Rumble Strip: Recent Episodes
Erica Heilman / Rumble Strip
Credits:
"Places Go" was produced by Chris Attaway and Cristal Duhaime. The story editor was Mira Burt-Wintonick. The piece originally aired on CBC's Love Me.
More episodes of Love Me are available everywhere you get your podcasts, and here: https://link.mgln.ai/LMxRS
A few days ago we lost a power ballad hero. Bonnie Tyler is gone. She wrote my favorite song, Total Eclipse of the Heart. Years ago I forced people to listen to me sing this song and then I made a show about it and forced MORE people to listen to me sing it, and talk about turning fifty. So I'm playing it again in honor of Bonnie Tyler.
Credits
Life of Kaye is produced by me and Kaye Phipps.
Thank you karaoke singers! For more information about monthly karaoke in Montpelier, I think you can find information here. Otherwise, do an internet search for Saphen Von Cabbage karaoke and hunt around. Otherwise ask me and I’ll figure it out and get back to you.
Welcome to a new, periodic series called Life of Kaye.
This first episode is called: Some Kind of a Speaker.
The series is produced by me and Kaye Phipps.
Send us your comments if you have them and thank you so much for listening.
Home health and hospice nurses provide all kinds of healthcare to people in their homes...day and night, and in mud and snow.
I knew of these folks because I met some of them after my father came home from the hospital. A nurse came to help with his medications. A VNA therapist came to give him physical therapy. But I wasn’t really aware of these nurses and therapists UNTIL my family really needed them, and I expect there are a lot of people out there like me.
So this is a show about the nurses who travel, and what their days are like, and what they know about this place because of the work they do.
Vermont Quick Lube is where I've been getting my oil changed for years, because I love it there. They are fast and nice and they offer coffee. Everyone at Vermont Quick Lube is always in a good mood, even in November or January. Recently I went on a Wednesday and Mike, who runs the register, told me it was Ladies' Day and handed me a red carnation and a ticket for a free car wash. It was the excuse I needed to make this show.
From The Kitchen Sisters Presents:
Pioneering radio artist Larry Massett, a producer's producer, who led listeners into unexpected worlds and influenced so many in public radio and beyond, died last year at the age of 80.
The Kitchen Sisters were fortunate to work with Larry on our NPR series Lost & Found Sound and Soundprint. He was a friend and colleague.
We learned of Larry's passing last spring on Transom.org, the premier site for producers to come together, share their work, and access the latest tools and advice.
It was there that we found a “Requiem for Larry Massett” created by Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices. We asked Barrett if he’d help produce an audio piece and bring it to air. He said yes. Transom said yes. And all of the producers who offered their memories said yes. And so, yes!
The Kitchen Sisters Present: “A Requiem for Larry Massett” — produced in collaboration with Barrett Golding and Transom.org.
This is a same-day reaction to this morning’s story called: A springtime show about how about the economy that partly explains why we feel ashamed. That story features a wonderful listener in Scotland who is a money manager and made some fascinating comments about the last class series. I asked her if she’d be willing to share some of these thoughts on the phone, and she was willing, and that was this morning’s story.
A couple hours later I got a reaction audio from one of the people featured in the class series who we talked about in this morning’s story. So I’m playing it. Because it’s great and because the point of the class series is to talk about these things and this is almost like a real goddamn conversation!
What Class are You? is a series I make for Vermont Public.
This is a conversation with a money manager in Scotland who has given a great deal of thought to why many of us feel confused and ashamed about our financial lives.After the What Class are You? shows, I often receive interesting commentary, and I’m always frustrated that this commentary can’t become part of a wider conversation. So after receiving two fascinating comments from EM in Scotland, I asked her if she’d be willing to share some of her thoughts on the economy on the phone. She said yes, and then we had a conversation longer than she ever could have imagined.EM responded primarily to two shows. One featured a woman called Trudy, who worked all kinds of jobs in her life, and toward the end of her working years, she realized that she was not going to have enough money for a comfortable retirement, but she would have a little too much to qualify for services that would make her retirement more comfortable, so she made sure that she retired with little enough money that she could qualify for services. The other story that EM responded to was about Kaye, who talks about how not having money makes her feel like a child, and that all the people with money seem like the adults.Fair warning, I ask a lot of dumb questions in this show, because I don’t know much about the economy. But I’m figuring that maybe there are some people out there like me. And even though I don't know much about economics, most of what she says here has deep resonance. She is naming something I feel but don’t understand.
