Rumble Strip

I interviewed T.O. back in the summer of 2017. He’d just gotten out of prison, where he’s spent the majority of his adult life, and he was trying …

I spent the night before deer season at Jim Welch’s deer camp in Chelsea, Vermont. His camp is an old school bus, outfitted with a woodstove and a …

A lot of you who listen to the show regularly already know Susan Randall. She’s a private investigator and an old friend and I interview her now …

Rob Mermin and Bill Morancy lived in neighboring apartments in Montpelier, Vermont. They were best friends.  And when Bill was diagnosed with terminal cancer, he asked his best friend to help him die.

In 2013, …

This is a show about women running for office. It’s not about issues or policies. You won’t learn where these women stand on public education or …

This is a conversation with Bread and Puppet founder and director, Peter Schumann…a conversation in which I ask him over and over again to answer questions that don’t really have answers, about what makes a great …

I spent a day riding around with game warden, Jeff Whipple, on the second weekend of deer season…just when some hunters are getting frustrated they haven’t got their deer yet.

Exciting things happened.

Game wardens …

People having mental health crises are visiting emergency rooms in record numbers. But emergency room nurses are not trained to treat mental illnesses. This problem isn’t unique to Vermont. In fact it’s an acute problem …

Robert Ford served as the last U.S. Ambassador to Syria. He arrived in the country right before the protests began there in 2011 and he was witness …

What most people outside Vermont know about Christine Hallquist is that she was the country’s first transgender gubernatorial candidate. But it’s not what she ran on–and it’s not even what was most interesting about …

Welcome to another episode of Problems–a series about Pam and Joel, two old friends who support each other through their problems. Because no …

More and more Vermonters can’t afford groceries by the end of the month. The paycheck isn’t enough. The food stamps won’t stretch. And they’re …

Sarah Holland had no history of mental illness. She was a full-time R.N., she had three kids and a small farm. She was busy. Then suddenly she …

There are Vermonters who experience psychiatric crises for years — and repeated visits to emergency rooms and psychiatric hospitals. Where do they go when they leave the hospital? And why do they keep coming back? …

Connie’s son was diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was nineteen, just as he was becoming independent. He didn’t believe there was anything wrong with him. He did not want to seek treatment. And since he was …

How should people live long-term in our state if they have a serious mental illness? The hope is that they’ll find ways to integrate into their …

A story about Vermont’s only permanent, supervised housing for people with serious mental illness.

Featuring:

• Anne Donohue, state representative …

Leslie Nelson has heard voices for as long as she can remember. She sees things other people don’t see. This is a conversation about what it’s like to be normal, from Leslie’s point of view, and the incredible power …

Both Alexis and Steve were diagnosed with schizophrenia. This is the story about how meaningful, paid work plays a role in their recovery.

…

We didn’t have cheerleading at my school. Or pep rallies. I think we would’ve made fun of cheering and cheerleaders at my school. Because we were …

My friend Tim Kasten died two weeks ago.

Ever since I met Tim, he’s been preparing for his own death. Partly because he had significant medical issues. But I think mostly he was preparing for his death because he …

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.

–Rumi

This winter Susan Randall worked with the defense on a …

Thomas Caswell has autism. Which doesn’t tell you very much about him.

Autism doesn’t describe a person. If you’ve met one person with autism, then you’ve met one person…with autism. But over the last couple years …

Daphne Kalmar was a school teacher for over twenty years. She taught in California, Massachusetts and then in a small school in Vermont. She was …

It’s almost summer here in central Vermont, and as it gets hotter, it seems to get more dangerous. Law enforcement is working hard behind the scenes …

I picked Amelia up at The Shelburne Museum the other day. It was a few hours before her soundcheck so she had some time to kill and we took a slow drive down by the lake. She drove. She’s a good driver.

Amelia is one …

The Northeast Kingdom is mostly small towns separated by miles and miles. Sometimes it’s featured in trout fishing magazines. It also has some of the …

A couple weeks ago my son and I volunteered at the soccer Special Olympics in Northfield, VT. The athletes came from all over the state and the teams …

The first time I learned of Amelia Meath was in an email exchange. She’d written me a nice note about Rumble Strip and at the end she wrote–in rather an understated way–‘P.S. I’m in a band. It’s called Sylvan Esso.’ …

Welcome to the second episode of Problems, an occasional mini-series of  Rumble Strip. Problems. Because no problem is too small to complain …

Steve Grody has dedicated his life to his passions. He’s an accomplished swing dance teacher. He’s a self defense instructor. And in the last twenty-eight years, he’s taken tens of thousands of photographs of graffiti …

Depending on who you talk to, The Shaggs were either one of the best bands from the ’60s, or one of the worst bands of all time.

Helen, Betty and Dot Wiggin grew up in Fremont, New Hampshire. They had no interest in …

This is a show I made back in 2008. I’m running it as a tribute to my friend Greg Sharrow. Greg was one of the first people I met when I came back to Vermont in 2003. I didn’t have many friends, I didn’t have a job or …

I’ve been reading the news too much. I read every version of the same story in every news outlet, and sometimes I forget I’ve read them and I read them again. I think a lot of people are feeling concerned and even …

It’s time again for another conversation with my neighbor Leland. He’s fourteen now. He just finished eighth grade. He’s got big plans for the summer.

This is the fourth year I’ve interviewed Leland about what he’s …

Some of life’s inevitable problems are big and some are quite small. But no problems are too small to complain about.

