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Rumble Strip — Places & Travel
Rumble Strip

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

Copyright: Copyright © 2018

Latest Episodes:

Susan on the Brown Couch Feb 11, 2020
Show notes

Susan Randall is a private investigator here in Vermont and she’s been my friend for twenty five years. If you listen to the show, you already know that I interview her periodically for Rumble Strip. We talk in her car, in her backyard…mostly we talk about her work as a private investigator, but lately we’ve been talking about all the complicated things that seem to start happening when you turn fifty. In our last conversation, she was just finishing treatments for breast cancer. And on New Year’s Day this year, she had a terrible medical incident that was a reaction to her cancer medication. So I went over to her house and we lay on the brown couch in her living room. We talked about her work, and some of the benefits of getting older.

Credits

For more information about Susan and her work, visit her site here.

Music for this show is by the excellent Brian Clark

Sponsor!

This show is sponsored by the excellent people at Honey Road, making the best food in Burlington on the corner of Church and Main. Click on the picture and check out the menu…

Joslyn House Jan 15, 2020
Show notes

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 not licensed by the state. 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. There’s socializing when you want it, silence when you don’t, there’s sociable silence… there are three beautiful meals served a day. Residents are given a room, and rent is 1500 dollars a month.

I can’t believe every town doesn’t have a Joslyn House…a place in your own town where you can help each other as you get older. 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 civilized place. A place where love is evident…

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 latest album, Universal Consent.

More of their music

And my frickin ALL TIME FAVORITE IMPERFECTIONIST SONG: Astroplane.

Sponsor!

This show is sponsored by the excellent people at Honey Road, making the best food in Burlington on the corner of Church and Main. Click on the picture and check out the menu…

One more thing about Ben Kilham… Dec 19, 2019

Show notes

An outtake with bear biologist Ben Kilham, about living with dyslexia, and how it informs the way he thinks about bears.

ben and cubs — Bear Man Dec 16, 2019
Show notes

Ben Kilham and his sister Phoebe are the only licensed bear rehabilitators in the state of New Hampshire. For over twenty-five years, the Kilham Bear Center has taken in orphaned or injured black bear cubs and successfully released them back into the wild. And Ben has conducted arguably the longest scientific study of black bear behavior in history.

Until Ben Kilham, black bears were studied mostly using tracking collars. But Ben has spent decades following bears in the woods, sometimes for nine hours at a time. As his orphan cubs acclimate to their natural environment, he watches them. He naps when they nap, he moves when they move, and he studies their complex social behaviors. One of his very first cubs, Squirty, is twenty-four years old this year. She lives in woods near his home, and he’s watched her become a mother, and now a grandmother. Bear biologists have generally assumed that black bears were solitary animals. Ben Kilham has proven them very wrong.

Links

Kilham Bear Center: the place for all information on the rehabilitation program, Ben’s research, videos and books for sale….

Cubs Video: I could not figure out how to attach more video. For more, go to Ben’s website above…

The photos below are lent to Rumble Strip by Ben. Please don’t copy. Thank you!….:
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many cubs — Bear Man Dec 16, 2019
Show notes

Ben Kilham and his sister Phoebe are the only licensed bear rehabilitators in the state of New Hampshire. For over twenty-five years, the Kilham Bear Center has taken in orphaned or injured black bear cubs and successfully released them back into the wild. And Ben has conducted arguably the longest scientific study of black bear behavior in history.

Until Ben Kilham, black bears were studied mostly using tracking collars. But Ben has spent decades following bears in the woods, sometimes for nine hours at a time. As his orphan cubs acclimate to their natural environment, he watches them. He naps when they nap, he moves when they move, and he studies their complex social behaviors. One of his very first cubs, Squirty, is twenty-four years old this year. She lives in woods near his home, and he’s watched her become a mother, and now a grandmother. Bear biologists have generally assumed that black bears were solitary animals. Ben Kilham has proven them very wrong.

Links

Kilham Bear Center: the place for all information on the rehabilitation program, Ben’s research, videos and books for sale….

Cubs Video: I could not figure out how to attach more video. For more, go to Ben’s website above…

The photos below are lent to Rumble Strip by Ben. Please don’t copy. Thank you!….:
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Fifty. A Phoenix Moment. Nov 20, 2019
Show notes

For many years I have privately loved the song Total Eclipse of the Heart, by Bonnie Tyler. I started to love it when it came out in 1983, when I was fourteen.

This month I’m turning fifty. And for some reason, every time I think about turning fifty, I think about singing this song that I’ve loved for over over thirty years, and making other people listen to me sing it. I guess in a way it’s a kind of phoenix moment I’m hoping for. That I’ll burn up in some exquisite shame and then I’ll be born again into the second chapter of a century.

