working in the Indian village about 60 years ago.
PARKER: My teacher said when you make that basket, you have to give it away. I thought, who would want this funny little, crooked basket. So I gave it away.
I always look in the rummage sales and I look inside walk sales. I might find that little basket.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Julia Parker is a park ranger on paper, but she doesn't wear the hat and the badge that I do. She wears traditional Native American clothing.
PARKER: That's the way it grows.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She's a living legend. She's known throughout the whole world. People will come to Yosemite to visit her here. She works in the museum in there.
PARKER: That's one of the baskets I did for the museum.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Julia is truly a national treasure. She's been honored by universities. She has baskets all over the country. She's consulted with museums.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ever since I was little, I followed my mom around. She worked in the village. After that, she came to the village and demonstrated to the tourists.
PARKER: I do have an Indian name that was given to me. I'm called Huwita (ph). Huwita means Person of Peace.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I used to come with her as a young child. And I began to learn from my mom.
PARKER: I learned from my elders. They told me that, you know, Julia, you take from the Earth with a please, like offering, and then you give back to the Earth with a thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOREMAN: More than 1,000 islands stretching over 150 miles into the Gulf of Mexico, the Florida Keys can seem like an endless string of small hotels and t-shirt shops and bars these days. It wasn't always that way. Several hundred years ago, it was a place purely of hot sun, blue waters and hard working fishermen.
That's when the Lessard family came and began farming the treasures of the sea. That's where Jerry Simonson found them still hard at work.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KARL LESSARD, LOBSTER FISHERMAN: The day starts off beautiful. I see the sunrise every morning. My name is Captain Karl. I have been a lobster fisherman down here for 38 years in the Florida Keys. My family has been fishing since the 1800s. There's a lot of fourth, fifth and six generation fishermen in the Keys.
Today, we will be fishing for spiny lobsters. We're going to pull 485 traps.
I have a very skilled crew. One mate grabs the rope and the buoy, puts it in the wench, pulls it up, pulls it over the clearing station. They have to be measure to see what's legal and what's not.
Got some nice lobster today. Some grand, big ones.
If you feel the calling, there's no better way to make a living. You are out here in this spectacular environment. You have dolphins coming up and playing by the boat.
A lot of hard work, but there's nothing better than a good day fishing. Lobsters go from eight dollars a pound to three dollars a pound. We are all basically in survival mode at the present time. It's still a wonderful way to make a living.
I'm not a good gambler. Hell, I'm a fisherman. I'm a professional gambler.
I definitely had a calling to the sea. It's a very spiritual place for me. I think I'll probably fish until I can cash in my hand, although I'd like it to be a long time from now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOREMAN: In a bit, stringing musicians along for ages, and being thanked for it all the way.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can't tell you the number of people I met who tell me that the Martin Guitar they own is the best one we ever made.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOREMAN: Stay tuned, "In Focus" will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FOREMAN: According to musical lore, Christian Frederick Martin's grandfather invented the guitar in Germany way back in the 17th century. No one really knows if it's true, but many musicians swear that the company founded by C.F. Martin in Pennsylvania more than 175 years ago, perfected the modern guitar. Photojournalist, Chris Turner takes us to the Martin Guitar Company to see how generations of devotion to quality paid off.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRISTIAN F MARTIN, IV, MARTIN'S GUITARS (voice-over): People spoke German, they cooked German food. The rolling hills reminded them of lower (INAUDIBLE) where they came from. Nazareth is known for two things, the Martin guitar and the famous racing Andretti's.
(on camera): We're known by many as the guitar by which all others are judged. It's an instrument that has become part of American music, part of world music and my family was involved in the development of the American flat top steel string guitar.
WILLARD "BUDDY" SILVIUS, A NECK FITTER: Very tedious, extremely so.
MARTIN: There are factories in Asia that make as many guitars in one month as we do in one year.
GEORGE MOLCHANEY, FINAL INSPECTOR: I think just the perseverance of the family alone, they with stand world wars and depressions and continue to make and invent new things about the guitar, it's been priceless.
SILVIUS: Some units require a little bit more work than others.
Well, the quality of the material and the quality of the workmanship. The smallest detail, we take and make it perfect.
MARTIN: What amazing me about what he did is he did it all without any power tools. It was all done by hand and the best we can do today is make a guitar that's just as good as the guitars he made.
