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What Class Are You Mark? Jan 07, 2025

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What Class Are You? is a periodic series about the ways that socioeconomic class shapes our lives, even though we don’t like to talk about it. I make this series for Vermont Public and I’ll be running the new shows on RS all this week.

Mark LaRouche is the the Director of Shelters and Facilities at Good Samaritan Haven in Barre, which serves unhoused people in central Vermont. Mark has also had a lot of experience working with people with addiction issues, and he’s good at it. He understands it. Mark lived with severe addiction from his early teens through his late thirties. He was in and out of jail in those years, and we talked about how addiction is its own sort of class.

What Class Are You Damian Renzello? Jan 06, 2025

Show notes

First up, Damian Renzello. Damian lives one town over from me and he’s the owner of and inventor of Porta Rinks, which is a portable ice rink kit. Damian is who you call if you want your own personal hockey rink, and everything that goes with it. He also happens to be exactly my age. So Damian and I sat in his shop at Porta Rinx headquarters behind his house, and we compared notes on class.

Thanks for Sharing Dec 17, 2024

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Forrest Foster found a new old truck, thanks to you listeners. We drove around and talked about the truck and about Forrest's new job and I complained about feeling old. Happy Holidays and thank you for your generosity. Happy Holidays to all!

Erika Bruner, Midwife for Pets at the End Dec 11, 2024

Show notes

Things have been pretty grim around here. I lost my cat Zu Zu and she was only two and a half and she left behind her brother Kenny and Kenny and I aren’t doing so great. So. I’m going to play a story I made for Vermont Public about Erika Bruner, a veterinarian who specializes in end of live care for pets. She does at-home euthanasia…in barns, in basements, in fields. I didn’t think I’d need her services so soon. But I did. She’s remarkable and she made a very difficult day a little less difficult

To learn more about Erika, click here.

Thank you For the Best Birthday Present Ever Nov 16, 2024

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We raised ALL the money for Forrest's new old truck and we are so GRATEFUL!!!

Help Forrest Foster Get a New Old Truck Nov 13, 2024

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After the last show, a lot of people asked me how they might help Forrest Foster. So I called his friend Steve Gorelick and we set up a Go Fund Me....

Forrest Foster is getting done...for now. Nov 04, 2024

Show notes

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.

Heartbreak Hotel. End of an Era Oct 14, 2024

Show notes

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 housing and community and village revitalization. For over a century, the Heartbreak provided all three. This is a story about what was lost that night, and what it might suggest about how we move forward.

The World Under the World Sep 10, 2024

Show notes

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’t stop thinking about the woman. Where was she coming from that day and where was she going? The world of active addiction is a kind of world underneath the world, with its own rules and relentless demands. But to most people it’s invisible.

All four of the people in this story are in recovery, but they spent years in the world of active drug addiction. They’re aware of it in ways that most of us are not, and they agreed to describe it to me—what it feels like day to day, and its endless demands.

Warning: This story contains explicit descriptions of active addiction. It might not be for everyone.

Mark Utter Revisited Aug 20, 2024

Show notes

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 and a typing pad, Mark started his life as a writer of words. This is an interview about what it's like inside the life and mind of Mark Utter.

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