By Erica Heilman / Rumble Strip, Erica Heilman
Good conversation that takes its time, hosted by Erica Heilman.
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A conversation with dairy farmer Forrest Foster in his sugarhouse in the blessed, FINALLY almost springtime in Vermont.
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...
Ashley Messier grew up in Essex, Vermont with an abusive father and with little money, and she found herself repeating the cycle in early adulthood. This is a story about multi-generational poverty and abuse, and the temporary relief of opiates.
Ashton runs a concrete business and in his free time he makes community meals at the American Legion in Hardwick. We sat down to talk about class, which then turned into a conversation about eating, and how eating together as...
Kathleen lives in Derby, Vermont in a subsidized apartment with two cats, two pugs, and about 400 clocks. She was working as a home health aide until COVID hit. She received COVID funding and rent assistance until she didn't. And...
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...
When I met Ethan Perry, he was taking a break from his job at Family Dollar in Orleans VT. At the time he was 29. When I asked him what class he is, he said he grew up lower-middle class....
Mike Donofrio moved to Vermont with his family when he was two years old. He grew up, he left Vermont for college and law school, then he moved back and worked in the attorney general's office. Now he's in...
John Rodgers runs a construction business up in West Glover, Vermont most of the year. He runs a plow business in the winter. He rents properties, he runs a cannabis farm with his son, he's a stonemason. He's one of...
In this episode I talk with one of my favorite poets and writers, Garret Keizer. Garret has written extensively on the history of labor unions and for this show we drove around and talked about the obscene class inequality in...
This is episode 5 of What Class Are You. Kytreana was one of the first people I interviewed for this series. I was driving around the Northeast Kingdom and my last stop was Olney’s General Store in Orleans, right across...
This is episode 4 of a special series called What Class Are You, wherein I drive around asking people to talk about class and privilege and power and money and how much or little of it they've got. Kate...
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...
What Class Are You is a series about money and privilege and how much or little of it you've got. This story is about Isaac, an 18-year-old in Newport, Vermont.
First episode in a series called What Class Are You? This time...Susan Randall, a private investigator in Vermont, talks about growing 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...
These are some stories from Vermont's 100 year flood last July in Vermont. It devastated our state. In my hometown of Calais, we had dirt roads that were so destroyed, with holes so big that people were down there digging...
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,...
East Hill Tree Farm is my new sponsor. It’s the place where I buy all my trees and berry bushes so it’s easy to wax poetic about them. Also it’s a barter. Nicko Rubin is planting some trees here and...
I got in a car accident. For some reason I thought it would make me feel better to talk with Forrest about all the accidents he’s had and how he thinks about pain.
John Rodgers is a stonemason in West Glover. He also runs a construction business, plows driveways and rents properties, and for sixteen years he served in the Vermont Legislature in both the House and the Senate. He works seven days...
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...
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...
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,...
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...
I am a terrible vegetable gardener. And I have friends who are GREAT vegetable gardeners, who also raise their own animals for milk and eggs and meat, and they put up enough food from the garden to get through the...
We just had a massive, devastating flood here in Vermont. And Hardwick got hit pretty hard. This all happened exactly a week after I launched the show about mystery dinner theater in Hardwick, put on by the Civic Standard. As...
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...
This is a show about guns. I made this story for Brave Little State, a podcast of Vermont Public, which invites listeners to create story ideas and then vote on them. I was excited to make a story about guns but...
This is a guest episode by my friend Bianca Giaever, producer of the podcast Constellation Prize. This is the first of a 4 part series called Nightwalking.
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....
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...
It's town meeting day. So let's TALK ABOUT IT AGAIN!
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 and town halls and vote in person, and in public. This centuries long...
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 didn't want to spend a lot of money. She can't wear the...
A show about neighbors helping neighbors. And seasonal depression.
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...
This show is about crime. Really crimey crime.
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...
Sitting at deer camp talking about hunting and loneliness and what to do next.
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...
A conversation about working in HOLLYWOOD. And Marcel the Shell makes several adorable appearances.
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...
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 American life....
What does God have to do with gardening? For Armand...everything.
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...
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 better. So before August is really, really over,...
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 and pork shortages. This year Leland graduated from high school and I...
Tiana and I talk about what she has planned for her 1-year anniversary with her boyfriend.