It's a tool. And like any craft person, if they are dedicated and if they can afford it, they want the best tool to help them ply their trade. And we've been very fortunate that so many famous musicians have decided to take their hard earned money, walk into a music store and buy a Martin guitar.
MOLCHANEY: You basically never know if Eric Clapton or somebody might, six months from now, might be playing the guitar you just worked on.
SILVIUS: Once you take it off, you can't put it back on.
MARTIN: The guitar is to complement the singer. It's really not supposed to overshadow the person playing it. I can't tell you the number of people I've met who tell me the Martin guitar they own is the best one we ever made.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOREMAN: For many centuries and everything from fairy tales to classic novels, cobblers have been portrayed as the very essence of diligent craftsmen. And up in North Attleborough, Massachusetts, Ron Hassell is working at this trade at a place he took over from his grandfather about 30 years ago. That's where Bob Crowley found him.
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RON HASSELL: I'm a cobbler and for people who don't know what that is, it's a shoe repair technician, I tell them. I used to be the youngest that I knew of, because when I started when I was 20, it was all old guys doing it. Of course, I'm close to 50, now. I'm still probably one of the youngest around.
I worked with my grandfather. He did this, I want to say a 100 years, but not quite.
This is a shoe I don't want to tackle. I tried to talk the guy out of fixing it, believe it or not.
It will be brand-new when I'm done.
I had this machine take my shirt off one time, I got too close, (INAUDIBLE) took the shirt right off me.
Some guys, they get a favorite pair of shoes. You can tell this guy wore this one to death. They want to keep them at all costs.
It's a niche business. I think people who use cobblers, use cobblers, people who don't, don't. It's definitely picked up since last year. Maybe there's more and people now using cobblers that didn't before because of the economy.
There you go, better than I thought they was going to come out. The shoe runs about $125, maybe more a little more and for $12.50 you can have new heels put on. And you can't throw it away. So, it makes economic sense to me. Well, you know what's pretty cool when customers actually, they get pretty happy. They're the same heels that were on there. Same (INAUDIBLE).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're beautiful. As usual, you're beautiful.
HASSELL: You get that all the time and that makes you feel good.
We just did the corners for you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.
HASSELL: Would you like a bag?
You're doing something and you're appreciated.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Don't go out of business, now.
HASSELL: Bye, thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Take care. Have a good day.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FOREMAN (voice-over): Everything, including the kitchen sink is still ahead. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Still made right here, just like it used to be made. We haven't changed a thing.
FOREMAN: And when seconds count, this is the man you call first.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's great satisfaction in putting things back together that somebody else said couldn't be fixed.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: All right, 20 minutes before the hour of 4:00, Eastern hour. Here are some of the stories we are working on, then we'll get back to AMERICANA IN FOCUS with Tom foreman.
Right now, Pakistan launches a major ground and air offensive against militants. We're hearing more than a dozen insurgents and at least four Pakistani soldiers have been killed. Pakistani troops are trying to take out the Taliban in South Waziristan along the Afghan border.
And Hurricane Rick is now a Category 4 storm with winds at 145 miles-an-hour. The National Hurricane Center says it could become a monster Category 5 storm, but forecasters expect it to lose a lot of its punch as it creeps closer to the Baja California peninsula.
And this meeting is pretty fishy, wouldn't you say? The president of Maldives and his cabinet all in full scuba gear, held a climate change meeting sixteen feet under water, today. They signed a declaration calling for global cuts in carbon emissions. They're certainly getting a lot of people's attention that way.
All right now, CNN returns to our special presentation, AMERICANA IN FOCUS: JOBS THAT LAST.
FOREMAN: Some places just make you feel at home, feel like coming back. And when customers feel that way, jobs last. Photojournalist Jay McMichael found just such a place in a noisy, crowded, busy, two-story building in Baltimore, Maryland.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is probably one of the Duckpin oldest bowling alleys in America.
