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 …
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 …
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 …
An important message from RadioPublic
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Music by Justin Lander
Originally 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 …
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 …
Credits: Music by Ishmael Ensemble, John Caroll Kirby, Riley Mulherkar and Elori Saxl
Edited by Daniel Guillemette & Daniel Gumbiner
Sound mix / …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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, …
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 …
Leland is my neighbor and for the last seven years, we’ve been getting together in the spring to talk about his year, and things like God and space …
A couple weeks ago 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 …
Ira Karp lives on a farm in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, surrounded by music, puppets, and a family of incredible storytellers. Over his brief …
This show is a kind of coda to Finn and the Bell....
At long last, the bell is in its tower at Hazen Union High School. The final installation …
Tara Wray is a photographer. And a dog person. She takes pictures of dogs which are haunting and beautiful, and every bit as distinctive as pictures …
I've been thinking of getting a dog for years but even though I have an eighteen-year-old son, I've never felt mature enough to have a dog. So when …
Forrest Foster is a farmer in Hardwick, Vermont. It’s an organic dairy farm, seventy cows total and about forty milking at any given time. I spent …
Helena de Groot grew up in Belgium and is now a radio producer living in New York City. When I found out she was about to take her citizenship test, I asked if she’d be willing to record herself talking about what it …
I am home alone on New Years, cleaning and listening to music, and suddenly I remembered Grant Owen, a kid I interviewed at the beginning of the pandemic, and I realized he is exactly the company I needed. So as you’re …
It’s been another challenging year of the pandemic, and families across the nation are trying to figure out how to be together for the holidays. For …
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 …
Finn Rooney killed himself on January 3, 2020 in the afternoon after school. No one predicted it. There were no signs. All that can be said for sure …
I heard recently that Peter Dunning died. I want to play this again, in tribute. He was an amazing man.
Peter Dunning’s farm was a Vermont hill farm. A hundred and thirty-six acres of forest and orchards and wet …
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, …
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 …
Susan is a private investigator and I interview her a lot for my show. Last week she hit an owl with her car and it died. She didn’t want to leave it on the side of the road so she took it home and put it in the …
At the onset of Covid in March, 2020, the Vermont Supreme Court declared a judicial emergency, suspending all non-essential court hearings. Hearings have resumed, but many are still being held remotely, including …
Zeno Mountain Farm is a camp for people with and without disabilities, which is a super reductive way to describe it. Most other camps are places where people with disabilities are not. They’re missing. Zeno is a …
Chris and Beth sing a lot. You’ve heard them before, if you listened to the show Sing your Job. They were the ones singing Game of Thrones, which …
Alexis Harte is out biking on a chilly afternoon last November when a new song pops into his head and mesmerizes him. It doesn’t seem strange at first — he’s a musician, after all. But when he discovers what was …
Irfan Sehic grew up in Bosnia and spent most of his childhood living in a civil war. One day the kids across the street were his best friends, the …
My friend Bryan Pfeiffer is a writer, educator and field naturalist. He used to be a professional birding guide. He knows all about birds and dragonflies and moths. He knows where they live and what they eat and what …
Jane Lindholm recently left her position as host of Vermont Edition, VPR’s midday public affairs show. In her fourteen years on the show, Jane …
It’s been too long since I’ve reported on police activity here in Vermont and it’s been a challenging time for law enforcement. Calls to police …
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 …
I met Leland when he was in school with my son Henry at Calais Elementary. I interviewed him when he was over playing at our house when he was in …
Here is a little musical about the beautiful minutia of your lives. And I just keep adding to it because our lives just keep going on and on and …
The first time I meet Han MeiMei, we were standing on my deck in Vermont. She looked at the fields around my house and she said, ‘That’s a lot of fields. Have you ever thought of writing messages to airplanes?’ I had …
Rose Friedman and some friends decided to start making free meals on Wednesday nights for anyone who wants them. They set up outside the East Hardwick Grange Hall. A lot of people around here are making food for …
We’re a year into Covid and in Vermont we’re almost into the last stretch of winter and I’ve been thinking a lot about married people, or people partnered with other people living in houses and apartments day after …
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, …
This is a FUN show to celebrate FRICKIN’ INAUGURATION DAY which we’ve been waiting for for 1000 years!!!!!! It’s from the Shaking Out the Numb, a series I made with Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn of Sylvan Esso. The …
It’s been a challenging year. Families are trying to figure out how to be together for the holidays when they can’t be together physically. …
Daniel Kirk is a children’s book author and illustrator and he lives with his wife in New Jersey, about twelve miles outside of Manhattan. They were both infected with COVID last March, before it had spread in the …
Bill Schubart is a writer and a cultural and political commentator. He’s chaired a lot of important boards here in Vermont. He’s really smart and …
I first interviewed them when they played in Vermont in 2017 and we became friends. In fact Amelia is the only person with whom I have two-hour phone conversations that start like this:
‘Hey. What are you doing?’
