7-2-2017

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Learn more at edwardjones.com. Good morning. Jane Pauley is off today.

I'm Lee Cowan, and this is Sunday morning. It's the long 4th of July weekend, and we can only hope that bad weather doesn't spoil any of your holiday plans. But for one Oklahoma couple, bad weather means chasing the dream. Video camera in hand, looking at the sky in a whole different light.

Manuel Buhorquez will report our cover story. Already this year, more than a thousand tornadoes have been reported across the United States. And while most people run away from them, this thing is getting ready to cross the road. Stop, stop, stop. No, we're going closer.

We're not going closer. Val and Amy Castor run toward them. What's that like? It can get pretty intense. This is a violent, deadly, deadly tornado. Please take cover if you're in the path of this thing.

We go tornado hunting with the storm chasers ahead on Sunday morning. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, or so Shakespeare wrote. But even he might be speechless if he saw one particular rose bush blossoming in the American West. Tombstone, Arizona still thrives off its legacy as the town too tough to die. But as wild as this Wild West town can be, what's truly wild is what's growing in the back of an old boarding house. We look at it as the softer side of Tombstone. It's not the okay corral. It's not the okay corral.

It's not a gunfight. The historic Shady Lady of Tombstone, ahead. Jane Pauley found us a summer song for the 4th, performed by none other than the John Mellencamp.

Spend some time with John Mellencamp. Can you still breathe because I'm holding on pretty tight? And you take your life in your hands. I know I should have worn a helmet. Fasten your seat belts. Later, this summer, fasten your seat belts.

Later, this Sunday morning. Our National Park Explorer Connor Knighton is on the trail again this holiday weekend, this time in the Grand Canyon. Except what he found interesting wasn't only the scenery, but something best described as Parkitecture. The view of the Grand Canyon from Lookout Studio is so impressive, you hardly notice the studio itself. That's what pioneering architect Mary Coulter intended. Well, Mary Coulter didn't set out to influence architecture. She set out to make buildings that she felt were appropriate.

But in keeping her designs true to a sense of place, that's exactly what Coulter did. Later on Sunday morning, we take a look at Parkitecture. Tracy Smith speaks volumes with 102-year-old author Herman Wouk. Martha Teichner shares a pretty juicy story about watermelons.

Jonathan Vigliati puts a new spin on the phrase, co-climate tree in a postcard from Morocco and a lot more. Welcome to Play It, a new podcast network featuring radio and TV personalities talking business, sports, tech, entertainment, and more. Play it at play.it. For a lot of couples, chasing the dream this weekend might mean nothing more than cooking hot dogs at a backyard barbecue.

And then there's the couple Manuel Bajorquez tagged along with for our Sunday morning cover story, who relish a bit more adventure. You can hear it. It is on the ground right there. They're among the most destructive forces of nature. I cannot believe this.

This is absolutely crazy. Tornadoes that roam the Midwest this time of year in shapes both mesmerizing and terrifying. In Oklahoma, where tornado warnings can mean the difference between life and death.

We got a lowered base here. There is rotation. There are no bigger names in storm chasing than Val and Amy Castor, a husband and wife team who serve as a mobile early warning system for approaching storms. That's an errant rotation.

The Castors are part of a network of storm chasers who broadcast live for Oklahoma City's CBS station. Gary, this is Val. Break in, Gary. This thing is on 149th Street. It's right in front of us. It is tearing up everything it hits. The sky is absolutely full of debris, getting as close as possible to pinpoint a tornado's path. This is a violent, deadly, deadly tornado. Gary, please take cover if you're the path of this thing. Most people would run away from these things. Here you are driving into them. What's that like?

You want to start? Well, what is it like? Well, it can get pretty intense. Condensation all the way to the ground. Condensation all the way down.

Wow, look at that. Though most common in the Midwest, tornadoes can happen in all 50 states. So far this year, more than 1,000 tornadoes have been reported across the country. This past week alone, 35 tornadoes touched down in a broad swath through Iowa, Wisconsin and Missouri.

34 people have been killed in 2017, almost double the number of people who died all last year. And damage from major tornadoes, like the one that hit South Georgia in January, can run into the tens of millions. Oh, it's on the ground, Gary. It's 200 yards.

It's 100 yards away from me. Val Castor has been chasing tornadoes for 25 years. He was working as a studio camera operator at Oklahoma City's Channel 9 when he volunteered one stormy day in April 1991, quickly proving storm chasing should be his full-time job. We ended up getting video of three tornadoes that day, and it just so happened that none of the Channel 9 photographers were able to capture any video that day, and so they were very excited about that. Val became the station's first storm chaser and a household name. A few years later, a meteorology student named Amy asked to ride along for a college project. I really got hooked at that point.

