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Artwork for Rumble Strip

Society & Culture

Rumble Strip

Erica Heilman / Rumble Strip, Erica Heilman

Good conversation that takes its time, hosted by Erica Heilman.

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20 episodes
Updated July 10

Episodes20

July 10 · 20 min
Rest in Peace Bonnie Tyler
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.
July 2 · 21 min
Let's make a show about the fourth of July
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.
June 18 · 12 min
Life of Kaye: Healthy Dollars
This is the second episode of a periodic series I’m making called Life of Kaye. Making Rumble Strip is the closest I can get to understanding what it’s like to be someone else. But what would happen if I wasn’t standing around holding a mic and asking a lot of questions? For the last year I’ve been asking my friend Kaye Phipps to record voice memos on her phone and send them to me. I love listening to these recordings. It feels like looking at a whole life through a keyhole. Life of Kaye isa s
May 28 · 10 min
Life of Kaye: Some kind of a speaker
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.
May 21 · 18 min
A Day on the Road with a Visiting Nurse
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 them, and I expect there are a lot of people out there like me. So this is a show about the nurse
May 1 · 7 min
Ladies' Day at Vermont Quick Lube
Vermont Quick Lube is a stay-in-your-car oil change place and car wash in Barre, Vermont. Wednesday is Ladies' Day and since I love Vermont Quick Lube, I made a story about it. On a Wednesday.
April 30 · 53 min
A Requiem for Larry Massett
A special airing of A Requiem for Larry Massett, produced by The KItchen Sisters Present, and Barrett Golding and Transom. It's really good.
April 9 · 13 min
I Eat the Marshmallow
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 morning’s story. A couple hours later I got a reaction audio from one of the people featured i
April 9 · 20 min
A Springtime Show about the Economy that Partly Explains why We’re Ashamed
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 asked her if she’d be willing to share some of her thoughts on the economy on the phone. She said ye
March 6 · 16 min
Hold On
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 sure it was a song everyone could sing. And they did. Now people are singing this song all over the world. People in Minneapolis
January 29 · 7 min
What class are you, Habib and Arwa?
A conversation about the roles of race and class in the lives of two biracial teenagers in Vermont.
January 28 · 15 min
What class are you Kaye?
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.
January 27 · 9 min
What class are you Jules?
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.
January 26 · 8 min
What class are you Trudy?
Trudy Richmond lives in subsidized senior housing in Burlington. She’s educated and worked all her life, but at a certain point, Trudy realized that she had too little money to pay for a comfortable retirement and too much to qualify for services that might make her retirement more comfortable. In this episode of What Class are You, Trudy talks with reporter Erica Heilman about how she negotiated a comfortable retirement for herself.
Dec 9, 2025 · 20 min
The Thanksgiving Show
This is a show about Thanksgiving, and what it sounds like. It is made entirely of your recordings.
Nov 26, 2025 · 3 min
Thanksgiving show SAMPLER
Hello all. Here's a little sample of the show I'm trying ot make with YOU this Thanksgiving...
Nov 25, 2025 · 2 min
Let's Make a Show about Thanksgiving
This is me imploring YOU to make some recordings this year about your Thanksgiving.
Nov 11, 2025 · 29 min
An American Life
Vaughn Hood was an 118-pound barber in his late teens when he was drafted and sent to Vietnam, and in Vaughn’s war, most men didn’t survive their first three month tour. I met Vaughn through my sister. He was her hairdresser in St. Johnsbury, and he mentioned his time in Vietnam while he was cutting her hair. They didn't talk much about it, but she recommended him to me. We sat down in the back of his salon one day and I turned my recorder on, and we had one of the most remarkable conversations
Nov 3, 2025 · 14 min
The Party
My friend Jesse had a birthday party. I attended but spent the entire time lying down upstairs in the guest room. I asked people who attended the party to send me voice memos about the party. This is a show comprised of these recordings. And whales. Happy birthday Jesse.
Oct 21, 2025 · 26 min
Joslyn House Revisited
People often assume the Joslyn House is a nursing home, probably because a lot of old people live there. But it’s not a nursing home. It’s not assisted living. There’s no anonymous art on the wall. It’s a house. It’s a a place where up to twenty older people live independently together…in a huge, elegant house furnished with their own things. It is a place where you don’t have to worry about cooking, where if you’re lonely at night there‘s someone to talk to, or sit with. In other words, a civil