On Christmas Day, two presents had been left unopened until 1 p.m. Sofie brought it out for all her extended family to see. She already had quite a haul. Skates from Santa. A Zhu-Zhu pet from her grandmother. A bracelet from her cousin. And lots of clothes.

The note on the smaller one said “Open me first!” She deserves a lot of credit for remembering exactly at the appointed time to get both presents and then thoughtfully proceed as per instructions. Inside the small box was something fairly familiar: her passport.

Now, for background, you have to know my daughter was born in Germany, and lived her first year there. She’s visited her Austrian grandparents many times over there. Subsequently, Sofie has had two passports – her first issued under the auspices of the US Department of Defense, and her second from the State Department, like most of us.

Her more recent one has stamps all over it. Belgium. Germany. Canada. The Netherlands. She’s crossed the Atlantic more than most people ever will in their whole lives. Getting on a plane for her is like getting on a bus for other kids.

“Open me Second!” read the other present, being a little flatter and larger. It also had some math clues: “What is 6 times 7? Now add one. After you find that, what is 2 times 3?”

Unwrapping the package, she found a child’s picture atlas of the world. That made her happy enough, to be sure. One of her favorite place mats at the dinner table is a map of the world, and it prompts all sorts of questions. Where have you been? What do they speak in India? What do they eat in Uruguay?

Times like that, I am glad I can pull out my laptop so we can go about finding the answers.

Six times seven, plus one, after a little figuring, was 43, and that was definitely a page number. And she opened to the spread on China. “Two times three is easy, Papa!” she said, and scanned the page for the number six. The entry on the page was for Hong Kong.

For the last two years, Sofie has been asking me when she could go to China. Or Hawaii. I told her it was probably one or the other. The questions started before we went to Disney World, but kicked into high gear when she learned that, having hit Orlando for five days, upon completion it had now fallen down to the bottom of the list. There were other places to see in the world.

“Like China,” she noted. Right, I said. But, I added, she’d have to be a little older, a little more mature. Eight was the age I picked. That also gave me time to save up the money.

The first and only time I was in China was in 1998. It was the last few days of a 27-day odyssey through Southeast Asia, looking for the wreck of Captain John Kendrick’s Lady Washington. I had flown from Manila into Guangzhou with a 48-hour visa. After a night at the Sun-Yat Sen University, I was squired around in the by grad student Zhou Xiang, hopping sampans to visit a 200-year-old cemetery for Westerners located on an island controlled by the Chinese military.Then it was into a taxi for a breakneck 90-minute taxi ride to an industrial park on the far outskirts of the city where the new catamaran would whisk me in a few hours down to Hong Kong. Coupled with a few nights in nearby Macao, the place left quite an impression.

Since then I’ve been able to remain in touch with Zhou Xiang. While she was studying in Sweden, she brought her husband through Wiesbaden when I was living there. Two years later, while doing post-doctoral work at Harvard, she once looked after our prized corgi, and became friends with a one year-old Sofie.

So in December, having won a grant from Mass. Humanities to promote our documentary series following the Columbia Expedition, I received an e-mail notification. The Hong Kong International Film Festival deadline for submissions was fast approaching. It would be held the end of March and early April. Sofie’s eighth birthday falls within that timeframe. And application fees for film festivals falls within the purview of the grant (if not the travel itself).

Fingers crossed, we applied online within hours of the deadline. While it is a roll of the dice, there are definitely business reasons to go regardless of being selected or not. Our story took place partly in China, so it certainly should be of interest there.

But if I were to go, it would have to be in the company of this four-foot-high seasoned world traveler. She loves potstickers, wants the next language she learns to be Chinese, and still has empty pages in her passport.

This is quite a time to return to China. There is a steady drumbeat of news stories contrasting their surging economy with our own. Their move from a manufacturer of cheap toys toward a 21st century model of next-generation green technology, and their ability to jumpstart their economy through staggering investments in infrastructure, really makes us look like we’re squabbling over the placement of deck chairs on the Titanic.