I thought, this is so fascinating to actually be in the field and experience it firsthand. So as far as the official school project, that never happened. It never happened? No, it never happened.

I met him and we started storm chasing, and then about a year later we started dating and got engaged and then got married. See y'all later. Love you guys.

Come here. The casters now have six children and a devout faith they rely on before going on the hunt. Just put us where we need to be, Lord, and keep us safe, you know, in the process.

They took us storm chasing in their decked out three-quarter ton truck. Val drives and broadcasts. Amy helps navigate and runs the camera. There's a lot of work involved to try to get this all, you know, put together and make a shot look great for the news and just be mindful of what our purpose is, you know. It's a high stress environment.

It's a really high stress environment, especially when you have a tornado in the ground. This thing is getting ready to cross the road. Stop, stop, stop. No, we're going closer.

We're not going closer. What has been your closest call? We've been actually hit by a two or three small tornadoes.

Small, but was there ever a moment when you thought, oh man, this is it. I have a lot of those, but. One of those came in 2013 as a deadly Category 5 tornado roared through Moore, Oklahoma. We have so many power lines around here, Val. I want you to be careful.

Please be careful right here. Val, Val, back up. I'm backing up. I'm backing.

Val, I'm backing. There's power lines right there. Sometimes when I'm just so focused on, you know, getting close and getting up to it and, you know, I'm just blocking everything else out and so she says, well, I think we better stop and not get get up so close.

He's watching the road and so, you know, having an extra set of eyes really helps because I can turn around and look behind us or, and that's happened quite a few times, a tornado develops right behind us. Go, go, go, go. You see it? Yeah. Okay, I'm gonna turn around. Turn around, turn around, turn around. My goodness.

It's a good thing we watch the wind. Yes, it is. Oh wow.

All right, get the camera on right there. Whoa. In 2013, they decided to back away from this tornado in El Reno, Oklahoma. It's going to be huge. The whole circulation is about a mile and a half around just right above the tornado. Absolutely the biggest tornado I'd ever seen. I could see that it was growing and very unpredictable so we backed up.

Unpredictable and deadly, the tornado took an unexpected turn that killed three storm chasers. Do you ever have that moment where you think maybe it's not worth it? Maybe it's not worth it.

We have six children at home. Oh, I do, yes. But then I have to think again, you know, the greater purpose behind it is saving lives.

There's a lot of houses out here that are completely leveled. I'm wondering if anyone has ever come up to you and said, you saved my life. Yeah, we've had that happen quite a bit. It's quite humbling. It is humbling.

You're exactly right. It's not just tornadoes. This fire is moving very, very fast. Last year, the casters started out covering a wildfire. I'm okay, yeah, but there's a road grader that's getting stuck over here.

And ended up saving a man. Come on, guy, get out. Come on, get out. Come on. Get in. Hurry up. Hurry up.

Come on. The couple's need for a front row seat to nature's wrath may be rubbing off. Their eldest daughter, Grace, snapped this photo of a tornado near their home before running into the storm cellar last spring. What was it like to see it? It was really cool. It was my first one and I'd never seen one before.

It was really awesome. But for at least the next few tornado seasons, it'll just be mom and dad. Does it ever get old?

No. I mean, even we have chased five days in a row, okay. We've probably driven around 4,000 miles in the last week. That part, you know, is starting to get a little tiring, you know, but it doesn't get old.

We're still excited every time we go out. Ahead, Pillars of Patriotism. And now a page from our Sunday morning almanac, July 2nd, 1864, 153 years ago today. The day Congress approved the creation of a national statuary hall in the U.S. Capitol. Located in the original chamber of the House of Representatives, Statuary Hall welcomed two statues from each state, kind of a patriotic Noah's Ark, if you will. Today, it's one of the Capitol's most popular attractions, allowing tourists close-up looks and an eclectic mix of notables. Everyone from Green Mountain boy Ethan Allen of Vermont to the great compromiser Henry Clay of Kentucky, President James Garfield of Ohio killed by an assassin's bullet, and would-be president William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska, pioneers Brigham Young of Utah, Sam Houston of Texas, and missionary Father Unipero Serra of California. There are inventors, too, including Thomas Edison of Ohio and Robert Fulton of Pennsylvania, cradling a steamship in his hand that might just be a stand-in for the ship of state.

Although overcrowding has led to some of the 100 statues being moved to other parts of the Capitol, Statuary Hall remains what its founding legislation foresaw, a home for Americans illustrious for their historic renown. Next, absolutely stunning, a place where everything really is coming up roses. A rose by any other name is a line that belongs to William Shakespeare. The biggest rose bush, however, belongs to a couple in a place not necessarily known for its beauty. The Arizona desert is a place of contrasts. It can look a little mean, but it can also look pretty inviting, which makes it the perfect place for the Wild West town of Tombstone, because it too has two sides. Yes, it's the home of the infamous OK Corral and the shootout between the Clattons, the McClowerys, and the Earps. This ends the day, Wyatt.

