Rumble Strip

This is the fourth episode of What Now Sounds Like, a periodic series comprised entirely of your recordings from all over the world, in which we try to capture these strange times in audio. In this show you hear from Bryce in New York City, Stephanie in middle Appalachia, Tobin making eggs in Santa Rosa, California, George in New York City, Allison in Vermont, the Utah symphony warming up, gongs in Tacoma, Washington, a school meeting about AI in the classroom, Early in Arkansas, Jenn in London, coyotes in Middlesex Vermont, Rachel in Tonga, horns celebrating Tibetan New Year in Kathmandu, Marlo in Washington, and Amelia humming in Durham North Carolina. 

This was the inaugural year of Hardwick State, a weekend long university in Hardwick, Vermont, organized by the Civic Standard, and designed to take place during the awfulest time of the year. People from around Hardwick become professors and students. Classes are free, and everyone's welcome to teach at Hardwick State. Maybe you teach something you do in your regular job. Maybe it's just something you're good at. Maybe it's something you're not very good at but you love it and you're better than most.Here are some highlights from Hardwick State.  Visit the Civic StandardPhotos by Terry J. Allen. For a steady stream of great photos and essays, visit Terry's substack here. It's free.

Death in Venice is a story Larry Massett produced in the early 80s. Joe Frank narrates, and Larry wrote and performed all the music.

We're raising money to rebuild Forrest Foster's barn. This is a very short story (plea) about it. And here is the GoFundMe!!  

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. Thankfully he had his flashlight in his trunk.

This is the second show for LARRY MASSETT TRIBUTE WEEK.Larry Massett owned two Porsches, and he talked about them all the time. His friend, Joe Frank, in addition to being one of the greatest radio producers of all time, was a BMW guy. They decided to argue about this, and then have a drag race that would decide things. 

Larry Massset died last week. He was my mentor and my favorite radio producer. His stories was insane and brilliant and heretical and sublime. I wouldn't have become a radio producer without his guidance and his stories to inspire me. I'm going to run a series of his shows as a tribute to him. This first show is The Eyes of Sibiu, about a trip to Romania with Romanian-American poet and novelist Andrei Codrescu.

The Haskell Free Library and Opera House was intentionally built to straddle two nations and two communities. Three quarters of the building is in Stanstead, Quebec and one quarter is in Derby Line Vermont, and it's been the local library for both communities for over a century.  The main entrance to the library is in the U.S., and for as long as anyone can remember, Canadians have been allowed to walk the 70 feet of sidewalk around the building to that front entrance.But in late January of this year, the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem paid a surprise visit to the library while she was up touring some of the Vermont border crossings, and she did a little show for everyone there. And starting in October, Canadians will no longer be able to visit their local library without passing through a border crossing.This is a show about it. 

This is a show about the challenges of getting health insurance and understanding health insurance and paying for health insurance and using health insurance…even for those of us without major medical challenges. It stars my friends Justin Lander and Kaye.The show is sponsored by East Hill Tree Farm, a tree nursery in Plainfield, Vermont.  The nursery opens on April 18th with bare-root trees and shrubs for sale. They're awesome. Go there. 

Recordings: In this show you hear from Carolyn and her neighbors on Coits Gore Road in Vermont, Amanda in the Blue Mountains in New South Wales, dogs in Atlanta, Jeff Sharlet interviewing Pastor Pete in Holiday City, Ohio, Heather's kids in Washington DC, Jarod in West Philly, Susan and Stella in Pittsburgh, a xylophone on the Thea Foss Waterway in Tacoma. You heard my  mom Barbara on my couch, Devon in Gladstone Missouri, the train in Melbourne Australia, Aaron in Shediac New Brunswick, night insects in South Africa, Zack in Lafayette, Indiana, Beverly and her mom in Toronto, Alice in Los Angeles, Mathhew in Glasgow, Scotland, Christina breastfeeding her one week old daughter in Lostine Oregon, Kelly and Dan in Randolph Vermont, basketball dribbling in East Montpelier Elementary in Vermont, and Miles, Stan and Deirdre in New Mexico playing the ngombi and talking about Johannesburg. 

T.O. got out of prison in Rutland a couple weeks ago, after a six and a half year bid.  I met T.O. through my private investigator friend Susan Randall in May, 2017. He'd been a client of hers in a federal public defender case. T.O.'s been in and out of jail his whole adult life, and it's become a kind of tradition for us to get together and talk when he gets out of jail. We don't talk about his crimes. Mostly we talk about what it's like to start over…over and over. Now T.O. is in his mid forties, and this time he was released in the middle of a Vermont winter. 

