Davisville

In 2005 Doug Waterman, a retired teacher who lives in Davis, rode his bike solo from Santa Monica to Chicago on Route 66. He also was 66 at the time. A decade later, he has written a book about the trip—“It Only Hurts When I Sit Down: A Bicycle Adventure on Historic Route 66”—and he appears on Davisville today to talk about what he saw along the way. He is joined by his wife Donna, who wrote nightly emails for their friends and family. His recollections include tales of good deeds and usually friendly folks, ghost towns, storms he barely outran, odd moments, and a truck tire he saw explode on the road.

The Davis Bike Club wants you to attach a Tile detection device to your bicycle, so that the device can tell you where your bike is if it gets stolen (only the bike owner is notified). The club will even give you the Tile, if you want. The main goal is to deter thieves and reduce one of Davis' major kinds of crime. But wouldn’t thieves just remove the device? And would police really respond to a report that a stolen bike had been located? On today’s show Phil Coleman, club president and a former Davis police chief, answers these questions, and explains how and why this "Tile the City" program should work. When it catches its first thief, he says, expect to hear a lot more about it.

This evening KDRT begins a week of special programming to mark its campaign to boost the station’s signal. On Davisville, “special” means playing a few short segments created for other uses at KDRT that have never appeared on this show before: The Change Monster, and a skit we might call Rudolph’s Lawyer Negotiates With Santa on That Foggy Christmas Eve. But first we talk briefly with Davis Media Access Executive Director Autumn Labbe-Renault on why expanding KDRT’s signal to cover all of Davis is a good idea. This photo shows three of the folks behind tonight’s show (Autumn was gone before we could rope her into this shot): host Bill Buchanan, center, engineer Jim Buchanan, right, and Officially Unbiased Professional Singer Megan Buchanan, left, who shares her verdict on the musicality of Bill’s semi-finished boost-the-signal radio spot you’ll hear near the end, The Weak Signal Blues.

The Davis Shakespeare Ensemble is an interesting story for at least two reasons: their work, and the way they continue to grow. Today we talk with Rob Salas (in photo), who co-founded the group in 2010 with Gia Battista, about the support they’re getting, the professional theater they’re building, the appeal of Shakespeare, their 2017 season, why they chose Davis, and one of the festivals they’re learning from: the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland.