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 h…

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…

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…

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.Oleh Allison, Erica Heilman, Vermont Public

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…

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 tim…

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 …

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 …

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.Oleh Bianca Giaver, Erica Heilman, Scott Carrier

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. Cr…

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.Oleh ashley messier, Erica Heilman

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.Oleh rumble strip, Erica Heilman

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.Oleh Kathleen Patrick, Erica Heilman

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 n…

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.Oleh ethan perry, Erica Heilman

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.Oleh Mike Donofrio, Erica Heilman

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.Oleh John Rodgers, Erica Heilman

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.Oleh Garret Keizer, Erica Heilman

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.Oleh Kytreana Patrick, Erica Heilman

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.Oleh Erica Heilman / 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 …

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…

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 cl…

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 bo…