I'm done talking. In this town, too tough to die? That gunfight never dies even.

It's reenacted several times a day now for tourists. But Tombstone isn't all shootouts and shot glasses, says longtime mayor Dusty Escapool. Tombstone has a reputation of being a rough, tough, rootin' tootin' shootin' down in town, but there wasn't a gunfight every day.

There wasn't a fight in the bars every day. It was really. There is a lot of good south side of Tombstone. Oh wow, absolutely stunning. Look up and you'll see this Silvertown's silver lining, Tombstone's oldest resident.

She's been welcoming visitors here with outstretched arms for 132 years. The whole forest of roses, it's incredible. Some place I could sit for a long time. It's a Lady Banksy at Rosebush to be exact, planted in the back of an old boarding house back in 1885 by a young bride who moved to Tombstone from Scotland with her husband. It's hard to describe because it's one of a kind. You don't see anything else like it. Like their love, a tiny cutting from her Scottish countryside somehow blossomed way out here. And by the early 1930s, Robert Ripley, of Ripley's Believe It or Not, declared it the largest rosebush in the world. I don't know what to say, it's beautiful. Almost nine decades later, the folks at Guinness World Records say it's still the largest.

At last measurement, its canopy of white blossoms covers more than 8,000 square feet. Dorothy coined the term the shady lady. It blossoms only in the spring. The shady lady has been in the family of Burton and Dorothy Devere for six generations.

Burton's grandfather bought the boarding house at the turn of the last century. The plant laid on the ground for a number of years. My grandfather said he got tired of tripping on it, so he said to my grandmother one time, he said I'm either going to kill it and dig it up and get rid of it, or I'm going to put it up in the air.

And she said, oh don't kill it. It's too hard to grow anything in this country anyhow. And that's how the trellis got built, providing Tombstone some much needed shade.

Still, welcome real estate today. It falls to groundskeeper Jeremy Dolphin, whose grandfather once worked deep in Tombstone's mines to keep the rosebush healthy. I don't want to be responsible for killing the tree, but I guess you can't do it after as long as it's lived. Maybe you can't do too much damage?

No. Which brings up the obvious question. Just how did it live so long?

Tell them how. The sewer? Well, the sewer. Turns out before Tombstone had plumbing, a lot of the town's sewage seeped into the rabbit warren of mine shafts dug beneath the town.

Some within reach of the shady lady's roots. We never fertilized it. Anybody in the family never fertilized it until two years ago. Because it just found its own fertilization. That's exactly fertilization. In an old mine shaft.

In an old mine shaft, that's right. Yuck factor aside, when it blooms for about six weeks, once a year, it is cause for celebration. The Tombstone Rose Festival has everything you might expect Tombstone to have, including can-can girls. But leading the parade is Rose Tree Royal. Folks, please welcome the 2017 Rose Festival queen and princesses.

Miranda Jackson Hart was crowned under the rose bush the night before, just like her sister was two years earlier. Everything needs to have a prettier side. Tombstone doesn't always have to be known just for its gunfights or the town too tough to die. We have a lot more to us than just that.

And for some, that discovery, especially in a place where it seems so unlikely. Just lost for words. Can really hit a nerve. My grandma did roses. So reminds me a lot of her back home. She's from New Mexico.

She would have loved to have seen this. The Deveers sell clippings, so the rose bush can live far beyond her desert home. Serving to make her as immortal as the OK Corral itself. Does she have a lifespan? My father used to say, everything dies. But until it happens, don't worry about it. Yeah, I hope this one's going to last a long time. If history is any guide, it seems like it will.

Yep, I think so. After all, Tombstone's shady lady even outlasted Wyatt Earp, which around here is really saying something. Keep my feet on the peg and hold on to me and hold on to you. Coming up, Jane Polly rolls with rocker John Mellencamp. But first came mutiny author Herman Woke.

I never thought of it as my big, big book. 102 and still writing. Welcome to Play It, a new podcast network featuring radio and TV personalities talking business, sports, tech, entertainment and more.

Play It at Play.It. I have new orders. I'm going to command a battleship to California. Command a battleship? Not bad, huh? Oh, my God, that's smashing.

How happy your wife will be. It's Sunday morning on CBS, and here again is Lee Cowan. That's Robert Mitchum and Victoria Tennant in the hit 1983 TV miniseries The Winds of War, based on the novel by Herman Woke. The enduring appeal of Woke's many novels speaks volumes, and though he's well past the century mark, he's still writing and also talking with our Tracy Smith. Captain, we've steamed over our own towing. Who said we steamed over the towing?