This is a story about a song.
Six years ago, seventeen-year-old Finn Rooney killed himself in his home in Walden, Vermont. A couple days later, his community held a bonfire in the parking lot of Hazen Union High school in Hardwick. Hundreds of people came. Tom Gilbert, who organized the bonfire, asked his friend Heidi Wilson to write a song for the occasion. The song was called Hold On. She made sure it was a song everyone could sing. And they did.
Now people are singing this song all over the world. People in Minneapolis have been singing it to ICE agents. They’re singing it for their neighbors who are afraid to leave their houses. They’re singing it in Wales and Australia and Iralend in solidarity with the people of Minneapolis. Peole are singing it all over, to give each other some comfort and some courage.
This is a story about where that song came from and where it’s gone.
I met Arwa and Habib Meiloud because they’re Anne’s kids and Anne works at the post office in the village here in East Calais. They live in the house right across the road from the post office. Arwa and Habib’s father is from Mauritania and lives out of the country, but both Arwa and Habib were born in the US, and their mother Anne grew up in Vermont. Arwa is 17 years old, Habib is 18. In this conversation, we talk about the roles that race and class have played in their lives.
Kaye Phipps lives in Montpelier, Vermont. Right now she works as a custodian at a local grocery store. She’s also been a florist, a housekeeper, and a house cleaner. But even though she’s sometimes working multiple jobs, she often comes up short. In this episode, Kaye talks about how having a limited income makes her feel like a child, long into adulthood.
Jules Guillemette grew up on their family farm in Lamoille County, Vermont, which has been in the family nearly 100 years. Since then, Jules has worked as a chef, a meat cutter and now they're an electrician. In this episode, we talk about what it means to own land of enormous value but always be struggling to save enough money.
What Class are You? is a periodic series I make for Vermont Public, which started back in 2022. I wanted to talk with people about growing political and cultural divides without talking about politics or cultural divides. I had no idea how to do it. Then one day I just drove around and asked people what class they are. And what I found was that as dumb and offensive as this question is, people have a lot to say about it. Socioeconomic reality is one thing we all share. Some of us have a lot, some have a little, and most of us fall somewhere in between, but it’s a big common denominator.
Trudy Richmond lives in subsidized senior housing in Burlington. She’s educated and worked all her life, but at a certain point, Trudy realized that she had too little money to pay for a comfortable retirement and too much to qualify for services that might make her retirement more comfortable. In this episode of What Class are You, Trudy talks with reporter Erica Heilman about how she negotiated a comfortable retirement for herself.
I make this series for Vermont Public. Thank you Vermont Public for letting me share these stories with Rumble Strip listeners!
This is a show about Thanksgiving, and what it sounds like. It is made entirely of your recordings.
Thank you everyone for sending me recordings. We have made a show that sounds like the whole damn country. Or a lot of it.
A couple days ago I asked you to send me some recordings from Thanksgiving. I figured I'd give you a little better sense of what I'm looking for.
Happy Thanksgiving all!
Erica
Let's make a show about Thanksgiving. I have always wanted to do this, and the time has come.
Anyone who is willing, I would love you to record a voice memo this week about your holiday. Stories, anecdotes, songs...I don't know. You don't have to speak in complete sentences. It doesn’t have to be organized. It doesn't have to be funny or important.
If you're willing to record some of the holiday ambience, that would also be great. The tv room, the kitchen, the dinner table, the drive or flight to your destination, the door greetings and departures. Anything you feel like recording.
