Rumble Strip

This summer, a one-in-a-thousand-year flood hit the village of Plainfield, Vermont. A local apartment building, which everyone called the Heartbreak Hotel, collapsed and washed away down the Great Brook. Twelve people were living there at the time, and they all survived. Most of their cats did not.We talk a lot about the importance of affordable housing and community and village revitalization. For over a century, the Heartbreak provided all three. This is a story about what was lost that night, and what it might suggest about how we move forward.

This is a story about active drug addiction. Last year I made a story about my private investigator friend Susan Randall, after her office was robbed in the middle of the day in downtown Burlington by a woman with a heroin addiction. She walked into Susan’s office while people were working there and loaded a bag with electronics, and left. I couldn’t stop thinking about the woman. Where was she coming from that day and where was she going? The world of active addiction is a kind of world underneath the world, with its own rules and relentless demands. But to most people it’s invisible. All four of the people in this story are in recovery, but they spent years in the world of active drug addiction. They’re aware of it in ways that most of us are not, and they agreed to describe it to me—what it feels like day to day, and its endless demands.Warning: This story contains explicit descriptions of active addiction. It might not be for everyone.

Mark Utter was born with a form of autism that makes it impossible for him to say what he's thinking. For the first thirty years of his life, Mark did not have access to the world of words, except as a listener. An observer. When he was thirty, he was introduced to supported typing, and for the first time in his life, with the help of a facilitator and a typing pad, Mark started his life as a writer of words. This is an interview about what it's like inside the life and mind of Mark Utter.

On the one-year anniversary of a 100-year flood, Vermont experienced another devastating flood. This is the story of one Plainfield, Vermont resident, who lost everything. Thank you Vermont Public for letting me run this show on Rumble Strip.

There are about 15 million people in this world having thoughts and ideas that they can't put into words. People who have had had strokes or traumatic brain injuries often live with aphasia, or difficulty talking or using language. Their thoughts are intact, but the language gets stuck. But music mostly originates in the undamaged hemisphere of the brain. People with aphasia can often sing. This is a story about a choir comprised of people with aphasia, and what it's like to struggle for words.The Aphasia Choir of Vermont

This is a follow-up show to Finn and the Bell. If you haven't heard that story, you might want to start there.At Bread and Puppet in Glover, Vermont, there is a magical pine forest full of small homemade buildings and shrines to memorialize dead puppeteers and friends. It’s a place where my friend Tara Reese’s sons Finn and Lyle spent a lot of time when they were little, running around in the woods in the summer. Now there is a memorial here for Finn in the pine forest, built by some of the kids he used to play with here. Finn died by suicide on January 3rd, 2020. In 2021, Tara and I made a story about him called Finn and the Bell. People all over the world listened, and we received hundreds of emails and texts and artwork and poetry. Tara received letters that were addressed to ‘Finn’s Mom, Hardwick’, with no address.But this is a story just about Tara, and about her evolution of grief. About what happens after the worst thing happens.We recorded this conversation on Mother’s Day, at Finn’s memorial in the pine forest. This show ends with a song. The Bell was written by Jim Terry of Napa, California. He plays music with his sons, Graham and Clark and they’re called The Terry Family Band. Jim wrote this song after listening to Finn and the Bell. Thank you so much Jim!

Will Staats worked for both Vermont and New Hampshire for forty years as a wildlife biologist. He’s also a passionate hunter. He knows the back country of the Kingdom right up through Maine and into Labrador. One day in October he took me bird hunting deep in the unorganized town of Ferdinand. We talked about birds. And we talked about the growing divide between traditional hunting culture and people who don't like certain kinds of hunting here in Vermont. But it was more interesting than that...it was also about how people harden against each other then alienate each other...something we do a lot of these days.