I’m curious to see the changes that have occurred there during a time marked roughly since Sofie’s birth. Such as that out-of-the-way ferry terminal which now stands at the heart of a new Guangzhou. It would be as if downtown Boston moved to Foxboro.

This sort of thing nags at me, and makes me wonder if as Americans, we’ve forgotten how to build things. Or simply lost the will.Besides, there’s a Disney World in Hong Kong, a day trip to which will make a great birthday present. And I happily get to see that immediately fall to the bottom of a very long list again.

WGBH series finale features music of Tommy Keene

The out-of-the-blue online phenomenon of Hit and Run History continues to smash the wall between pop culture and history.

In a musical coup, the Gumshoe Historians at WGBH have landed Tommy Keene.  The original indie power-pop artist’s “Places That Are Gone” will be featured in the finale of the PBS-powerhouse’s web series “Hit and Run History:  The Columbia Expedition.”

“This is a dream come true,” says Andrew Buckley, series creator and host.  “I first saw Tommy Keene sing ‘Places That Are Gone’ at a concert in a record store in 1984.   As a campus DJ at American University, I heard it everywhere, and it stuck with me.”

Being able to use the track marks a breakthrough in the series. Keene’s EP was voted #1 in the Village Voice Pop & Jazz poll, and received four stars from Rolling Stone. As proof the song’s staying power, eight years later Keene would be performing “Places That Are Gone” during Conan O’Brien’s first season.

The series at the centerpiece of WGBH’s History page,Hit And Run History is profiling characters in the story of the Columbia Expedition - the first American voyage Voice Pop & Jazz poll, and received four stars from Rolling Stone. As proof around the world.  Leaving post-Revolutionary War Boston in 1787, this risky private trading venture was financed and crewed by former privateers, slavers, refugees and POW’s.  Buckley and his crew have been taking audiences on the road to tell their stories in a hip, approachable fashion.

“It’s snackable history,” says WGBH’s Kyanna Sutton, who first raised the idea of bringing the series to the station.  “And the use of local bands together with music video-style pacing really sets Hit and Run Historyapart.”

Local music has been a key element to the series’ success.  Boston’s Shea Rose (featured on the December 9 broadcast of WCVB’s Chronicle) and Sidewalk Driverjoin Rhode Island’s Mark Cutler and Jenn Vix on episodes throughout the series.

But Buckley nursed the idea that notoriety would open the door to favorite songs that would truly resonate.  “‘Places That Are Gone’ works well for a history show, doesn’t it?”

Keene also resonates with the other musicians. “His power pop paved the way,” says Rose.  And Cutler notes, “‘Places That Are Gone’ was one of my favorite songs in the 1980’s. It’s great to have my songs sitting beside his and the other talented folks whose music graces Hit and Run History.”

For the ten-episode series, Hit and Run History has been using the Columbia and Washington medal as a touchstone.  The names of those profiled appear on the coin - the rarest of all American medals.  In the series opener, “The Medallion“, the Massachusetts Historical Society opens its vaults to show off their copies.

In the series finale, “The Auction”, the crew learns that one of the remaining twenty of these medals is going up for sale in Philadelphia.  In their trademark “Gumshoe Historian” style, they head down to the auction, interviewing experts and stumbling upon clues to their story along the way.  Throughout, “Places That Are Gone” moves the action ahead.

Buckley is the foremost authority on the Columbia Expedition.  The Cape Codder has followed the story since 1995, starting with research for his novel The Bostoner.  To bring this little-known topic to younger audiences, he began Hit and Run History in 2008.  Its two full episodes have won over a dozen Massachusetts Cultural Council Grants.

Up next, Hit and Run History will continue following the track of Columbia. Having hit Cape Verde in their second full episode (aired this spring), they plan on reaching the Falklands and Cape Horn in spring of 2011. Buckley observes, “The sort of attention we’re getting with WGBH and Tommy Keene will definitely help us get there.”