Send me the recordings by Sunday, to rumblestripvermont@gmail.com and I will make a show that tries to capture just SOME of our complex feelings and experiences during this DAY OF THANKS.
Thank you all so much in advance!
Erica
After the last show, a lot of people asked me how they might help Forrest Foster. So I called his friend Steve Gorelick and we set up a Go Fund Me....
Forrest Foster is a dairy farmer in Hardwick, Vermont. Two months ago he sold his cows. He didn't want to do it. But his barn doesn't meet code so he lost his license. He can't keep the wood furnace burning in the house while he's doing chores. And like so many families, he's dealing with the profound complications of drug addiction in his home.
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!
Credits
Music by Brian Clark
Thanks to Tara Reese for finding the posting
Thanks to Tobin and Mike and Rose
Welcome the Civic Standard!
Thanks to Aubrie St. Louis at the Rehair Shop
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.
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 Lander
John'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.
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.
Credits
This 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 Allison
Music for this show is by Justin Lander and Charlie Lander
Special 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 Saxl
Edited by Daniel Guillemette & Daniel Gumbiner
Sound 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, ‘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. 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.
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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
Thank you Amelia Meath!!
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This is a re-run of a show but it’s TOWN MEETING DAY SO I’M RUNNING IT AGAIN! LONG LIVE TOWN MEETING!
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.
This is a show about where I live, which is maybe not where you live, but we’re all living through a time of awful division. There aren’t a lot of opportunities anymore to disagree civilly, in public, or to make decisions with people who are hugely different from ourselves. And maybe there should be. So I made this show to inspire us all. And you’ll hear a lot about trash removal.
Credits
Music by Brian Clark. In addition to being a fine musician, he is also a fine woodworker.
Featured photos by Terry J. Allen
Endless thanks to Tobin Anderson, Kelly Green and Amelia Meath for their help on this show.
Susan Clark is the co-author of Slow Democracy, a wonderful book on self governance and rediscovering community.
Thanks to Brattleboro Community TV and Mount Mansfield Community TV for their recordings of town meeting and all the brave people who get up and talk in those meetings
Moderators in this show are: Stephen Magill, Moretown. Paul Doton, Barnard. Gus Seelig, Calais. John McLaughry, Kirby. Bobby Starr, Troy. Susan Clark, Middlesex. Kelly Green, Randolph
Click on images below for better view. Most of the good pictures here are by Terry J. Allen of East Montpelier.
Calais Town MeetingEast Montpelier Town Meeting, Photo: Terry J. AllenCalais Town HallPhoto by Scott BassageCalais Town MeetingThe guys who always stand at the back and never take their coats off.Calais Town MeetingDessertsEast Montpelier Town Meeting, Photo: Terry J. AllenKelly GreenKelly Green, Randolph Town ModeratorEast Montpelier Town MeetingPhoto: Terry J. AllenEast Montpelier Town Meeting, Photo: Terry J. AllenEast Montpelier Town Meeting, Photo: Terry J. AllenEast Montpelier Town Meeting, Photo: Terry J. AllenEast Montpelier Town Meeting, Photo: Terry J. AllenEast Montpelier Town Meeting, Photo: Terry J. AllenEast Montpelier Town Meeting, Photo: Terry J. AllenCalaisScott Bassage, Calais Town MeetingTown Meeting East Montpelier, Photo: Terry J. AllenJohn McLaughry, Kirby Town ModeratorKirby Town MeetingCalais Town MeetingPhoto by Scott BassageSusan Clark, Middlesex Town ModeratorMiddlesex Town Meeting, Photo Mark Bushnell
Sheila LaPoint wrote a post in Front Porch Forum asking if there were 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.
Also it’s a show about seasonal depression.
Clare’s Museum of Everyday Life
Thank you Amelia Meath for your help.
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.
Links
Tom’s website
How to Speak Whale
Roger Payne’s website
Under The Water, song by Hand Habits and Amelia Meath
Whale photo above is a screengrab from one of Tom’s films
It’s been too long since I reported on some of the many crimes we’re facing here in central Vermont. I apologize for this lapse. It’s time for me to be honest about some of these challenges.