I hung out with Forrest Foster in his sugarhouse a few weeks ago. Sugarhouses are the best because they’re full of warm, sweet steam and there’s nothing to do but hang around and make sure the pan doesn’t burn. Also, if sugaring is happening it means that winter is almost over and that is a joyous time for me. I love the hell out of April. So here are a few happy minutes with Forrest in his sugarhouse.

This is a show I made a few years ago that very significantly involves Total Eclipse of the Heart, which is my favorite song. I am playing it again now because it is ECLIPSE WEEK. I hope you enjoy it.

Kasey Phipps is transgender and has always been transgender. But Kasey didn’t grow up in a place where the word transgender was well understood. Or understood at all. It’s only in the last four years that Kasey’s put a name to this lifelong experience of living life in the wrong gender. This is just one story about the experience of being trans. Credits:Linda Young plays the harp in this show, for which I am eternally grateful. Here is a link to her excellent TRIO.There is also a song in the show from one of my favorite artists, Carla Kihlstedt and the Tin Hat Trio. Here is a link to them performing this song, little i.My thanks to Amelia Meath, Tobin Anderson, Chelsea Edgar and Serena Matt.

What Class Are You is a periodic series I make for Vermont Public. Thank you Vermont Public for letting me share the series on Rumble Strip.

What Class Are You is a periodic series I make for Vermont Public. Thank you Vermont Public for letting me share the series on Rumble Strip.

What Class Are You is a periodic series I make for Vermont Public. Thank you Vermont Public for letting me share the series on Rumble Strip.

Many of you got in touch with me after Isaac's story aired in the first week of What Class Are You. Isaac's on his way to Columbia in the fall, on a full scholarship, and you came up with amazing ideas for how you might be helpful, so I went back up to Newport to discuss it all with Isaac. And it turned into a really interesting conversation on a number of fronts.

What Class Are You is a periodic series I make for Vermont Public. Thank you Vermont Public for letting me share the series on Rumble Strip.

What Class Are You is a periodic series I make for Vermont Public. Thank you Vermont Public for letting me share the series on Rumble Strip.

What Class Are You is a periodic series I make for Vermont Public. Thank you Vermont Public for letting me share this series with Rumble Strip.

What Class is a periodic series I produce for Vermont Public. Thank you Vermont Public for allowing me to share this series with Rumble Strip.

What Class Are You is a periodic series I make for Vermont Public. Thank you Vermont Public for allowing me to share the stories with Rumble Strip.

What Class Are You is a periodic series I make for Vermont Public. Thank you Vermont Public for allowing me to share these stories with Rumble Strip.

Irfan Sehic and his family fled the war in Bosnia when he was seventeen, and landed in Barre, Vermont. Irfan did a lot of jobs when he got here, then went to college, and now runs an insurance company out of his house. I’ve interviewed Irfan for Rumble Strip before, about the war, which you can find on this site somewhere, but in this story, Irfan talks about the American class system as he sees it, starting with the middle class.This is a periodic series I make for Vermont Public. Thank you Vermont Public for letting me share the shows with Rumble Strip.

Isaac lives in Newport, Vermont, which is as far north as you get in Vermont. It’s a town in the Northeast Kingdom with a beautiful lake. It’s also a town with a state prison and a lot of drugs and poverty.I met Isaac at a writers group in town, which meets once a week in town at the amazing Nevermore Bookstore. Isaac is eighteen. He loves to read and write and this spring he’s graduating form Lake Region High School. I asked if he’d be willing to talk with me about class, and he was.What Class Are You is a periodic series I make for Vermont Public, and I want to thank them for letting me share these stories on Rumble Strip.

Today is the first episode of What Class Are You, a periodic series I make for VP. This series started as an experiment a few years ago. I wanted to have conversations with people about the terrible cultural divides that keep growing in our country, without ending up in boring conversations about politics…so I drove around asking strangers ‘what class are you’, which is a kind of stupid and offensive question, but it turns out people have a lot to say…about money, education, opportunity…power. The very first shows I made about class I already ran on RS as a single show…you can find it on my website….but these next episodes in the series I’ll run one at a time, every couple days, for a few weeks. We’re going to start the series with my old friend Susan Randall, the private investigator I interview a lot for Rumble Strip. She talks about what it was like to grow up upper-middle class.

