Over 11 years and 570 episodes, John Rabe and Team Off-Ramp scoured SoCal for the people, places, and ideas whose stories needed to be told, and the show became a love-letter to Los Angeles. Now, John is sharing selections from the Off-Ramp vault to help you explore this imperfect paradise.
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UPDATE 7/3/2014: Olympian and World War 2 vet Louis Zamperini died yesterday of pneumonia; he was 97. Zamperini was also a spellbinding storyteller, and in 2010 he regaled a packed Crawford Family Forum with tales of his long and remarkable life.
Epic in the most literal sense possible: Zamperini's life plays out like a grandiose American hero's tale. Louis Zamperini is a living legend you probably have never heard of, but you've seen his name everywhere. Listen to the on-air version by clicking on the first icon, listen to the whole Olympic Panel by clicking on the second!
You might have seen a football game Torrance High School’s Zamperini Stadium, or landed an airplane Zamperini Field, even Zamperini Plaza, at the front of USC’s track and field stadium. They’re all named after Louis Zamperini. A former Olympic track runner, World War Two veteran and Los Angeles native who at 93 years old shares his story to this day. This past June, at KPCC’s Crawford Family Forum, Zamperini spoke with Fellow Olympian John Naber about how he ended up in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, met Hitler, stole a Nazi flag, served in the airforce, survived for a month and half on a life raft in the Pacific, and endured years of life in captivity as a Japanese prisoner of war.