(INAUDIBLE) in 1927 and it's been continuously operating all these years. Well, there were some avid duck hunters and when they seen the pin fly around, after the ball hit, one of them commented it's like a flock of ducks flapping around and at that point, that's where the Duckpin name came along.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's a little easier, the balls are smaller. You don't have to be very good at bowling, you can just kind of throw it and whatever happens, happens. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And there are six lanes on the first floor and six lanes on the second floor. The jobs that we have are mechanic and of course, counter help. You have to have a place with amusement. Any kind of bowling center is amusement and exercise.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's the best way to unwind. A little friendly competition going, boosts morale and it's fun and we get together and we laugh, get to know each other as people and we like to come to a place that's really just very Baltimore-ish, you know? It's very (INAUDIBLE) and very old Baltimore. So, it's fun.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Many, many bowlers have called us at times and told us about good times that they had. As long as you can manage this center properly, it could be here for many, many years and continue to operate.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOREMAN: Don Sobel still fixes clocks the old fashioned way, with his hands in his northern Virginia clock shop. He's even been known to make a house call to fix an ailing grandfather clock. Photojournalist Jeremy Moorhead caught up with Sobel to talk about the clock industry and how he has stayed in business over time.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DONNY SOBEL, CLOCKMAKER: There's a clock shop of Vienna. It use to be a sleepy little town, now it's the one you tend to avoid at rush hour. What's your clock doing wrong?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When you win it, it usually, as I remember, goes about seven or eight days. It's supposed to. It's only going about four.
SOBEL: You gave this five half turns. Notice, it's still got room to turn, eight, nine.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, god, I never done that.
SOBEL: Now, it's fully wound.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Son of a gun.
SOBEL: We established this store in 1973. Essentially the family ran the business since its inception. It's hard to think of myself as unique, but I guess I'm one of the last people around that still makes parts for old clocks.
Somebody says are you still doing it the way it used to be done, we kind of -- we were the way it used to be done. We're horologists, we're clockmakers. Most of what we do is repair and replace or refinish parts that have been worn in an old clock.
You can't buy parts off the shelf for these. Anything you make or anything you need other than a piece of glass or a chain or a cable is going to be created from scratch. There's the old and new. They go back in here. There's less and less people doing this.
RYAN JOHNSON, CLOCKMAKER: This place is like a toy store for us.
SOBEL: Ryan's my competitor. His father-in-law owns a clock shop in Alexander.
JOHNSON: It's critical that you seek out knowledgeable people.
SOBEL: Ryan asked if he could come in to pick up point e- pointers. What Tony Saguto (ph), my mentor thought me.
It has to come apart before you can clean it.
JOHNSON: Ninety percent of the previous generation of clockmakers, the skill level, the high skill level ones, have not had the opportunity to have somebody come up behind them and stick with it.
SOBEL: It's a nice feeling to know they are running because you've done something to help them go.
Thank you for visiting the Clock Shop of Vienna, where all we have is time.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FOREMAN (voice-over): In just a moment, the family recipe for success, hard work, patience and getting it down cold.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I made the ice cream myself and at night I worked on the fountain. I put in a lot of time.
FOREMAN: When IN FOCUS returns.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FOREMAN: It is estimated that a modern college graduate may have five different professions in the course of his or her career. So, if you want a job you can stick with, you have to pick something that really hasn't changed in several hundred years. Down in Georgia, photojournalist, Eddie Cortes found just such a profession. Shoeing horses, or as it's more properly called, working as a farrier.
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DOUG WORKMAN, JOURNEYMAN FARRIER: Come on, buddy.
My name is Doug Workman, I'm a certified journeyman farrier. We apply horseshoes on feet, we trim them, aid in the balance and the movement of horses. A lot of hard work and sweat, especially in the summer. DAVE PERVUS, JOURNEYMAN FARRIER: Dave Pervus, and I'm also a certified journeyman farrier. Most people think you just get a shoe, nail it on the horse's foot, and go on about your business.
WORKMAN: Shoes is a necessary evil. We put them on to protect the feet from wearing or breaking.
This is our forge. I'm going to heat them up. This thing will get about 1,800 degrees, and it allows me to shape and bend the shoes very easily. I'll take and shape these up. Then I'll actually take the shoes over, fairly warm and actually burn them on the feet, sealing the foot up.
A little tight on the outside, here, so I just need to make a little adjustment to bring that lateral side out and I'll be good. It hasn't really changed. It's still a pretty basic process. The tools are the same, the sweat and everything is exactly the same.
PERVUS: Horseshoeing or farriery is quite a mix between a science and an art.