Who said that? In his Oscar-nominated role in The Cane Mutiny, Humphrey Bogart made us believe he was crazy. Who gave those orders? His Captain Queeg is the skipper of a World War II minesweeper and a study in paranoia.

I know exactly what he'll tell you, lies. He was no different from any other officer in the wardroom. They were all disloyal. I tried to run the ship properly with a book, but they fought me at every turn. Of course, it's only a movie, but you may not know that it's drawn from real life. The man who wrote The Cane Mutiny, Herman Woke, was once a naval officer himself, and he served aboard a minesweeper, not the Cane, but the Zane.

Now, at a rather reclusive 102 years old, he agreed to discuss it. I think people who read The Cane Mutiny today might be surprised that it's actually based on truth. Well, I showed you the picture of the Zane.

That is the Cane. That is the ship that I spent two years on. And was there a Captain Queeg? Yes, there was a Captain Queeg, and more than one actually, but he was unique in his way. He wasn't Humphrey Bogart, but he was a work of imagination drawn out of a real experience.

Talk about real experience. Herman Woke is a giant of American literature. The Cane Mutiny was only his first big success. Herman Woke grew up in the Bronx, and after graduating Columbia University, found work writing for comedian Fred Allen's radio show. The Fred Allen Show brought to you by Ipana Toothpaste. So you were a gag writer? That's what I was. Did you at some point say, okay, I need to stop writing comedy, and I need to do something more serious? Not in quite that way, but I was very tired of the joke writing. I felt there was more to do, but I really didn't know what to do beside that. He wound up joining the Navy at the start of World War II. For Woke, it was a game changer. I found my feet as a writer in the Navy. I was no longer trying to be funny or anything.

I just reported the facts. That's what the Navy gave me. Cheers to the Navy.

But if Woke's two years at sea helped make his writing career, it was a night ashore that transformed his life. How did you meet her? Sarah's birthday party. That's how we met. You crashed her birthday party.

That's right. Herman and Sarah were married in 1945, and in time, she became his literary agent. What role did Sarah play in your writing?

It's just impossible to exaggerate. There she sits looking at me. She says, don't mention me. She says, you know, it's not important. But she was important. She was the key. In 1951, with her encouragement, he published The Cane Mutiny.

Let the folks at home and our friends here in the theater know exactly what your line is. It won him a Pulitzer Prize and helped make him a celebrity. Herman Woke. Herman Woke is right.

But for all of its success, Woke says The Cane Mutiny was only a start. Was there a moment when you knew, wow, this is big? No, without sounding conceited, I never thought of it as my big, big book. I knew that there was much more to do.

I really did. In Woke's mind, the World War II books and movies up to that time were missing something. So he started what he called the main task. What was the main task? Main task was to, so far as I could, fix down in literature what happened in World War II and the Holocaust. That was my main task. The result was a pair of novels for the ages. The first, published in 1971, was set on the eve of World War II. Did it meet your expectations?

Yes. It could have been better, deeper, but it told a story. The book was a big bestseller and, you may recall, it became a very big TV mini-series. Be careful, baby. Come back to me.

Roger. Seven years later, he finished the story with War and Remembrance. The made-for-TV movie that followed broke new ground for primetime TV. The death camp scenes were actually filmed at Auschwitz with no horrific details spared. I never was interested in writing a history. I wanted to write a book about the war. But at the same time, you're teaching people history. Doggone right I am. That's the main task. How does a boy from New York City end up spending 30 years in Palm Springs?

I love it here. The Wokes moved to the California desert in 1990. He says it was his wife's idea. Sarah passed away in 2011, but she's still an important presence in his life. She believed in you? Yes.

More than that. She believed in me more than I did myself at the time. But you didn't want to get married at first?

She had to kind of convince you? Really? I'll say no more about Sarah. No more? No more. His latest book, he says, will be his last.

Sailor and Fiddler. A glance back at a remarkable life. Herman Woke is a genius at telling stories. He just doesn't seem to care much for sharing his own. I have a feeling you're not going to answer, but I'll ask you anyway. Have you stopped writing?

Have I stopped writing? Well, I always keep my diary. And beyond that?

Beyond that, go find yourself another interview. Oh, that's beautiful. Something sweet. That's a nice one. Next, watermelons are a pretty juicy 4th of July treat. But if you thought all of them were the same, you'd be wrong. Few, if any, can beat the variety our Martha Teichner has been sampling.

Don't tell Nat Bradford. Well, that's beautiful. That a watermelon. That's a nice one. It's just a watermelon. Not only is the Bradford watermelon. Cheers.

