A series of award-winning stories about our region's traditions, institutions, and people, past and present. Rock Island Lines is written and read by Roald Tweet, Professor Emeritus of English at Augustana College.
The stories in these three-minute modules are rooted in a specific place; a "kidney-shaped limestone island plunked down in the middle of the Mississippi River." It's the logical site for a storyteller. It is from the rich heritage of our region that Tweet spins his histories, biographies, and "stretchers."
Roald has spent much of his life travelling up and down the river, with forays overland, east and west, talking to the people, reading their journals, and enjoying the humor and history of America's heartland. His observations about life around Rock Island strike responsive chords across the region. It's a viewpoint that will enrich and enliven your day.
Listen below or subscribe on iTunes or RSS.
Sponsored by
Quad City Bank & Trust
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CommunityThis is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.Any day now you may be approached and asked to sign a petition to designate the whole Rock Island area as The Joy…
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CommunityThis is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.Even as the Key City slid off the ways into the river in 1857, some intuition must have told Captain Jones Worden that…
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CommunityThis is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.In an age that is losing touch with its roots, Rock Islanders are fortunate. Immigrants to this area have preserved at…
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CommunityThis is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.Walk down to the river's edge anywhere near Rock Island and you’ll see them. Lone men and women standing or sitting…
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CommunityThis is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.On April the first, in 1980, a federal judge ordered the liquidation of the great Rock Island Lines. Local citizens who…
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CommunityThis is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.No Rock Islander has ever searched for the Holy Grail, or climbed a beanstalk, or chased strange women with a glass…
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CommunityThis is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.Very few heroes apply for the job. Most, like the Rock Islander whose story this is, change the course of history not…
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CommunityThis is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.It’s customary, they say, for the captain to go down with his ship. But for loyalty, here's a Rock Island story that…
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CommunityThis is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.Frequent visitors to Rock Island have noticed a peculiarity along the Upper Mississippi Valley: the towns on the west…
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CommunityThis is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.If people took professors more seriously, this would be a better world.I'm thinking of a humanities professor at a…