I’ve lived most of my life in the Central Valley, and I’ve made more trips to the San Francisco Bay Area than I can count. From Fresno, I’ve often driven west on Highway 152 through Los Banos to get there. So when I think about Los Banos, a town of about 35,000 people in southwestern Merced County, my knowledge is mostly limited to a brief drive down the 152 strip. I know which Chevron has the cleanest bathrooms and which local diner has the cheapest two-egg breakfast plate, but that’s about it.

This past summer, while working as an intern for KQED Public Radio, I got to see a little piece of Los Banos that I never knew existed. As part of The California Report magazine’s “hidden gems” themed show for the Fourth of July weekend, I visited the historic Wool Growers Restaurant, where they’ve served family style French Basque cuisine since the 1890s. The restaurant draws locals from all over the west side of the Valley, including tiny farm towns like Dos Palos, Firebaugh, Gustine, and Crow’s Landing. It also attracts many curious travelers and some celebrities. (Multiple people told us about how much NFL commentator and coaching great John Madden just loves the place.)

My colleague, Central Valley bureau chief Sasha Khokha, came up with the idea for the radio feature. She had always heard about the food at Wool Growers and wanted to try it, so when the hidden gems show came along it was a perfect fit. It was about five weeks into my ten-week internship, so we decided that I would take the lead on the sound gathering and interviewing, and Sasha would also record some sound as a backup. Also, since I was an intern, I couldn’t voice the piece on the air myself, so we decided that Sasha would be a character in the story that narrated the experience while we were eating and working. I was nervous throughout the reporting process, but the assignment turned out to be a natural choice for a novice like me.

From the moment Sasha and I walked in, we were surrounded by great sound and colorful characters. I interviewed our waitress, who was one of the owners; a traveler who was there for the first time; a traveler who comes back every time he comes through town; a local father and son who take an afternoon off from their farm work once a month to treat each other to a feast for lunch; and of course, Sasha. She interviewed a second waitress, who was related to the owners, and two groups of locals who also frequent the place. I had no shortage of great material to choose from when putting together my final script.

Here’s the link to the final radio story, voiced by Sasha. With the piece, I earned my very first credits for writing and producing a radio story. I also stuffed my face with a TON of Basque food.

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So many little pockets of history exist here in the central San Joaquin Valley. The longer I live here, the more I realize that our collective social history lives and breathes all around us if we tune into it.

This past summer, I helped work on a story about Hanford’s historic China Alley with KQED Public Radio’s Central Valley bureau chief Sasha Khokha, who was given one day to report and produce the feature for The California Report. The trip marked the second time that I went into the field with Sasha during my summer internship. It was still early in the internship — only the third week — so I was still a newbie when it came to sound gathering. Sasha took the lead on the main interviewing and sound work, but she asked me to make photographs throughout the trip and to conduct one interview while she was on a tour. The gallery here features my outtakes.

I interviewed Elaine Stiles of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which designated China Alley as one of the 11 most endangered historical sites in the country. I only had about five minutes with Ms. Stiles at the end of the dedication ceremony, so I had to make my time with her count. I basically asked her two questions: What was China Alley’s greater importance to the people of California? And: What was her own experience like touring the alley’s deteriorating treasures?

Her answer to the first question made it into Sasha’s story. Her answer to the second question didn’t make it past the cutting room floor, but it stuck in my memory. Stiles, who also is a Ph.D. candidate in history education at UC Berkeley, talked about how fortunate she felt to see for herself such an important part of California history, a now-abandoned ethnic neighborhood where Chinese immigrants once found refuge from inequality by making their own small cultural space. She reminded me that when people’s stories are involved, a building is much more than just a building. And once those physical spaces become endangered, so do the stories.

Here’s the link to the final radio story, written and voiced by Sasha Khokha. Here’s another link to a similar story and photo gallery about Hanford’s China Alley from our colleague Joe Moore at Valley Public Radio.

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My third radio story for The California Report aired on Friday, Dec. 16. I produced a “sound postcard” about 18-year-old Visalia musician Evan Hatfield, who has volunteered his time and energy the past two summers to teach free guitar lessons to kids at the Boys and Girls Club of Tulare County. The classes are organized by Visalia concert promoter Aaron Gomes and his excellent nonprofit Sound N Vision Foundation.

I reported the story this past July during my summer internship at KQED Public Radio, working out the Central Valley bureau office in Fresno. Producing a sound postcard is one of two major projects that interns are asked to complete. The sound postcard is different from a regular feature in that the reporter does not narrate the piece. Instead, the subjects themselves narrate, or the sound itself propels the narrative forward. I had a little bit of both in the final piece.

It’s quite difficult to make a good sound postcard, one that flows organically with the subjects from scene to scene– especially on your first try. I had to travel down to Visalia twice to visit Evan’s class and interview him, because I knew that I needed him to comment on certain ideas in his narration to make the story structure work. I also knew that I needed to get clearer examples of Evan interacting with his students. It was tough to capture the scenes for the story because a guitar class is pretty chaotic by nature, with people continually plunking and strumming. During the sound gathering, I constantly switched back and forth between the warmer room mic (the ElectroVoice RE-50B) and the shotgun mic (the AudioTechnica 8035b).

In the end, I was happy with how the mixing turned out. It was fun to hear Evan describe the class in his own words, hear him interact several times with his students, and also to hear a student and parent describe his classroom demeanor and work. Part of the glue that held the piece together was Evan playing one of his own original compositions at both the beginning and the end. I think the two-minute piece managed to capture multiple elements of what was going on in a very busy class, which was part of my goal.

Looking back on the summer, I was so lucky to work with bureau chief Sasha Khokha, an award-winning radio reporter and documentary filmmaker. Sasha exposed me to a ton of different tasks and assignments in my ten short weeks with her, setting me up in a very short period of time to become a freelance producer for The California Report. I’m grateful for her feedback on this story especially, as she painstakingly walked me through the writing, editing, and mixing process.

Here’s the link to the final radio story. Also, please consider donating to Sound N Vision, to help them keep their summer educational programs free and accessible.