So here is a show about crime.
This important report was read by Scott Carrier, host of Home of the Brave.
Jay Allison makes the kind of radio that made me want to make radio. It isn’t news and it doesn’t really have a beginning middle and end but it’s personal and surprising and you get to fall in love with strangers and that’s what I wanted to do. We got together and talked about getting old and irrelevant, because that’s what I think about a lot. We also talked about what radio stories can do in a time when people are inclined to hate each other, or what we really hope stories can do.
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.com
LINKS
Transom
Jay Allison
Atlantic Public Media
WCAI
Thanks to Tobin Anderson and Vicki Merrick and Amelia Meath and Scott Carrier for their help on this show.
Forrest Foster was loading up the tractor with kindling for deer camp, two days before rifle 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. And on this day we rode the tractor down to the deer camp and sat and talked about hunting and caretaking and walking with goats and horses. And loneliness. Pretty much all the stuff people end up talking about at deer camp.
A conversation about working in HOLLYWOOD. And Marcel the Shell makes several adorable appearances.
Leland graduated from high school. Here is a show with all the Lelands, past and present.
Tiana and I talk about what she has planned for her 1-year anniversary with her boyfriend.
Finn's bell finds its home at Hazen Union High School and rings in the Hardwick Memorial Day Parade.
Chris and Beth got a puppy and recorded the first seven months. It was harrowing. And hilarious.
Helena is taking her citizenship test. I asked her to record what it feels like to become an American.
I was cleaning and listening to Foreigner and I thought of Grant Owen. The perfect company for New Years.
DETOUR!!! We’re collecting comments on THIS page. GO to the bottom of the page and you’ll find comment section.
Finn Rooney killed himself in Walden, Vermont. This is a story about who he was and what he left.
In cases where a defendant seems unjustly accused, the defense attorney is our hero. But if they seem guilty…or if it’s an especially violent crime, we look at these lawyers and wonder…how can they do that?
This is a show about the people who stand with the accused.
You’ll hear five perspectives on the art of criminal defense, and you’ll hear some great stories. Which makes sense because telling great stories is part of the job description.
Hear the Full Interviews
Here are the (relatively) unedited interviews with the attorneys. I’ve removed redundancies, overly personal material, and questions of my own that were too wandering and obtuse. Sadly, the interview with Scott Williams was too damaged to include. I salvaged small sections for the show, but most of the interview suffered from ‘faulty microphone.’
Dan Sedon:
Kelly Green:
Kerry DeWolfe Part 1:
Kerry DeWolfe Part 2:
Richard Rubin Part 1:
Richard Rubin Part 2:
The Lawyers
Richard Rubin Esq., Rubin, Kidney, Meyer & Vincent
Kerry B. DeWolfe, Esq., Appellate Division, Office of the Defender General
Dan Sedon, Esq., Sedon and Ericson, P.C., Chelsea, Vermont
Kelly Green, Esq., Staff Attorney, Prisoner’s Rights Office, Office of the Defender General
Scott R. Williams, Esq., Williams Law Group, LLC
Special Thanks
This show was mixed by the wonderful Colin McCaffrey. The featured photo is another great contribution by Josh Larkin. Thanks too to David Schulman for his music!
And thanks to Colin Dickerman, G, RSH, Larry Massett and especially Tamar Cole for all the help and feedback.
I ask Jane Lindholm all the questions I've been wanting to ask for years. In her garage.
Police here in central Vermont have been overrun with calls...and the cases are complex. Here is a special report.
A scientist on growing up second born in a one-child policy China. And we talk about the brain. And fish.
To celebrate Inauguration Day...a show from Shaking out the Numb...PARTY IS EVERYTHING.
We talk about his childhood in the South, and one of the great loves of his life--Mr. Rogers.
A guest show from Bianca Giaever about loneliness, God, and the quest to live a meaningful life.
Another celebration of mundane, beloved objects used in our unglamorous everyday lives...