…
François Clemmons was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1945 on the plantation where his great great grandmother Laura May’s family had been slaves, then he moved with his mother and siblings and aunts and cousins to …
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I’ve been doing a couple freelance jobs for extra money. One requires a great deal of video conferencing. I have learned that I do not excel at video conferencing and at the moment I knew this with certainty, my …
Karl Hammer is the founder and president of the Vermont Compost Company in East Montpelier, right up the hill from Montpelier, the state capital. I first heard about Karl from my friend Rosana, who used to be married …
A GUEST SHOW from one of my favorite radio producers….Bianca Giaever.
During a period of personal loneliness, radio-maker Bianca Giaever set out into New York City, hoping to connect with another lonely stranger. She …
Winnie Wilkinson is originally from Jamaica but she spent half her life in New York City before moving up to St. Albans, Vermont, where black people …
Clare is the curator of the Museum Of Everyday Life, which lives in a barn on Route 16, about eight miles from Glover, Vermont, population 2000. …
I met my friend Leland when he was in first grade and he came over to play with my son Henry. For six years now, we’ve been having a yearly conversation about how he’s doing and what he’s thinking about. He just …
Last month a friend of mine sent me a picture of miles and miles of cars lined up waiting for food that was being distributed by the National Guard here in Vermont. Nineteen hundred cars. I’d never seen anything like …
Here’s our last show, which also happens to be show number seven.
This is Our Show, number six. Your recordings about the pandemic.
In this show you heard from:
Here’s Our Show, number five…your recordings about the pandemic.
In this show you hear from:
Here is Our Show 4, your recordings during the pandemic. Thank you for sending me remarkable recordings from all over the world, and the intense …
This is Our Show number three…made from your recordings during the pandemic.
Keep that tape coming. Let’s keep making damn shows.
This is the second installment of Our Show, which is about all of us during this pandemic, and is made from all the recordings you’re sending to …
It’s amazing. An entire planet of people living mostly in isolation…or those of us lucky enough to be well. It’s the darkest thing to happen in my …
My father died a couple weeks ago. He died peacefully at the UVM Medical Center in Burlington. My mother and sister and I spent six days and …
Susan Randall is a private investigator here in Vermont and she’s been my friend for twenty five years. If you listen to the show, you already know that I interview her periodically for Rumble Strip. We talk in her …
People often assume the Joslyn House is a nursing home, probably because a lot of old people live there. But it’s not a nursing home. It’s not …
An outtake with bear biologist Ben Kilham, about living with dyslexia, and how it informs the way he thinks about bears.
Ben Kilham and his sister Phoebe are the only licensed bear rehabilitators in the state of New Hampshire. For over twenty-five years, the Kilham Bear Center has taken in orphaned or injured black bear cubs and …
For many years I have privately loved the song Total Eclipse of the Heart, by Bonnie Tyler. I started to love it when it came out in 1983, when I was fourteen.
This month I’m turning fifty. And for some reason, every …
Patrick Soniera has been hunting and tracking bobcats in Vermont for fifty years, and he has a diary entry about every single hunt–the weather, …
This is the fifth episode of Problems, a radio drama about Pam and Joel, two old friends who support each other through their problems. In this …
Garret Keizer and I stood together in a field, in the late summer, in the Northeast Kingdom, and he read poems from his new book, The World Pushes Back.