Welcome to the first installment of Problems…a periodic radio drama about…problems. Joel and Pam’s …

Directions to Carl Blaisdell’s house: Go about seven miles down this road. Then there’s a road that kind of goes up to a Jersey farm on the left and then there’s a pond. But there’s no sign to the pond. So after the …

Son Lux is a band that doesn’t live comfortably in any genre. Their sound is massive, anthemic, but it’s also strangely intimate. The rhythms are incredibly complex, and it’s shot through with these bright details of …

This is another guest show from radio producer Scott Carrier, which he produced when he was twenty-six. He hitchhiked across the United States, interviewed people along the way, and ended up at the door of NPR in …

It’s really dark here in Vermont this time of year. And every year, by the third week in January, I feel like I’m seeing everything through the wrong end of a telescope. A dirty telescope. I stop wanting to answer the …

This fall my friend and I were going for a walk and as we walked past a small barn set down off the Upper Road in Calais, we heard someone from the barn call up to us and say, ‘You wanna come see some pigs?’

Of course …

A few weeks ago I got a call from my friend Susan Randall, the private investigator you might remember from previous shows. She said that ‘T.O.’–a former client in a federal public defender case–had just been released …

Rob Mermin had a career as a mime clown for forty years, then in 1987 he started a circus company here in Vermont called Circus Smirkus. Three years ago he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease.

This is a story about …

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.

Now Vaughn Hood runs a hair salon in St. Johnsbury with his …

Peter Dunning’s farm is a Vermont hill farm. It’s a hundred and thirty-six acres of forest and orchards and wet spots and steep, rocky pasture, picked over by farmers for hundreds of years. It’s the kind of place that …

It’s been some time since we’ve heard reports from the police about criminal activity here in Vermont. And I’m sorry to say that so far this summer, …

Steve Sheinkin is an award-winning writer of  stories for kids about American history. When he started out, he was a writer of boring textbooks for kids about American history. When he started, he was young and …

My mother used to say that everyone should waitress at least once.

So I did. And I failed.

In this program, I talk with some of the finest waitstaff …

Mind Windows is a public radio program that gives your mind a chance to open its windows. Open them and then…

Last month, Attorney General Jeff Sessions sent a memo to all federal prosecutors, with new directives for charging and sentencing in criminal cases. He’s directed federal prosecutors to charge defendants with the most …

Last summer I interviewed my friend Susan Randall, a private investigator. Susan trained me as an investigator, and we’ve spent whole days driving …

For the last four and a half years, Victor’s been working on dairy farms in the Northeast. Like 11 million other people in this country, he’s undocumented. I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve always assumed I knew this …

This is a show about how the charitable food system works and how it’s not working.

The topic of hunger is not very exciting. Stories about problems that have always been problems are generally not very exciting. And …

The Eventide Singers are a volunteer hospice choir based in Greenfield, Massachusetts. They aim to comfort people who are ill, homebound, or …

I was meeting a friend at a coffee shop and a song came on the radio that I hadn’t heard since I was in my late twenties. It reminded me of a time when I’d stay up all night long with friends, talking and drinking …

The recent school consolidation bill promised to lower our taxes. Then it promised equal opportunity for all kids. It’s unclear how it will deliver …

It’s spring in Vermont, and it’s been a full year since we heard from my friend Leland. When we left him last year, he was just about to graduate …

Ed Cashman spent twenty-five years on the bench, presiding over drunk driving cases and murders and everything in between. After a while, he started to question whether the American criminal justice system was actually …

When Marlo Mack’s son was three and just learning to talk, he informed his mother that he was not a boy. He said that something had gone wrong in her tummy that made him come out as a boy instead of a girl.

Today, a …

Last winter I made a show about working for the Department of Children and Families and I’d promised to make a show about what it’s like to be a parent whose had to work with this state agency, which is responsible for …

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 …

It has been a very troubling few years at Vermont’s Department of Children and Families. In 2014 there was a string of child deaths in …

Ho ho ho! It’s time again for the annual seasonal update from the Keen family!

In certain American subcultures, there’s a long holiday tradition of …

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Here is hunter Barry Forbes talking about turkey hunting again. I could listen to Barry Forbes talk about turkey …

It’s hot here in central Vermont, and there’s a whole lot of crime going down. Here’s a sampling of calls to the police, as reported in the Times …

This is a show about love, family and dementia. Part one features a show I made in 2008 about one family’s experience living with an elderly mother’s progressive dementia. Part two features an interview with one of the …

Charlie Hunter is a plein air painter, which is a fancy way of saying he paints outside. His paintings of Vermont are stark and evocative and …

“That’s the thing about lentils, if they were going to soften, they would have already fucking softened. Honestly, you’d be better off waiting for …

Today, an interview with songwriter and Grammy winning record producer Jim Rooney. He and his wife Carol live in an old farmhouse in Sharon, Vermont, …

I met Jubal Durivage through my boyfriend, Gordon. Gordon and his two partners, Robby and Hilton, own a small hydroelectric plant way up near the Canadian border. It was pretty rundown when they bought it, and over …

Michael Chorney is a self taught musician, arranger and composer. If you asked me what genre of music he makes, I’d have no idea. All of them? None of them?

He spent years mastering different musical genres in both …

Leland Kennedy lives one hill over from me in East Calais, Vermont. I interviewed Leland last year when he was ten, and I’ve received some letters from listeners wondering what he’s up to and what he’s been thinking …

I have been remiss in reporting on calls to the local police. I apologize. Here is a sampling of reports to the Barre and Montpelier police in the …

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 …

Here’s another show from my friend Larry Massett’s brain. The story is called Aunties, and it’s from his soon-to-be-released podcast, Lick The Crickets. Lick the Crickets is a podcast that’s been coming soon for quite …