Cheers. About the sweetest. Really, really sweet. Juiciest watermelon you've probably never heard of. The drippy. Let alone eaten. And very juicy.

Oh, that looks good. Its backstory is pretty juicy, too. In the sandy soil of Sumter County, South Carolina, where generations of Bradfords have been harvesting these 30 to 40 pound babies for something like 170 years. So I came across this book from 1865, and I'm reading that there's these ancestral melons that are the most sought after melons.

And I go down this list, and Bradford's one of them. Until then, Nat had no idea that the Bradford watermelon was so sought after that it was famous once. Its seeds in high demand, and that organized gangs set out to steal them. You had people with guns standing out by watermelon patches. According to the TV series The Mind of a Chef, farmers poisoned certain melons. And it was not at all unusual to read newspaper stories of entire families being poisoned by watermelon that they themselves poisoned. And there's another hazard.

You always want to roll them back and take a look. Black widow spiders love hiding under nice warm melons in the field. Dangerous spiders aside, the reason you can't buy a Bradford watermelon at your local supermarket is that unlike its commercial cousins, it's got a thin skin, which means it doesn't travel well. Careful. So it was forgotten. There you go.

And was thought to be extinct. I grew them as a kid. I might sell 100 watermelons a year and, you know, make $500 off of it. Rediscovering their history convinced Nat in 2012 to give up his landscape architecture practice, move back to the family home and grow watermelons for a living. I have this tremendous family gift.

Can you handle it? And what am I going to do with it? His first decision? To let nature help him grow his watermelons without using pesticides or irrigation. We'll save about the top five percent of the crop for seed melons. The most perfect ones that were sturdy enough genetically to thrive whatever the summer's weather conditions. How many seeds in a melon?

These are about 400 to 450. Per melon. Per melon. For Nat Bradford, growing watermelons is about literally growing water, a life-growing miracle, which is why he helped to found a charity in parched East Africa called Watermelons for Water. The watermelons can take contaminated water that we can't drink and it'll biofilter it naturally through the root system, through the plant and store it in these beautiful green four and a half gallons of juice in a 40-pound fruit.

That's tremendous. Last summer, with the help of his five kids, Nat harvested about 2,500 heirloom Bradford melons, some he saved for seeds, some he sold for eating at $20 each. The rest, he turned into pickles from his grandmother's recipe. Watermelon brandy and watermelon molasses. It tastes a little like Guinness.

It does. Nat's wife Betty has begun making, believe it or not, watermelon beer. Is there anything in this family that isn't made out of watermelon? There have been Bradfords in this part of South Carolina that have been made out of Bradfords in this part of South Carolina since before the Revolutionary War. This is the house that I grew up in and the land that's around us is something that I'm attached to.

When I grew up, we knew everybody around us and there was that sense of community. I want to make sure that that gets passed down as well as the watermelon. In Nat Bradford's mind, the one breeds the other.

Ahead? Yes, those are goats in those trees. There are some animals you expect to see up in a tree. Birds, squirrels, cats perhaps, but goats?

Jonathan Vigliati has sent us this postcard from Morocco. There's tranquility in Eswira's countryside and enchantment in the Argan Forest. These sun-kissed trees were once at risk of being wiped out for lumber. Today, they are a lifeline thanks to their hooved inhabitants. The goats of Morocco have an extraordinary skill. With the finesse of a tightrope walker, they scale up the precarious branches.

It's terrifying that they can get that high without a fear of falling. It's a Darwinian talent goats developed to reach what was dangling on the other end of the stick, argan fruit. The nut contains the valuable argan oil known for its anti-aging properties. It's popping up in everything from shampoo and body lotion to food products.

But nowhere on the labels will you find the full story behind how this oil was born. So goats in trees, it's like a Moroccan mirage. Yeah, the first time I came to Morocco and I saw these goats climbing the trees, I thought I was hallucinating. Along these roads, it is normal to see hundreds of goats in trees.

And as Ahmed and Gabrielle Girouda show me, this is where their New York-based argan oil brand Moroccan Elixir takes root. They're basically eating the fruit and digesting it and then they either spit it up or poop it out. But poop it out.

You heard that right. Centuries ago, locals discovered the goats' digestive tract made it easier to crack the argan fruit's nut so they could reach the oil trapped inside. The only catch, the nuts need to be collected by hand. Oh, here's one. That's one.

Yeah, that's one. That's a little goat poop. And then, you know, we're just getting right into it. And we did, collecting dozens of nuts and collecting dozens of nuts that went in one end and came out the other. So this is how it starts. That's how it starts in the tree. And it comes out as this.

And it comes out like that. So guys, welcome to Marjana Co-op. The Marjana Co-operative is one in a number of argan oil production sites run by Berber women.