Leland just finished 10th grade in the middle of a pandemic. We sat in separate cars and talked things over.
Pots and pans in Barcelona, in Toronto, in Putney, Vermont. Your recordings of the pandemic.
Your pandemic stories, arguments, songs, middle of the night thoughts, grocery runs. Let's make some damn shows.
Susan and I lie on the couch and talk about her PI work, and some of the benefits of getting older.
It's not a nursing home. It's not assisted living. It's a house...where love is evident.
Ben Kilham knows black bears better than anyone you know. And I could listen to him talk forever.
Patrick Soniera loves bobcats more than most anyone else, and every now and then he kills one.
The 5th episode of the radio drama, Problems. Joel just came back from vacation. But of course...there were problems.
'What good is a poem? Maybe the good lies in the fact that there’s no easy answer to that question...'
Leland and I drove to Number 10 Pond and talked about high school. And girls. And avocado toast.
One instrument comprised of thirty instruments, played by a unique collection of individuals in central Vermont.
Stories from the people who stand with victims of crime, from investigation through conviction.
A radio drama about two friends who support each other through their problems...in this episode, coffee and public school.
Captain JP Sinclair has investigated Vermont's most notorious homicides. Plus we used to play little league together.
A second conversation with T.O. about starting a new life after prison. Which is complicated.
Almost 50. The kids almost launched. Susan has a treatable cancer. We talk about what happens next.
I followed Christine Hallquist in the last days of her gubernatorial campaign. She was fun.
Leslie hears voices. This is a story about what it’s like to be normal, from Leslie’s point of view.
What it's like day to day, year to year, to be the parent of a child with schizophrenia.
A story about Vermont’s only permanent, supervised housing for people with serious mental illness.
Steve has spent decades wandering alleyways, climbing under bridges...documenting graffiti.
A show about the love and art of teaching elementary school. And 6th grade mating rituals.
Amelia Meath of Sylvan Esso takes a slow drive before soundcheck. She's a really good driver.
The fourth season of Leland, my neighbor on the next hill over. This year...survival, cow skulls and North Korea...
Private investigator Susan Randall talks about preparing a life story for a sentencing...then moving on.
Ryan Lott, founder of Son Lux, talks about where he goes looking for music in his brain.
A valentine to people learning to work in the world, and the people helping them get there....
At 26, Scott Carrier hitchhiked across the US and ended up at NPR's front door. This is the story.
An annual season's greetings card from the Danforths. Fair warning, they had a rough year.
Tim Kasten's words on death and dying, and building a pine box for Tim, after his death.
Scott Carrier tells the story of a place in the wilderness far, far away from the news. It's a musical.
A public radio program that gives your mind a chance to open its windows. Open them and then...see what happens!
It's been a year since we've heard from my neighbor, Leland. Here's what's on his mind.
The last U.S. Ambassador to Syria arrived in the country just in time for the civil war to begin....
"Two pigeons, named Cody and Megan, were house hunting on the balcony of my apartment..."
Retired Vermont judge Ed Cashman talks about 25 years on the bench, and why punishment is never enough.
Victor is an undocumented Mexican farm worker whose future is increasingly uncertain. What is it like to never feel safe?
"When my son was three and just learning to talk, he informed me that 'he' was a 'she'."
Seasonal depression, Dunkin' Donuts, and learning about civic engagement in middle age.
Steve Sheinkin talks about boring textbook writing, the politics of American origin stories, and Benedict Arnold's leg.
A short visit into the mind of Nicholas, who waits patiently for his first child to make an appearance.
That’s the thing about lentils, if they were going to soften, they would have already fucking softened.
Painter Charlie Hunter talks about what it feels like to make paintings, and we drive around in his Honda Element.
Private investigator Susan Randall and I drive around and talk about criminal justice and single parenting.
A stolen garage door clicker and a growling female. Here's your summer police report from central Vermont.
A conversation with Bread and Puppet founder and director, Peter Schumann. And some fiddling and drumming.
When Bill was diagnosed with terminal cancer, he asked his best friend to help him die.