This is a rerun of what could be called a VALENTINE’S DAY SPECIAL, and I hope you enjoy it.Last year on Hardwick's Front Porch Forum, someone called Tiana asked if there was anyone who could help her with her hair and makeup for an important date with her boyfriend. Front Porch Forum is an online, daily community forum, which is like a bulletin board at a local general store. You can find secondhand tires there. Or read complaints about the Selectboard. Every Vermont town’s got a Front Porch Forum and you have to be from that town to be on it.Since Tiana's new to town, she thought she might have luck finding someone to help her get ready for her date through the Forum. And she did.Here is her original posting:Makeup for Special Occasion Tiana • Hardwick I'm looking for someone who'd be willing to do my makeup (and possibly hair?) on the 23rd of this month. Just something simple with my eyes and something to hide some red spots. Is there a way to make an illusion of a skinner face? I think thats a thing, right? I understand it's a long shot and I don't have much money. I usually don't like anything thats considered "girly". However I want to surprise my boyfriend for our first anniversary. I have a nice dress picked out with matching press on nails. The issue is I have no clue how to do makeup. YouTube tutorials have never done me any good considering I don't own any makeup and I have a very round, chubby face.Thank you for reading! CreditsMusic by Brian ClarkThanks to Tara Reese for finding the postingThanks to Tobin and Mike and RoseWelcome the Civic Standard!Thanks to Aubrie St. Louis at the Rehair Shop

The Anair story was produced for Vermont Public.

This is one of my all time favorite shows. I made it for Vermont Public in 2019 and I think about these guys all the time. It was the little league playoffs in St. Johnsbury in 2019, before the pandemic, recorded in a simpler time. Let's play some good D out there.

East Hill Tree Farm is awesome. Honestly. It's just the best.

I got in a car accident. For some reason I thought it would make me feel better to talk with Forrest Foster about all the accidents he’s had and how he thinks about pain.

Music for this show is by Justin LanderJohn's company is called Farmers Underground, based in West Glover, VT

A lot of people in rural America live near small towns or villages. Here in Vermont, a lot of small village schools and general stores and post offices are closing for all kinds of reasons. And this isn’t unique to here. Small town centers are struggling all over the country. But when these little downtown areas lose a store, or a school, everything changes. Danny Sagan is an architect in Montpelier and I like to hear him talk about how buildings work on us, how they slow us down or speed us up. A couple weeks ago I asked him if he’d drive around with me and talk about what villages ARE. What makes them feel like they do. And what happens if they disappear. Credits:A shorter version of this story was produce for Vermont Public. Thank you Vermont Public for allowing me to air the story here!Danny Sagan's design firm, DS Architects

My friend Kelly Green is a defense attorney who represents people accused of murder. She spends a lot of time reading autopsies and driving around talking with witnesses and worrying. She’s got a lot going on at the moment. A couple weeks ago she asked me if I wanted to go to the opening of the new Taylor Swift movie in Barre. I did. This is a show about it.

Susan’s been a private investigator in Vermont for 24 years. She defends people who are accused of crimes, which often involve drugs in one way or another. This summer she was robbed by a person with a terrible heroin addiction, and it made her really angry, and really tired. This is that story. And if you haven't heard any of the Susan shows before, I recommend listening to some of the others first. There are at least four, and the very first one is called Vermont Private Eye.

Forrest Foster is a dairy farmer in Hardwick, Vermont and a friend of mine. This past spring, on Memorial Day, Forrest’s partner, Karen Shaw, died after a long illness. They were together 43 years. The day after she died, Forrest built her coffin with his friends Steve and Butch, and a couple days later Karen was buried in a field behind the barn under a maple tree, with a few family and friends present. As always with Forrest, I’m struck by the combination of pragmatism and love in everything he does. Burying Karen was no different.