So I asked my friends Mike and Brian and Tobin to record the song with me in the East Calais community center at the back of the post office.

I knew they didn’t like the song and they didn’t really want to do it, so I felt really bad asking them to do it, which in a way seemed like part o the phoenix moment I was looking for.

I feel ambivalent about turning fifty. I don’t know what’s supposed to happen next. So I recorded conversations with some friends about getting older. I talked with my son Henry, who’s 16. Bianca Giaever is 29. Scott Carrier is 60-something. And Clare Dolan is around my age.

Here’s a show about turning fifty and recording Total Eclipse of the Heart.

Credits

Thank you to Scott Bassage for helping me secure the best recording studio in central Vermont at the back of the East Calais post office

Thank you to the band: Brian Clark, Mike Donofrio and Tobin Anderson (pictures below)

Thank you to my friends who talked with me for this show: Scott Carrier, Clare Dolan, Bianca Giaever and Henry Heilman

Sponsor!

This show is sponsored by the excellent people at Honey Road, making the best food in Burlington on the corner of Church and Main. Click on the picture and check out the menu…

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Fifty. A Phoenix Moment. Nov 20, 2019
Show notes

For many years I have privately loved the song Total Eclipse of the Heart, by Bonnie Tyler. I started to love it when it came out in 1983, when I was fourteen.

This month I’m turning fifty. And for some reason, every time I think about turning fifty, I think about singing this song that I’ve loved for over over thirty years, and making other people listen to me sing it. I guess in a way it’s a kind of phoenix moment I’m hoping for. That I’ll burn up in some exquisite shame and then I’ll be born again into the second chapter of a century.

So I asked my friends Mike and Brian and Tobin to record the song with me in the East Calais community center at the back of the post office.

I knew they didn’t like the song and they didn’t really want to do it, so I felt really bad asking them to do it, which in a way seemed like part o the phoenix moment I was looking for.

I feel ambivalent about turning fifty. I don’t know what’s supposed to happen next. So I recorded conversations with some friends about getting older. I talked with my son Henry, who’s 16. Bianca Giaever is 29. Scott Carrier is 60-something. And Clare Dolan is around my age.

Here’s a show about turning fifty and recording Total Eclipse of the Heart.

Credits

Thank you to Scott Bassage for helping me secure the best recording studio in central Vermont at the back of the East Calais post office

Thank you to the band: Brian Clark, Mike Donofrio and Tobin Anderson (pictures below)

Thank you to my friends who talked with me for this show: Scott Carrier, Clare Dolan, Bianca Giaever and Henry Heilman

Sponsor!

This show is sponsored by the excellent people at Honey Road, making the best food in Burlington on the corner of Church and Main. Click on the picture and check out the menu…

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Bobcat Hunter Oct 17, 2019
Show notes

Patrick Soniera has been hunting and tracking bobcats in Vermont for fifty years, and he has a diary entry about every single hunt–the weather, the birds or the bears, the behavior of the cat tracks he followed–his diaries fill one whole wall of his office. And for the majority of those days out in the woods, Patrick never even saw a bobcat. You almost never see them, which is why Patrick is so fascinated by these cats.

Last year Patrick went out tracking cats with his hounds a hundred and fifty times and he shot one bobcat. He says it isn’t about the killing. And that’s what all good hunters say. And when you ask, ‘Well then why not just take a camera?’, the answer is always the same.

‘Because I’m a hunter.’

After years of interviewing good hunters, I’m beginning to understand the tautological logic of this. Part of Patrick’s love for bobcats is the fact of the hunt. And part of why he’s able to share years’ worth of knowledge with Vermont Fish and Wildlife is because now and then he kills one.

Thank you to Louis Porter of Vermont Fish and Wildlife for recommending Patrick to me. I love the state where I live…

This show is sponsored by Honey Road, my all time favorite restaurant in Vermont. Make a reservation. Go. Eat. Report back. And click on the image below for more information.

Bobcat Hunter Oct 17, 2019
Show notes

Patrick Soniera has been hunting and tracking bobcats in Vermont for fifty years, and he has a diary entry about every single hunt–the weather, the birds or the bears, the behavior of the cat tracks he followed–his diaries fill one whole wall of his office. And for the majority of those days out in the woods, Patrick never even saw a bobcat. You almost never see them, which is why Patrick is so fascinated by these cats.

Last year Patrick went out tracking cats with his hounds a hundred and fifty times and he shot one bobcat. He says it isn’t about the killing. And that’s what all good hunters say. And when you ask, ‘Well then why not just take a camera?’, the answer is always the same.

‘Because I’m a hunter.’