You won't find fancy machines here or any machine for that matter. So that's actually the production room. Every ounce of oil is pressed by hand. It's an ancient technique. The nut is cracked, the seeds extracted. They are then ground into a thick paste using the traditional stone wheel.

Water is added and tediously mixed and finally filtered into this golden liquid. Just how much time goes into it? I mean, it takes like actually around 40 hours of labor work.

40 hours. After the goats have done their work. One argan tree can only produce one liter of oil a year. It's one of the reasons the precious oil earned the name liquid gold. Today, because of demand fueled by celebrity users like Angelina Jolie and Giselle Bündchen, one liter of pure argan oil sells for up to $300. It's some of the most expensive oil in the world. Practically overnight, Berber women went from poor housewives to business women with a steady income.

Each co-op worker gets a percentage of the profits. That makes Ahmed a hometown hero for the demand he brings into Marjana and oil producers like Khadijah Taboka, who he first met when he was a teenager. Khadijah, who's 86 years old now, has been making argan oil since she was a child. She said like before I was like the life was very hard like was like almost no income. But thanks to argan oil, she bought a house and traveled.

She's even paid for a brand new set of teeth. And there is plenty of wealth being spread around as Sowira. All across town you'll see signs advertising argan oil businesses. But that means the goats are now struggling to keep up with the demand. After all, they can only process so much fruit. As a result, most local companies have started phasing out the goats and even replaced some Berber women's traditional roles with machines, which can produce 40 liters per day compared to two liters when done by hand. Some people start businesses to make money.

It sounds like you started this business as a passion to give back. I appreciate the culture actually and I appreciate what those women's doing. That bottle has like a lot of work of women.

It has like good quality oil. It has a story behind it. A story that begins in these Moroccan treetops and ends in shops like Ahmed and Gabriel's in New York City.

They could be the last few drops of an ancient Moroccan tradition, unable to keep up with modern demands. Next, a summer song from John Mellencamp and later, architecture at the Grand Canyon. It's Sunday Morning on CBS and here again is Lee Cowan. Hurt So Good was a hit summer song back in 1982 for John Mellencamp, then John Cougar. Decades later, he's still a singer with stories to tell and a lot of drive besides, as Jane Pauley found out firsthand. John Mellencamp was born in a small town, Seymour, Indiana.

And he still lives outside a small town. Keep your feet on the pegs. Where last month it crossed my mind, I could die in one. I am not letting go.

I know, I should have worn a helmet. John Mellencamp has come a long way. Seymour's about 50 miles from here.

His 86 acre estate borders Lake Monroe near Bloomington. What is it about you in Indiana? I have to come here. I just feel at home.

I mean I could be away for a long time and come back here and kind of decompress and then boom. It's ironic. He extols the bucolic life but lives a fast one. Tell them how fast you just went. Okay, I think 85 is what you claim.

85. Oh Lordy. But I didn't come home to Indiana to ride. I came to talk. Where would you rather be than sitting here being interviewed?

Well, cards on the table. I don't really like being interviewed. I have talked about myself for 40 years and I'm just not that interesting.

Not interesting? Married in high school and a father at 19, Mellencamp wasted no time. At 21, he went to New York to study art or to sign a record deal. It turned out that the New York Art Student League wanted money but the record company wanted to give me money.

Let me see. I ended up getting a record deal like that. I interviewed the head of a record company and he said within minutes everybody knows that somebody who has walked in the door has something. But the most humility I say that's what happened to me. They didn't even listen to the demo tape. Little ditty about Jack and Diane about Jack and Diane.

But we're still listening to Mellencamp classics like Jack and Diane. I don't really know how a 25 year old guy would know that life would go on long after the thrill of living is gone. But I wrote those words and for me it was very helpful because I don't know about you but I want to do something every day. I want to learn something every day. I want to make something every day. If I go for a day and don't make anything I feel guilty about it. I love every part of that statement.

What do you think is driving you? I wrote in the song life is short even in its longest days. He's been smoking by the way most of his life since he was 10. Life is short even in its longest days. He's also a serious and prolific painter.

His portraits have been shown at museums. But the music often interrupts the brushwork. There's a song on the new record called Easy Targets. And I wrote that song in I don't know five minutes. I couldn't even keep up with it. So songwriting has become like a real surprise to me and really exciting at my age. It's more exciting now than it ever was.

His latest and 23rd album is called Sad Clowns and Hillbillies. The critics have taken notice. Do you read them? Nope. I'm finding this out from you.

You've been really really good. I don't care. It doesn't matter to me.