Music by Justin LanderOriginally produced for Vermont Public

Special Note: Hill Farmstead, the best beer in the world, just named a beer after the Civic Standard. Which is fricking VERY COOL. Here's a link to it.

Rose Friedman and Tara Reese were in the early stages of starting the Civic Standard, an organization that gives the people of Hardwick excuses to get together. Rose and Tara were explaining this idea to Brenda at a baseball game and Brenda said that what she really wanted was for them to make a mystery dinner theater show. Nobody really thought that this would happen.But Rose couldn't stop thinking about it. Most mystery dinner theater shows are a little like the game CLUE, which isn’t very interesting. But then Rose had an idea. What if the murder mystery was set in Hardwick? Actually, what if it was set at a really boring development review board meeting in Hardwick, which is the sort of meeting everyone around here feels totally at home in, including people who have never been to a play?This is a show about the making of Developed to Death, a play that was written by people around Hardwick, about the community of Hardwick, and for the people of Hardwick. It is part theater, part social science project, and in it someone gets murdered.And special bonus…right after the show is a followup interview with Civic Standard co-founders Rose Friedman and Tara Reese. CreditsThis story was supported in part by the Vermont Humanities Council. This story is also a Transom Radio Special, which has support from the National Endowment for the Arts. You can read about the making of the show at: https://transom.org/2022/the-civic-standard/This show was mixed by Jay AllisonMusic for this show is by Justin Lander and Charlie LanderSpecial thanks to these people for their advice and patience: Amelia Meath, Tobin Anderson, Chelsea Edgar, Jay Allison, Howard Norman, Gordon Grunder, my family, and of course Rose and Tara.

Thanks to Brave Little State and Vermont Public for letting me run this episode on Rumble Strip. You can find Brave Little State wherever you listen to podcasts, and you can read more about them by visiting Vermont Public, at vermontpublic.org. Thanks to Myra Flynn, who worked with me on this show, and the rest of the Brave Little State team: Angela Evancie, Mae Nuguskey and Josh Crane.

Credits: Music by Ishmael Ensemble, John Caroll Kirby, Riley Mulherkar and Elori SaxlEdited by Daniel Guillemette & Daniel GumbinerSound mix / sound design by John Delore

For years I've been wanting to make a show about the terrible cultural divides growing in our country, but I couldn't figure out how to do it without getting into boring conversations about politics. So I backed into an experiment. I asked my editor at Vermont Public if I could drive around and ask people, 'what class are you?', just to see what would happen. And he said, 'uh...sure.' So I did. This is the series that came of that experiment. And even though these conversations took place in rural Vermont, I think they are indicative of what people are thinking and feeling all over the country. And maybe we should all be having these conversations? I don't know. You tell me. And here is the series, What Class Are You? This series was produced for Vermont Public, and I am grateful to them for allowing me to share it with the Rumble Strip audience.

Mary Lake is a sheep farmer and sheep shearer and itinerant slaughterer. She is a tall, muscular woman in bib overalls and a baseball hat and dangly earrings she carved out of a ram’s horn. She wears a chain around her waist with a scabbard full of knives. And she loves sheep, which is one reason she participates in their slaughter. This is a story about where food comes from.** The first version of this story aired on Vermont Public. I am grateful to Vermont Public for allowing me to share this story with Rumble Strip Listeners!Mary Lake's business is Can-Do Shearing in Tunbridge, Vermont

It's town meeting day here in Vermont.In most of New England, town citizens become legislators for one day a year. They get together in school gyms and town halls and vote in person, and in public. This centuries long practice of towns doing the slow and hard work of disagreeing and arguing and compromising on how to govern themselves—this has a profound impact on a place, and what it means to be from a place.Sometimes it’s contentious. Sometimes it’s boring. But it’s always the most interesting and authentic and civilized social event of the year. Always.