I first heard of Garret a few years ago when I read his book, …
It’s the summer musical in Randolph, Vermont…one day before showtime. It’s been an annual event at Chandler Music Hall for over twenty years, and …
Leland lives over the hill from me in East Calais. We’ve been friends since he was in first grade, and every year around this time we get together and he tells me what he’s thinking about, worried about, what his plans …
If you drive around rural Vermont, you see logging skidders parked in people’s dooryards. You see them working in smaller woodlots and residential woodlots, felling trees with a chainsaw at twenty below zero, dragging …
Gamelan Sulukala is a group of fifteen people in central Vermont who come together at the dead end of a dirt road in the basement of the Goddard …
When I was in high school I remember being amazed by how much grownups seemed to forget about being young. But as it turns out….you do forget. A …
The criminal justice system is not designed to answer to the needs of crime victims. It’s designed to figure out if there’s enough evidence to bring a case. If there is, a defense attorney builds a case for the …
Welcome to the fourth episode of Problems, a radio drama about Pam and Joel, two old friends who support each other through their problems…because …
Captain JP Sinclair has been at the center of over five-hundred death investigations and a hundred-and-one homicides in the state of Vermont. He served as the state’s chief criminal investigator and he led the …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Both Alexis and Steve were diagnosed with schizophrenia. This is the story about how meaningful, paid work plays a role in their recovery.
…
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 …
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 …
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? …
A story about Vermont’s only permanent, supervised housing for people with serious mental illness.
Featuring:
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Welcome to the second episode of Problems, an occasional mini-series of Rumble Strip. Problems. Because no problem is too small to complain about.
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
[Uhm…..satire. In case that wasn’t evident….]
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Here is our annual season’s greetings card, this year from Liz and Jerry Danforth. Fair warning…they had a pretty rough year.
Credits
Script by writer Tal McThenia
The show is a co-production of Rumble Strip and Pod …
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 …
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 …
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 …
The mission of The Museum of Everyday Life is “a heroic, slow-motion cataloguing of the quotidian–a detailed, theatrical expression of gratitude and …
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 …
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 …
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…
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 …
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.’ …
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, …
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 …
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 …
The Eventide Singers are a volunteer hospice choir based in Greenfield, Massachusetts. They aim to comfort people who are ill, homebound, or actively …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
As some of you may remember, last year I did a pledge drive. It was called the Shwag Pledge Drive. I gave away a number of prizes to extremely lucky …
“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 …
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Here is hunter Barry Forbes talking about turkey hunting again. I could listen to Barry Forbes talk about turkey hunting …
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 …
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 …
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, …
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 …
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 …
Last summer I interviewed my friend Susan Randall, a private investigator. Susan trained me as an investigator, and we’ve spent whole days driving …
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 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 …
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 …
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, …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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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 …
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M.T. Anderson is the author of Feed, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, as well as The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, which won the National Book Award. Whether it’s crafting a dystopian future, writing …
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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 …
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If you throw a rock from Fred’s porch and you have a pretty good arm, you can almost hit Canada. He lives way up in Coventry, Vermont, and when I drove up to his place, I found him covered in paint, in one of his …
This summer there have been five bison attacks in Yellowstone National Park, the result of visitors taking selfies with bison in the background. …
“In the cathedral, priests with long black beards and scarlet robes are gliding through the shadows…I feel faint. It’s the heat, the fatigue, frustration — whatever, but there’s a lump in my throat and my eyes are …
This is an interview with a very old friend of mine, and the person who trained me as a private investigator. She taught me everything from basics …
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kuKendall Wild worked for nearly half a century at the Rutland Herald and he’s a legend in Vermont journalism. He died on April 2, 2015. By all accounts he was eccentric, competitive, and utterly committed to getting …
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For the last couple years, in addition to producing this show, I’ve also been doing interviews for an organization called The Wake Up to Dying Project. The basic goal of the project is to encourage people to think and …
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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 …
It’s time again for a sampling from the Barre and Montpelier police logs, as reported in the Times Argus. This month there were a number of …
Radio production and private investigation have a lot in common. You ask questions, find out what happened, and try to figure out why. This is a show I made with Larry Massett for NPR’s Hearing Voices in 2011. None of …
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Larry Massett was driving up through northern California toward Oregon and ended up spending a little more time at Mt. Shasta than he’d had in mind, …
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 …
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 …
This is an essay about cooking and all the shame and rage and frustration that can accompany this art. Writer Sarah Miller describes her desire to be loved and appreciated for her fig galettes, and her decision to quit …
Today, a true story about two strangers who meet and talk very late one night on a northbound NYC subway. The story is from Otto Trautz, and was …
Into Tuesday we’ll see gusty winds, an early morning cold front east of Route 2 and a massive low pressure system delivering winter-like …
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 …
Ed Epstein is a portrait artist of some renown in these parts. But painting has comprised only a fraction of Ed’s artistic life. As a kid in the fifties he hitch hiked across the country with only a banjo and a few …
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 …
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A couple months ago I ran a commentary by Marc Estrin called Poopy Old Man. In this commentary, he talks about feeling increasingly invisible to the …
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From my house, if you take a left through the woods, then a right up a dirt road, and then another right up another dirt road, you come to a really …
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This is a show produced by Larry Massett, for NPR’s Hearing Voices. It features remarkable stories from Solidod, the last remaining member of her …
This week’s episode is about one of life’s hardest and most humbling jobs. Parenting. You’ll hear stories about potty training, power struggles, living with teenagers, character-driven parenting, and negotiating new …
We live in a place where trucks are a kind of passion. It’s not overt. It’s an understated, Vermont kind of passion. According to TheCarStarter.com, Vermonters sometimes heat up when you get them talking about Ford vs. …
We are all busy getting older, for better and for worse. Here is an unvarnished perspective on aging by author Marc Estrin.