If you if you care about the good ones then you got to care about the bad ones. His music has changed over the years and so has his name. From the 1970s through the 80s he was John Cougar. His first manager thought it would sell more records. For a while he went by John Cougar Mellencamp, but by the early 90s the Cougar was gone. At times overtly political, Mellencamp's songs about freedom, struggling farmers, the working man, led fans to make assumptions. But quite honestly that's one of my biggest disappointments. You would think with all the goddamn people in the world that somebody would have taken the time to sat down and listen to my lyrics to my song one time. Pink Houses for instance is not a red white and blue anthem. Your fans are probably way way way on the spectrum to the right of you. Oh I've been booed. When the Iraq war started I was so against that.

51 billion dollars more to continue his war in Iraq. If John Mellencamp sounds like one self-assured son of a gun, she is the reason why. Here's the trick if you want a kid that has confidence, my grandmother told me every day of my life, buddy don't forget you're the handsomest, luckiest, talented boy in the world. The flip side of that is it's really hard for girlfriends to compete with. It's an acknowledged fact that relationships have been a struggle. What's the greatest lesson you've learned from the women in your life? Too many to name.

Apparently women just don't like me very much. That's all I can say about that. He's been linked in recent years to perennial cover girl Christie Brinkley and actress Meg Ryan and before them three wives.

He has five children and nine grandkids. You're looking for another cigarette I know. Yeah. Can we talk about that?

What cigarettes? You have a voice to protect, don't you? Are you kidding me? Have you ever heard my voice lady?

It's fantastic. Are you kidding me? I sound like a black guy singing now. I mean that's what I wanted. I wanted to sound like, you know, Louis Armstrong, but I didn't. I sounded like a white guy and now I got it.

These are my babies. Come on. He says he doesn't worry so much about cigarettes and his health. He's got a strange theory.

Rightfully or wrongfully, I believe that it's the combination of cigarettes and alcohol that get people, the two of them combined. And he hasn't had a drink, he says, since college. It's probably a wacky idea, but it comforts me. Now that I've said that two weeks from now, you're going to read Mellencamp dies of heart attack. He's already had a heart attack at 42 and he does think about mortality. I'm 65 years old. I can see the finish line from here.

I only have so many summers left and I intend not to waste them being old. Ahead. You can't drive down a highway in America without passing a storage unit complex.

In storage units, we trust. We take a moment now for an important patriotic message from our contributor, Jim Gaffigan. As we approach this 4th of July, our country feels more divided than ever. I could talk about what divides us and how I'm right about everything, but I'd rather focus on what we all share in common as Americans. You see, I'm lucky enough to travel around this great land doing stand up for audiences that have really good taste.

And I've noticed a few things. It seems wherever I go in America, people seem to have three things in common. We love our country, we love our family, and we all have a storage unit. Supposedly we live in a throwaway culture.

We replace our phones every year, throw out clothes that still fit us. Some people even have starter marriages, but we still have storage units. You can't drive down a highway in America without passing a storage unit complex. It appears everyone has a storage unit now. Even those people with attics and basements seem to have storage units. I don't know why there are so many storage units.

We all can't be in between moves. Maybe it's quantity over quality. Maybe we are all expecting a call from the Smithsonian. Hey, do you have an ugly lamp that is also a football helmet?

Good, because we're doing an exhibit on losers. If you could get that to DC, ask a smart person where it is. I don't understand the logic of a storage unit. Hey, you know that ugly stuff we never use? Why don't we pay a stranger to hold onto it? That way we can cringe every month when we realize this stuff isn't worth the monthly charge we're paying. I think people should stop wasting money on storage units and buy a ticket to my show.

God bless America. Coming up, these buildings were built to lure tourists to the Grand Canyon. The other Grand Canyon attractions and the woman behind them. Connor Deighton is on the trail through our national parks once again, but sometimes the natural beauty isn't all there is to appreciate. Sometimes the Parkitecture, as it's called, is just as moving, even in the Grand Canyon. If someone were to come to the Grand Canyon and just look out and maybe not turn around and look back, do you feel like they'd be missing out on some of the park experience? I do.

I would feel sad for them. Most of the five and a half million visitors who pass through Grand Canyon National Park each year come for the views. And when they inevitably need a break from the majestic scenery, they head inside to shop for souvenirs, admire Native American art, and check into the lodge.

You look great. For Ranger Kristin Lukamire, the buildings of the Grand Canyon are just as grand as the vistas. A stunning example of Parkitecture. The opportunity to be in Grand Canyon Village among the best collection of Mary Colter buildings in the world was a real draw for me and something that I was really excited about. Mary Colter was the visionary architect behind the Canyon's most recognizable buildings. Born in 1869, Colter was the child of Irish immigrants and left home at 16 to study interior design in California.