Here is episode 2 of What Now Sounds Like, a show I make that is entirely comprised of your recordings. Desperate times call for desperate show methods. I'm hoping that shows made up of all of us will help us all feel less alone.  In this show you hear from: Blake in New York City, James in Sussex England, the Niagara Frontier Radio reading service (thank you Papageorgiou in Brussels...), River in Portland, Oregon, Alice in Fletcher, Virginia, Naomi Hodde in Middlebury, Vermont, Howard in Woodstock Vermont, bells recorded by Melanie in Merida, Mexico, and a fricking amazing recording James made at a professional wrestling even in London. Send me more recordings as they occur to you. You can send them to my email at rumblestripvermont@gmail.com 

What Now Sounds Like is made by all of us. You send me recordings that sound like this time we're living in, and I make shows with them. It could be an argument, your thoughts in the middle of the night, your songs and  hummings....a recording of being on hold with your insurance company...whatever. And tell your friends to send their recordings too. Just email me at rumblestripvermont@gmail.com. In this show, Leonie from South Africa, Alicia from Los Angeles,  Michael from North Carolina, Deanna in Vermont, Arthur and Jeff Sharlet on the Swannanoa River, Amelia in Los Angeles, Anna in Toronto, Susan in Houston, Ben from Nebraska, and my mom, Barbara, on my couch. Music: This is the Northern New England Ensemble, thanks to Tim Garrity. Thank you to EVERYONE who sent recordings. I really do want to use all of them but these shows fit together like puzzles so i need more recordings to make more shows and make more puzzles. So if you're out there listening, pull out your phone and record something and send it to me, and I'll make shows as the puzzle pieces come together. You can send them to me at rumblestripvermont@gmail.com. Also, tell me where you are, and if you can send me a picture that seems to go with the recording in some way, that would be great. I also want to thank Tobin and Chelsea and Vermont Public and I especially want to thank my mom for all her help this week. 

The world is chaotic. Systems are failing, towns are burning. If you need to make an appointment with your doctor you may have to wait til July. So it's time to make a show about it all. I implore you to record moments of your day and send me the audio and I will try to make a show that sounds like RIGHT NOW. Email the recordings to me at rumblestripvermont@gmail.com. 

What Class Are You? is a periodic series about the ways that socioeconomic class shapes our lives.Thankun Thongjunthoug's parents each moved alone to the United States from Thailand in their early twenties to make a new life for themselves. They met in Los Angeles, and started a restaurant there, and a family. But Thankun's father wanted a safer place for his family, so in 2008 they moved to Vermont, where they had to work their way back to owning a business. Their restaurant in Montpelier, Pho Thai Express, has been open since 2015. In this episode of What Class are You?, we talk about what it was like to grow up in an immigrant family, and how Tankhun experienced the undercurrents of the American class system.

What Class Are You? is a periodic series about the ways that socioeconomic class shapes our lives. Today, Episode 4.Katrin Tchana lives in Lyme, New Hampshire, right next to Dartmouth College. Katrin is a social worker, and currently works as a therapist. She grew up in the house where she currently lives, and in this show we talk about her childhood in Lyme, and how that area has changed in her lifetime.  

What Class Are You? is a periodic series about the ways that socioeconomic class shapes our lives. Today, Episode 3...Ingrid Jonas. I met Ingrid Jonas through my friend Marilyn. Ingrid is a retired Vermont state police trooper. She started on patrol, but worked as a detective for most of her career. I'm actually working on a longer story about her now that will come out soon, but at the end of our conversation, I asked her to talk about class in law enforcement, which she did. 

What Class Are You? is a periodic series about the ways that socioeconomic class shapes our lives, even though we don't like to talk about it. I make this series for Vermont Public and I'll be running the new shows on RS all this week.  Mark LaRouche is the the Director of Shelters and Facilities at Good Samaritan Haven in Barre, which serves unhoused people in central Vermont. Mark has also had a lot of experience working with people with addiction issues, and he's good at it. He understands it. Mark lived with severe addiction from his early teens through his late thirties. He was in and out of jail in those years, and we talked about how addiction is its own sort of class. 

What Class Are You? is a periodic series about the ways that socioeconomic class shapes our lives, even though we don't like to talk about it. I make this series for Vermont Public and I'll be running the new shows on RS all this week.  First up, Damian Renzello. Damian lives one town over from me and he's the owner of  and inventor of Porta Rinks, which is a portable ice rink kit. Damian is who you call if you want your own personal hockey rink, and everything that goes with it. He also happens to be exactly  my age. So Damian and I sat in his shop at Porta Rinx headquarters behind his house, and we compared notes on class. 

Forrest Foster found a new old truck, thanks to you listeners. We drove around and talked about the truck and about Forrest's new job and I complained about feeling old. Happy Holidays and thank you for your generosity. Happy Holidays to all! 

Things have been pretty grim around here. I lost my cat Zu Zu and she was only two and a half and she left behind her brother Kenny and Kenny and I aren't doing so great. So. I'm going to play a story I made for Vermont Public about Erika Bruner, a veterinarian who specializes in end of live care for pets. She does at-home euthanasia…in barns, in basements, in fields.  I didn't think I'd need her services so soon. But I did. She's remarkable and she made a very difficult day a little less difficult To learn more about Erika, click here.

We raised ALL the money for Forrest's new old truck and we are so GRATEFUL!!! 

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! CreditsMusic by Brian ClarkThanks to Tara Reese for finding the postingThanks to Tobin and Mike and RoseWelcome the Civic Standard!Thanks to Aubrie St. Louis at the Rehair Shop

The Anair story was produced for Vermont Public.

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

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