I'm Aunt Bea. This is Aunt Lil. Both musty with penciled in moustaches and the stodgy good breeding of cauliflowers...
Scott Carrier spent a summer administering an hour-long mental health test with individuals in Utah. This is his story about it.
Here's a seasonal roundup of highlights from a year in the Becht family. Happy Holidays!
We talk about his new book. And writing. And middle age. And demonic possession...something for everyone.
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/234650376″ params=”color=ff5500&inverse=false&auto_play=false&show_user=true” width=”100%” height=”20″ iframe=”true” /]Today…Hot Bird.
This is a short show in celebration of the season of turkeys, and catching them. Then eating them.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. And for those of you listening outside the United States, I hope you happen to have a really great meal planned with good friends. With or without a hot bird.
This show features Barry Forbes, a hunter in Middlebury, Vermont, and I made that show with tape from the Vermont Folklife Center.
Take a moment to locate the emergency exit, situated in the ceiling right above your seat...
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/231822021″ params=”color=ff5500&inverse=false&auto_play=false&show_user=true” width=”100%” height=”20″ iframe=”true” /]The time has come to draw names for the Schwag Membership Pledging and Sustaining Campaign Event Raffle. This is the first consolidated shilling campaign I’ve done and I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned that you’re listening as far away as Arthur’s Pass in New Zealand and I’ve learned that there are listeners right here in my town who are willing to dig into their public radio fund to support this podcast. I’ve received letters with great show ideas and stories about your lives and what you’re thinking about these days….I’m humbled in a way I can’t describe.
Thank you for your generosity, your letters and emails, and your ears. I am your biggest fan.
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/228542605″ params=”color=ff5500&inverse=false&auto_play=false&show_user=true” width=”100%” height=”20″ iframe=”true” /]Dear Listeners,
I love making this show and I am endlessly grateful to those of you have donated. These donations keep my car running and give me time to work on the show. So recently I was listening to the pledge drive on my local public radio station and I thought, I’m going to do that. Except my pledge drive will only be seven or eight minutes long and there will be inspirational music AND excellent prizes.
So here is my version of a pledge drive, with very special schwag for five lucky winners of the Schwag Show Raffle. The raffle will be drawn at 5:00PM Eastern Time on Thursday, November 5th.
Good luck everyone, and once again….thank you for making this show possible.
Erica
When friends potty trained at the dinner table, childhood educator Brett Berk figured it was time to write a book.
Larry Massett sent me this weird story. I’m hoping it's the beginning of weird new podcast...
She mucks about at the intersection of libraries, technology and politics. Then reports back...
After 25 years of interviewing for the Mark Johnson Show, Mark Johnson gets interviewed about interviewing.
Some calls in to the police in central Vermont this summer. There were odors. A machete was seen.
Larry Massett and Joe Frank talk about the supremacy of their cars. It's like debate club except without facts.
An intimate conversation about the loss of a baby. What happens after the hardest thing happens?
What we imagine our lives will be, what our lives have been, and discussion of age appropriate clothing.
Marc Estrin shares his pearls of wisdom from school. There were only three.
Cooking...the art that yields profound shame and frustration.
Flurries will stick around, possibly turning to wet snow east of Route 2. Here is...Eyes on the Sky.
Welcome to The Mudroom. This is a commentary from Hilton Dier of Middlesex, Vermont. He proposes that much of Vermont politics is really about who has enough time and money to…show up.
Please fling us your comments at the bottom of this page! We love to hear from you.
Hilton is a renewable energy consultant and author of the incomparable blog, Minor Heresies using Advance Systems.
The Mudroom is a joint commentary series by Rumble Strip Vermont and The Dooryard.
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Tonight I was driving home from Montpelier with my son, and we were both happy because today really did feel like maybe spring will come this year, and we were listening to Miriam Bernardo sing. It was a recording I made of a house show a couple years ago. There’s something so beautiful to me about this live recording, and I figured I’d share one of the songs with you. Here’s Miriam, and Michael Chorney on guitar and Rob Morse on bass. This is Love Came Here, by Lhasa de Sela.