She went on to work for the Fred Harvey Company, whose Harvey House hotels and restaurants were springing up throughout the Southwest. Colter learned on the job and eventually secured her first assignment as an architect to design the Hopi House. So when was this built?

This building was built in 1905. Because you could have told me it was 600 years before that. It's really tightly connected to those precedents. I mean she was using older models for sure on Hopi Reservation. Colter's Hopi House was heavily influenced by her time spent roaming the Southwest, drawing on ancient Native American structures for inspiration.

It's at once completely fake and surprisingly authentic. The Hopi House was designed so that Native artisans could live and work on site. All told, it was pretty ambitious for a gift shop. These buildings were built to lure tourists to the Grand Canyon. That's what they were for. They were marketing tools. Mary Colter just happened to be a genius and create them and they were interesting from day one.

Bruce Brosman is the director of sales and marketing for Zantara, the company that runs Hopi House today. I view her buildings more as art, visual art on the Grand Canyon than just buildings or as gift shops. Colter's buildings, like Lookout Studio and Hermit's Rest, are still used to sell souvenirs. But when Colter designed them, she was also selling a story. She developed a backstory that a hermit actually lived there and that when people visited that they had just missed the hermit.

Like he could have just left to go mining or you know whatever he might be doing. She pre-sooted the ceiling there to make it look like there had been a fire for years and years and years and years. Inside the Bright Angel Lodge, Colter created a massive fireplace out of layers of rock found in each layer of the canyon to tell the story of geologic time. She had everything from river rocks to the Vishnu shifts and very hard granite at the bottom of the Grand Canyon to each of the sedimentary layers as you can see here.

The sedimentary layers as you go up to the Kaibab limestone on the top. In Colter's days you weren't likely to catch her chatting by the fire. A chain smoker fond of Stetson hats, Colter was notoriously prickly. She left for a couple of weeks and her one of her foremen wanted to impress her by building another layer or two and so she came back and he said look Mary look what I've done and her response was take it all down. So she had to be tough I think in those days to really compete in a man's world. Colter was just one of a handful of female architects working in the United States and since she was working for the Fred Harvey company her designs were never really hers.

She was just an employee she put all her effort into her work rather than becoming famous. Today Colter has finally gained some recognition. Her desert watchtower rising out of the south rim of the canyon is seen as a masterpiece. Mary Colter wanted to design a building that would both blend in with its setting physically and culturally and also provide a good observation point for visitors to the Grand Canyon. Colter's designs contributed to an architectural movement, National Park Rustic, a style on display at parks across the country.

Colter wasn't trying to compete with nature. With her it was always the setting never the structure that was meant to be the star. How did you propose? I asked her if she had any money. We say farewell to a favorite couple. Next. It happened this past April the final chapter in a love story we first shared with you two years ago. It's the story of a couple I was privileged to meet and won't soon forget. We're going on our way. We met Dale and Alice Rocky in their skilled care facility outside Kansas City back in 2015 just after each had celebrated their 99th birthday. I gotta hang on. That in and of itself was a remarkable milestone but the reason we visited wasn't because of how long they'd been on this planet.

Better get your legs old. But because of how long they'd been on this planet as a couple. Do you remember what your first date was? What you guys did? Went out on the hill and parked and looked at the town. You went and parked on your first date?

Oh yes. Alice was a good Catholic girl so no kissing and telling here. They had met his kids in the small town of Hemingford Nebraska. By the time they were in high school they'd already had eyes for each other for years and so finally at age 18 Dale popped the question. How did you propose?

I asked her if she had any money. His longtime sweetheart accepted his proposal. That was back in 1933. Pretty good looking couple.

We make a peach of a pear. They were married 81 years. 81 longer than any couple they knew. Is there a secret to how you guys have stayed together for so long?

What's that? I always let him have my way. You always let him have your way. Very good. Just over two months after our visit Alice passed away leaving the love of her life behind. Dale carried on without her for a while but it never felt entirely right and almost two years to the day of Alice's passing Dale went to join her.

He was 101. What a wonderful ride we've had. They leave behind no formula, no easy path for getting marriage right. What they do leave behind is a reminder that even after 81 years together life can still seem far too short. It does sound like a long time.

Yeah well it has been a good long time. I'm Lee Cowan. Thanks for joining us this Sunday morning. We'll see you again next week.

This is The Takeout with Major Garrett. This week Steven Law ally of Mitch McConnell and one of Washington's biggest midterm money men. List for me the two Senate races where you think Republicans have the best chance of taking a Democratic seat away. Nevada, New Hampshire. Not Georgia. Well Georgia's right up there but New Hampshire is a surprise. In New Hampshire people really just kind of don't like Maggie Hess. For more from this week's conversation follow The Takeout with Major Garrett on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.