The work is extremely hard. A lot harder than most people realize. They can look down and say, oh, boy, I bet your back hurts and all this. Well, it does. I mean, it's tough. Shoeing horses is going to be shoeing horses no matter what we do, it's steel, nailing shoes on, it works, it's worked for thousands of years and I don't see it going anywhere.
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FOREMAN: Over the past 50 years, cars have gone from tailfins to hybrids, but in Florida on Route 1, just north of Miami, all that time they've been stopping at Monroe Udell's ice cream shop. His job depends on making it good, making it himself, and giving the customers whatever they want, including the kitchen sink. Photojournalist Mike Miller shows us how.
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MONROE UDELL, JAXSON'S: My name is Monroe Udell. I'm the owner of Jaxson's and I'm the original owner for 53 years. I originally started it in 1956. I made the ice cream myself, double dip ice cream cone was 15 cents. The location is a landmark, today. We've always served humongous portions. We came up with the Kitchen Sink because people called their ice cream in kitchen sinks which were actually in a punch bowl. We're not a cookie cutter, and we're renowned, you know, in the industry as one of the outstanding ice cream parlors and restaurants in the country, today.
It's still made right here, with all the good fruits and nuts and we haven't changed a thing. We still do it the old-fashioned way. We've had, you know, down time and good times with the economy.
CROWD (SINGING): Happy birthday to you
UDELL: It's about six weeks since I had my quadruple heart surgery. Going to try to be here as long as I can, I hope another 50 years.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my god.
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FOREMAN (voice-over): When we return, in the City of Brotherly Love, it's war over a lunchtime favorite.
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FOREMAN: Here is a debate that's been going on for decades, now. Who makes the best Philly cheese steak on Philadelphia's south side. Pat's Steaks and Geno's have been duking it out for the title of King Steak Maker since the 1960s. So, our Rod Griola takes us ringside for the dish.
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FRANK OLIVIERI JR, PAT'S STEAKS: Onions or no onions?
JOE VENTO, GENO'S: Me and the guy across the street, we are the originals.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'll take a (INAUDIBLE) wiz, wet.
VENTO: Everybody else, they're all imitators.
OLIVIERI: I don't know, how much are steaks today? Steak is $7.50 tax included. The cheese steak is $8.
VENTO: Thank you.
OLIVIERI: The meat comes in, it's cooked, it's sold. It's out the window. It takes approximately six seconds per sandwich to make. If it takes any longer than that I pull the person off the grill because they're too slow.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, have a provolone wet, now.
VENTO: Frying all day long, now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stay here for your sandwich.
VENTO: Otherwise you can never move a crowd.
OLIVIERI: There's a specific way to order which my competition across the street has adopted, now.
VENTO: There's no wit here.
OLIVIERI: If you want a cheese steak with onions you say cheese wit. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With provolone.
OLIVIERI: W-I-T, drop the "H." Or a cheese without.
VENTO: Yeah, there's no wit, we in general here don't talk that way.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Got a provolone, a little.
VENTO: It's a back and forth, which started like, who invented the cheese steak? He says he did, I said I did.
OLIVIERI: We had an employee in the '40s got tired of eating steak sandwiches everyday and put a little cheese on the sandwich and invented the cheese steak.
VENTO: I give him credit with the whiz, but in this neighborhood, (INAUDIBLE), I can honestly say I invented the cheese steak, here.
OLIVIERI: The ownership hasn't changed since 1930. I mean, I have managers who are here over 20 and 30 years.
VENTO: I'm as hungry today as I was 43 years ago when I started the business. It's easy to get to the top, staying up here that's hard, and I just won't allow anybody or anything to beat me. As long as I'm breathing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, $15.
VENTO: Well, that's what I have my son for, I'm gearing him to keep my legacy going. This is like the Wild West. You know, you got six shooter, I got two. I'm going to outgun you any day. And that's why nobody can beat me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They broke the mold when they made Joe.
VENTO: Take care, sir. Thank you.
OLIVIERI: He's the man. I love Joe.
VENTO: The man across the street, you know, he was the man. Nobody ever beat him. I got to thank him, really, because if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be where I'm at today.
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FOREMAN: We hope you've enjoyed this look at jobs that last through the eyes of the fine photojournalists at CNN. If you want more, go to CNN.com/Americana. I'm Tom foreman. Thanks for watching.