Sheila LaPoint wrote a post in Front Porch Forum asking if there was anyone in town who could turn her grandmother's fur coat into a teddy bear. She didn't want to spend a lot of money. She can't wear the coat anymore. But she wants something that will help her remember her German grandmother. My friend Clare Dolan lives down the road from Sheila, and when she read Sheila’s post about the teddy bear, it called to her. Clare is the maker of the Museum of Everyday Life, which celebrates the many critical and underappreciated objects we use in our daily lives. Clare loves well used and long loved objects, so it seemed like a good idea to help Sheila turn one loved object into a new object to love.

Tom Mustill is a conservation biologist and he makes beautiful films about where nature and people meet. He’s worked with Greta Thunberg and David Attenborough, he’s been shat on by bats in Mexico, and recently he finished a book called How to Speak Whale. It describes the very real possibility that someday, maybe even in my lifetime, we’ll begin to understand the complex language of whales--and all this would imply.I interviewed Tom for hours and I didn't want him to stop until he’d told me every last thing he’s learned about whale behavior and every story he could remember. He was polite about it. I don’t know why I felt this insatiable need to hear every story. Maybe it seems that if we could understand whale culture a little bit, everything would make a little more sense? Anyway I recorded Tom for as long as he'd let me.

This show is about crime. Really crimey crime.

Transom Bio: Jay Allison has been an independent public radio producer, journalist, and teacher since the 1970s. He is the founder of Transom. His work has won most of the major broadcasting awards, including six Peabodys. He produces The Moth Radio Hour and was the curator of This I Believe on NPR. He has also worked in print for the New York Times Magazine and as a solo-crew reporter for ABC News Nightline, and is a longtime proponent of building community through story. Through his non-profit organization, Atlantic Public Media, he is a founder of The Public Radio Exchange, PRX.org, and WCAI, the public radio service for Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. More about Jay, more than you'd reasonably need to know, is available at www.jayallison.org.b.

Forrest Foster was loading up the tractor with kindling for deer camp. It was two days before deer season. I was over there visiting and helping him with his night chores. I like Forrest. I like being around him, and I always learn something from him. Like last week he told me that you should always plant your garlic with the long rounded side facing north and the flat side facing south. Anyway, I took my recorder over a couple days before rifle season and a couple hours before milking. This is some sound from that day.

Nick Paley is a writer, editor and director for film and TV, and a co-writer on the recent film, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, which stars an adorable one-inch tall shell who wears shoes and is looking for his long lost shell family. Nick is from Vermont, and he's working on a new TV series set here, so when he was in town I dragged him to a matinee of Marcel the Shell...the same movie theater where he used to clean the bathrooms. And then afterwards he let me ask him ten million questions about what it's like to work in the film industry. This show is a bit of both.

Vaughn Hood was a 118-pound barber when he was drafted into the Vietnam War. And in Vaughn’s war, most men didn’t survive their first three-month tour. In honor of Veteran's Day, here is the story of an extraordinary American life.This story is co-produced by Larry Massett and Erica Heilman. It first ran in...I can't remember what year. About five years ago.

Armand Patoine sat with me in his tea house, deep inside his garden, which leads down to a stream. He has been creating this garden for 49 years. We talked about gardening, and what God has to do with his gardening, which it turns out is everything.

My son is leaving for his freshman year of college in a week and I am feeling maudlin. I listened to this show I made years ago and it made me feel better. So before August is really, really over, here are the kids of Hospital Hill.Description: The kids of Randolph, Vermont describe their neighborhood as a place with three purple houses. They tell me there’s a shortcut through the woods down to Dunkin’ Donuts, and they say it’s pretty close to three graveyards. The kids run in twos and threes and sometimes in one big pack for a game of hide and seek tag.I spent an afternoon talking with them and following them around. This show is a little taste of that day. It’s a postcard from childhood, a place we remember but can’t visit anymore.