Welcome to spring everyone.
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Upcoming Miriam shows:
April 4, Steady Betty at the lamp shop, Burlington. 9pm
April 17, Magic City at the Haybarn. 8-10pm
May 1, Waking Windows music festival in Winooski. Steady Betty 7:30pm
May 9, Betty Brew fest at the big picture in Waitsfield. 10pm steady b.
June 4,6,7, Soloing with the Montpelier Chamber Orchestra. Unitarian Church. 7pm.
The life and times of Solidod, an Apache original.
An unvarnished perspective on aging by a poopy old man.
Larry Massett travels back to Romania with Andrei Codrescu. And the ghosts are watching.
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Welcome to the Mudroom, a joint commentary series of Rumble Strip Vermont and The Dooryard.
Israel has been a substantial recipient of US foreign aid since the state’s inception. According to Mark Hage, Israel is also the recipient of some of Vermont’s finest ice cream, which is sold in Israeli settlements. Do we have a social responsibility to rally against Ben & Jerry’s presence in the Israeli occupied territories?
Mark Hage is a Palestine solidarity activist with Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel. He lives in Montpelier, Vermont. You can learn more about VTJP and its Ben & Jerry’s campaign, click on the link below.
Jessamyn West studies and writes about the digital divide and she solves technology problems for a living. This summer she found herself unemployed, and forced to use some of the same state agency websites she’d been helping others to use–namely, Vermont Health Connect, and the Department of Labor.
The results were not pretty. Here’s a commentary about it.
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The Mudroom is a joint commentary series of Rumble Strip Vermont and The Dooryard.
Photo of Jessamyn by Liz West.
A Wiki link to Jessamyn…
For generations of Vermonters, Thursday nights in the summer have meant one thing....Thunder Road.
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Welcome to The Mud Room, a joint commentary series from Rumble Strip Vermont and The Dooryard.
This is A Man of Wealth and Taste, a commentary in response to Dick Cheney’s editorial in the Wall Street Journal on June 17, 2014. It is written by Robby Porter. Robby is a woodworker and hydro plant operator and lives in Adamant, Vermont.
Please post and sling your comments at the bottom of this page. We love to hear from you.
Welcome to The Mud Room, a joint commentary project of Rumble Strip Vermont and The Dooryard.
In this first commentary we bring you Walt Amses, a writer and former educator in North Calais, Vermont. The essay is called The 17 Dollar Tomato, and it welcomes us to the special tyranny of gardening season in Vermont.
Send us your tired and poor
We want to hear your stories of gardens past and present. Your failed attempts, your bolted greens. Tell us about your woodchuck problems, your canning burns, your rotten tomatoes, your garden rock collections. Or maybe some trick of equanimity you know, that might help us all. Comment below. We love to hear from you.
For generations of Vermonters, Thursday nights in the summer have meant one thing….Thunder Road. This quarter mile short track opened in 1960 and it’s home to some of the most passionate drivers and fans you’re likely to find anywhere. In this show, owner Tom Curley talks about the culminating race of the season, the Milk... Read the rest...
Everyone's heard about the counter-cultural festival called Burning Man. But you may not know about Boring Man...
The Great Wall of China was built with no mortar. Scott Carrier's wall was also built with no mortar. Here's his story.
Here is one final deer story, recorded this year after youth hunting weekend. Jack Fannon, 12, went out hunting on his parents’ land in Calais, with friend, mentor, and hunter safety instructor Bob Raskevitz. Here’s what happened….
An interview with poet, teacher, and reigning Vermont poetry slam champion, Geof Hewitt.
The US invaded Afghanistan. Scott Carrier decided he ought to go there too. To see for himself. Who are these fanatics, these fundamentalists, the Taliban and the like? What do they want?
Singer Miriam Bernardo talks about making a life in music in central Vermont. And she sings.
Musician and producer Colin McCaffrey talks about finding inspiration, music as a career, and mushroom foraging...