Rumble Strip

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 someth...

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 aroun...

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...

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 trai...

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...

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 Fletche...

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 Afr...

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 wa...

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 ...

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 peo...

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 person...