Marc Estrin is a writer, …
Welcome to The Mudroom, a joint commentary series of Rumble Strip Vermont and The Dooryard.
In time for the holidays, we bring you a commentary about …
I don’t know what you’d call this. A commentary? A riff? An agricultural lament?
This is how Alan LePage started his show a few weeks ago, and I …
This is a story produced by my friend Larry Massett. A few years ago Larry took a trip with public radio personality Andre Codrescu. Andre grew up in Romania in times of hardship. After twenty years as an American …
From the Saviour’s conception to offerings of gold, Frankenstein and myrrh, six year old Erin Magill of Moretown, Vermont tells her version of the …
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This is an unedited interview I did with a young man in Barre, Vermont in 2011. He gave me permission to use this tape, but I’ve chosen not to use his name in order to protect his privacy. I’ll call him ‘O’.
I had …
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Town is a sound exhibit that I produced for the Kent Museum in Calais, Vermont. It weaves together personal stories and memories about growing up in Calais, and natural sounds recorded around town.
There’s no start or …
This is a raw recording of my son teaching me how to play a card game called Magic. Does anyone know what he’s talking about? Please advise.
And featuring a picture of a cruel pinata in Hancock, Vermont, crafted by my …
Rodney and Theresa Elmer are a taxidermy power duo in Northfield, Vermont. In this interview, they talk about the art and psychology of mounting …
The farther you go from home, the stranger things get.
Here is a story by Larry Massett about the life and work of Paul Bowles.
This program …
Jessamyn West studies and writes about the digital divide and she solves technology problems for a living. This summer she found herself unemployed, …
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 …
Welcome to The Mud Room, a joint commentary series from Rumble Strip Vermont and The Dooryard.
A late night shopping cart reminds Marc Estrin of a song from Schubert’s song cycle, Winterreise (Winter Journey).
Marc …
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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 …
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 …
Everyone’s heard about Burning Man, the counter-cultural festival held every summer in Black Rock City Nevada. Sex, drugs, monumental …
I went to a friend’s house the other night and she led me into her den where her best wood stove was and she sighed and said, ‘And this is where I live.’
It’s been a long winter and a lot of us have spent the better …
A dry wall is built with no mortar. The stones are carefully selected and they interlock and gravity holds them in place. The Great Wall of China was …
For the last year I’ve been conducting interviews about death and dying for The Wake Up to Dying Project–a project that encourages people to think, and talk about death and dying. The goal is to help people be a …
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 …
Alan LePage has been an organic vegetable gardener in central Vermont for over thirty years–long before anyone cared much about organic farming–long, long before words like ‘sustainable’, ‘local’, ‘artisinal’ started …
An interview with poet, teacher, and reigning Vermont poetry slam champion, Geof Hewitt. In this interview, Geof talks about a lifetime of writing …
This is a show about songs, and stories about songs. You’ll hear about sack races, summer camp, love lost and found–and the songs that marked these events. There is some Meat Loaf this hour. There is brave singing and …
This week features radio producer and writer Scott Carrier, reading from his book, Prisoner of Zion. This program was produced by Larry Massett for …
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This week’s episode of Rumble Strip is about the high art of Vermont road maintenance, and the diplomacy required to (almost) please everyone. It features interviews with East Montpelier road foreman Mike Garand and …
Singer Miriam Bernardo talks about what can go right, and wrong—onstage. She talks about how she puts a life together as a musician in central Vermont, and what it feels like to sing, and live—wide open. And? We get to …
In the maiden voyage of Rumble Strip Vermont, musician and producer Colin McCaffrey discusses the expectation of inspiration in a cup of tea, music …
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