Rumble Strip

A few days ago we lost a power ballad hero. Bonnie Tyler is gone. She wrote my favorite song, Total Eclipse of the Heart. Years ago I forced people to listen to me sing this song and then I made a show about it and forced MORE people to listen to me sing it, and talk about turning fifty. So I'm playing it again in honor of Bonnie Tyler.   

This weekend is the fourth of July. The 250th. LET'S MAKE A SHOW ABOUT IT. Record voice memos on your phone and send them to me at rumblestripvermont@gmail.com and I will make a show that sounds like all our holidays together. Conversations, arguments, fireworks, temper tantrums, parades. I'd love to hear it all. 

Credits Life of Kaye is produced by me and Kaye Phipps. Thank you karaoke singers! For more information about monthly karaoke in Montpelier, I think you can find information here . Otherwise, do an internet search for Saphen Von Cabbage karaoke and hunt around. Otherwise ask me and I’ll figure it out and get back to you.

Welcome to a new,  periodic series called Life of Kaye . This first episode is called:  Some Kind of a Speaker .   The series is produced by me and Kaye Phipps. Send us your comments if you have them and thank you so much for listening.

Home health and hospice nurses provide all kinds of healthcare to people in their homes...day and night, and in mud and snow. I knew of these folks because I met some of them after my father came home from the hospital. A nurse came to help with his medications. A VNA therapist came to give him physical therapy. But I wasn’t really aware of these nurses and therapists UNTIL my family really needed...

Vermont Quick Lube is where I've been getting my oil changed for years, because I love it there. They are fast and nice and they offer coffee. Everyone at Vermont Quick Lube is always in a good mood, even in November or January. Recently I went on a Wednesday and Mike, who runs the register, told me it was Ladies' Day and handed me a red carnation and a ticket for a free car wash. It was the excus...

From The Kitchen Sisters Presents: Pioneering radio artist Larry Massett, a producer's producer, who led listeners into unexpected worlds and influenced so many in public radio and beyond, died last year at the age of 80.  The Kitchen Sisters were fortunate to work with Larry on our NPR series Lost & Found Sound and Soundprint. He was a friend and colleague.  We learned of Larry's passing last spr...

This is a same-day reaction to this morning’s story called: A springtime show about how about the economy that partly explains why we feel ashamed. That story features a wonderful listener in Scotland who is a money manager and made some fascinating comments about the last class series. I asked her if she’d be willing to share some of these thoughts on the phone, and she was willing, and that was...

This is a conversation with a money manager in Scotland who has given a great deal of thought to why many of us feel confused and ashamed about our financial lives. After the What Class are You? shows, I often receive interesting commentary, and I’m always frustrated that this commentary can’t become part of a wider conversation. So after receiving two fascinating comments from EM in Scotland, I a...

This is a story about a song. Six years ago, seventeen-year-old Finn Rooney killed himself in his home in Walden, Vermont. A couple days later, his community held a bonfire in the parking lot of Hazen Union High school in Hardwick. Hundreds of people came. Tom Gilbert, who organized the bonfire, asked his friend Heidi Wilson to write a song for the occasion. The song was called Hold On. She made s...

I met Arwa and Habib Meiloud because they’re Anne’s kids and Anne works at the post office in the village here in East Calais. They live in the house right across the road from the post office. Arwa and Habib’s father is from Mauritania and lives out of the country, but both Arwa and Habib were born in the US, and their mother Anne grew up in Vermont. Arwa is 17 years old, Habib is 18. In this con...

Kaye Phipps lives in Montpelier, Vermont. Right now she works as a custodian at a local grocery store. She’s also been a florist, a housekeeper, and a house cleaner. But even though she’s sometimes working multiple jobs, she often comes up short. In this episode, Kaye talks about how having a limited income makes her feel like a child, long into adulthood.

Jules Guillemette grew up on their family farm in Lamoille County, Vermont, which has been in the family nearly 100 years. Since then, Jules has worked as a chef, a meat cutter and now they're an electrician. In this episode, we talk about what it means to own land of enormous value but always be struggling to save enough money.

What Class are You? is a periodic series I make for Vermont Public, which started back in 2022. I wanted to talk with people about growing political and cultural divides without talking about politics or cultural divides. I had no idea how to do it. Then one day I just drove around and asked people what class they are. And what I found was that as dumb and offensive as this question is, people hav...

This is a show about Thanksgiving, and what it sounds like. It is made entirely of your recordings.  Thank you everyone for sending me recordings. We have made a show  that sounds like the whole damn country. Or a lot of it.

A couple days ago I asked you to send me some recordings from Thanksgiving. I figured I'd give you a little better sense of what I'm looking for.  Happy Thanksgiving all!   Erica

Let's make a show about Thanksgiving. I have always wanted to do this, and the time has come. Anyone who is willing, I would love you to record a voice memo this week about your holiday. Stories, anecdotes, songs...I don't know. You don't have to speak in complete sentences. It doesn’t have to be organized. It doesn't have to be funny or important.  If you're willing to record some of the holiday...

Music for this show is by Brian Clark, who is awesome. 

Thank you Phil Edfors of Vermont Public for cleaning up the whale recordings. This was no small feat and I am grateful. The whales were recorded for an oceanic soundscape project at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. 

Credits Thanks to all the residents who talked with me, and the beautiful Arlene and Becky Wright , managers of the house. My friend Kelly Green produced this show with me. She’s great at this PLUS she’s a great defense attorney! If you're in trouble, call Kelly. Click here for more information on the Joslyn House The song for this show is A Wave in the Air by The Imperfectionists , from their lat...

I stopped in to visit with Forrest Foster about his barn project. Here's our conversation.

Williams Family Field of Dreams Tractor Pulls  

A couple weeks ago my friend Susan Randall came to visit. She’s a private investigator and we’ve been friends for thirty years and every  now and then we get together and compare notes on our lives, and on what the hell is going on. Sometimes we talk about her work, sometimes our kids, once we made a show about a dead owl. This has been a very difficult year for Susan. In this  conversation, we ta...

Bryan's substack, Chasing Nature   Bryan's article about the zombie snails and some wicked video

Links: Adopt a Station: Where you can donate to your local public radio station or find stations to support Transom: The place where good radio begins Recent New York Times interview with Bill Siemering about the fate of public radio Information on Transom story trainings Rumble Strip episode w Jay called Fishing with Jay