For more information about Hit and Run History, the Columbia Expedition or John Kendrick, check their Facebook fan page.

Image of the Columbia and Washington medal courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

It had almost become a habit. The October rush. For two years running, we would rush to get application materials in to various local cultural councils. These were for grants to support production and screenings of another episode of our documentary series, “Hit and Run History: The Columbia Expedition.”

But this year was different.

This year, your local band of historians and filmmakers decided to let someone else get a turn. I cannot say enough about this program.

Every year, local cultural councils, supported in large part by disbursements by the Commonwealth’s Massachusetts Cultural Council, receive applications from local individuals and institutions for community based arts and humanities projects. In my many discussions with MCC staff, I learned that there are two key components.

One is there must be an opportunity for the public in the granting community to access the project. This is not to commission a painting that will then hang on the wall of someone’s private library. The other part is, naturally, that the money is to cultivate the grassroots. It is to nurture and encourage people within their community to pursue their talents.

Two years ago, in this very column, I discussed our own efforts to take an obscure chapter of local history and bring it to the world. Armed with only a MacBook Pro, video equipment borrowed from the Cape Cod Community Media Center (with the barest idea of how to use it), and my decade and a half of research and writing on John Kendrick and the Columbia Expedition, Matt Griffin and I probably didn’t look like the most promising candidates.

On that first day of production on a warm, sunny September day, our audio with Mary Malloy, PhD of the Sea Education Association was coming in much too strong. Next, with Thornton Gibbs of Wareham who had led countless tours of Captain Kendrick’s house, the sound was just right. Wrapping the day up with Ben Dunham, former chair of the Wareham Historical Society, the playback volume was so low that we had trouble making out what he was saying.

No wonder that of the 10 local cultural councils we applied to in the first year, only three funded us. This despite our filming in their towns, talking with local historians and commitments to not only hold screenings, but to broadcast to tens of thousands on the local access channel. More often than not, the rejection cited our lack of experience in filmmaking. We realized however, that these were paper rejections. They were based on resumes, not on the importance of the story, work samples, or an understanding of what filmmaking has become. So we set out to prove those three towns right, and the other seven wrong.

The following spring, as promised, we began screening our first installment. Not only in the towns that funded us (Marshfield, Wareham and Chatham) but in the ones that didn’t (Orleans, Harwich, Edgartown, to name a few). We did so because we felt this was an important local piece of local history, and the people of that town shouldn’t miss out just because their local cultural council didn’t believe we could pull this off. And thank God we did.

The original uncut interview with Thornton Gibbs, in his 90s, ran over 40 minutes. He passed away a couple months after we spoke. Captured on tape was his complete account of a tour through the last home John Kendrick knew on this side of the continent.

With our second episode, we were able to fulfill the promise of the first, take that seed money and actually follow Kendrick across the Atlantic to Cape Verde. And using that same Yankee ingenuity, when adversity struck in the form of an epidemic of dengue fever there, we were able to turn the situation around by bringing an aid worker with several boxes of relief supplies to a hospital there. In so doing, we added a new element of journalism when our editor Alex Schwantner shot, edited and uploaded a video of our visit to the overcrowded hospital. Not only were we making a good film, we were doing good. That just would not have happened without that grant money to start us off.

And following on the heels of that, with 10 more cultural council grants the second year, we held the screenings and made the broadcasts to hundreds of thousands in Eastern Massachusetts that led us to our current web series on WGBH today. We can now use the platform of this PBS-powerhouse to fundraise for Hit and Run History’s continuing journey on Kendrick’s seven-year track — as well as plenty of more information on all the supporting players.

This is a local cultural council success story. We hope you show the same foresight for the round of promising, untested applicants whose requests are currently before you. You gave us a hand up to the next level, which exactly how the process is supposed to work. And we Gumshoe Historians, we scrappy band of intrepid Cape Codders, thank you.

Hit and Run History is now the centerpiece of WGBH’s history site, wgbh.org/history.