After years of interviewing good hunters, I’m beginning to understand the tautological logic of this. Part of Patrick’s love for bobcats is the fact of the hunt. And part of why he’s able to share years’ worth of knowledge with Vermont Fish and Wildlife is because now and then he kills one.

Thank you to Louis Porter of Vermont Fish and Wildlife for recommending Patrick to me. I love the state where I live…

This show is sponsored by Honey Road, my all time favorite restaurant in Vermont. Make a reservation. Go. Eat. Report back. And click on the image below for more information.

Problems, Episode 5: Vacation Sep 30, 2019
Show notes

This is the fifth episode of Problems, a radio drama about Pam and Joel, two old friends who support each other through their problems. In this episode, Joel’s just come back from a long vacation in British Colombia, where he had a lovely time mountain biking with friends. But…there were some problems.

This show is sponsored by Honey Road, my all time favorite restaurant in Vermont. Make a reservation. Go. Eat. Report back. And click on the image below for more information.

A Perfect Drive with Garret Keizer Sep 09, 2019
Show notes

Garret Keizer and I stood together in a field, in the late summer, in the Northeast Kingdom, and he read poems from his new book, The World Pushes Back.

I first heard of Garret a few years ago when I read his book, Getting Schooled, about his years as a high school teacher up here in the Kingdom. He described this place more honestly and more humanely…than anything I’d ever read about the place before. And his stories about his own experience teaching are almost brutally honest. I’ve never read an account of teaching quite like it.

Garret’s one of the only writers where I find myself copying whole passages down from his work, as if I’ll need them later. They’re not always easy or nice things I copy down. Garret Keizer is one of the most critical and also most contemplative people I’ve ever met. I write these passages down because they remind me of something fundamental about being human that I don’t want to forget.

He’s just come out with his first book of poetry, so we drove around and talked in his car until we found the perfect field to read poetry in. It was some of the best, and most surprising conversation I’ve had in a long time.

Links and Credits

For more of Garret’s work, visit his site here.

One of my favorite articles he’s written for Harper’s is called Requiem for the Private Word….

Garret will be the headlining reader at the opening ceremony of the Burlington Book Festival on September 27th at 7:00. For more information, go here.

Music for this show is by Vermont musician Brian Clark

And thanks also to my wonderful sponsor, Honey Road. The best restaurant in Burlington. Click below to read about the menu…

Summer Musical Aug 07, 2019
Show notes

It’s the summer musical in Randolph, Vermont…one day before showtime. It’s been an annual event at Chandler Music Hall for over twenty years, and this year they’re putting on Footloose. And honestly? It feels like the whole town is involved. Like it takes every last person in Randolph to pull this thing off…again. To put on a full musical with up to 120 kids, in three weeks? It’s a miracle.

I spent an afternoon talking with some of the kids backstage, about their lives in musical theater. And even though we were sitting on the floor in a Xerox room, they were willing to sing songs from the show…from their hearts. This is theater magic. Welcome.

Thank you SO MUCH to Kelly Green, associate producer on this show. Also Ramsey Papp for her help and guidance. And thanks also to my wonderful sponsor, Honey Road. The best restaurant in Burlington. Click below to read about the menu…

Toj Marceau as Cranston

Reagan Papp as Willard

Summer Musical Aug 07, 2019
Show notes

It’s the summer musical in Randolph, Vermont…one day before showtime. It’s been an annual event at Chandler Music Hall for over twenty years, and this year they’re putting on Footloose. And honestly? It feels like the whole town is involved. Like it takes every last person in Randolph to pull this thing off…again. To put on a full musical with up to 120 kids, in three weeks? It’s a miracle.

I spent an afternoon talking with some of the kids backstage, about their lives in musical theater. And even though we were sitting on the floor in a Xerox room, they were willing to sing songs from the show…from their hearts. This is theater magic. Welcome.

Thank you SO MUCH to Kelly Green, associate producer on this show. Also Ramsey Papp for her help and guidance. And thanks also to my wonderful sponsor, Honey Road. The best restaurant in Burlington. Click below to read about the menu…

Toj Marceau as Cranston

Reagan Papp as Willard

Leland Will Figure It Out Jul 09, 2019
Show notes

Leland lives over the hill from me in East Calais. We’ve been friends since he was in first grade, and every year around this time we get together and he tells me what he’s thinking about, worried about, what his plans are. He got his driver’s permit two weeks ago so he drove me over to Number 10 Pond and we sat and talked about the ups and downs of his first year of high school, about girls, about avocado toast…

Credits

Music for this show is by Vermont musician Brian Clark, who is the lead singer and songwriter for the band Anachronist. Which is awesome.

Rumble Strip is sponsored by the best restaurant in Burlington, Vermont. It’s called Honey Road. Click on the image below to read about their menu of Eastern Mediterranean small plates…

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