All four of the people in this story are in recovery, but they spent years in the world of active drug addiction--a kind of world underneath the world. 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 relentless demands.

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.

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.

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 brain. People with aphasia can often sing. This is a story about a choir comprised of people with aphasia, and what it's like to struggle for words.

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 time when they were little, running around in the woods in the summer. Now there is a memorial here for Finn in the pine forest, built by some of the...

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 divide between traditional hunting culture and people who don't like certain kinds of hunting here in Vermont. But it was more interesting than...

A conversation with dairy farmer Forrest Foster in his sugarhouse in the blessed, FINALLY almost springtime in Vermont.

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.

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.

Ashley Messier grew up in Essex, Vermont with an abusive father and with little money, and she found herself repeating the cycle in early adulthood. This is a story about multi-generational poverty and abuse, and the temporary relief of opiates.

Ashton runs a concrete business and in his free time he makes community meals at the American Legion in Hardwick. We sat down to talk about class, which then turned into a conversation about eating, and how eating together as a community seems to blur boundaries between people of different backgrounds.

Kathleen lives in Derby, Vermont in a subsidized apartment with two cats, two pugs, and about 400 clocks. She was working as a home health aide until COVID hit. She received COVID funding and rent assistance until she didn't. And now she's working at the deli at Price Chopper. And she's months behind on her rent. And she's facing eviction.

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 number of fronts.

When I met Ethan Perry, he was taking a break from his job at Family Dollar in Orleans VT. At the time he was 29. When I asked him what class he is, he said he grew up lower-middle class. His mother was a teacher and his father a carpenter. He said that now he considers himself lower class, but not impoverished. We talked for a few minutes and then I drove back up to Orleans, and we sat in my car up on the hill that overlooks the Ethan Allen Furniture mill and we talked.

Mike Donofrio moved to Vermont with his family when he was two years old. He grew up, he left Vermont for college and law school, then he moved back and worked in the attorney general's office. Now he's in private practice in Montpelier. And he plays bass in a few bands. I asked him what class he is. Here is some of what he said.

John Rodgers runs a construction business up in West Glover, Vermont most of the year. He runs a plow business in the winter. He rents properties, he runs a cannabis farm with his son, he's a stonemason. He's one of the busiest guys I know. And for sixteen years John served in the Vermont Legislature — eight years in the Senate and eight in the House. I met him on his farm, which has been in his family for about 200 years, and we talked about what it costs to be in the Vermont legislature,...

In this episode I talk with one of my favorite poets and writers, Garret Keizer. Garret has written extensively on the history of labor unions and for this show we drove around and talked about the obscene class inequality in our country, the power of labor movements, and what happens when you address gender and race equity, but ignore income inequality. And…other things. Like jazz.

This is episode 5 of What Class Are You. Kytreana was one of the first people I interviewed for this series. I was driving around the Northeast Kingdom and my last stop was Olney’s General Store in Orleans, right across the road from the Ethan Allen furniture mill. There were some people sitting out in the front of the store talking and vaping. And when I walked up and asked if I could ask an awkward and probably offensive question, Kytreana Patrick said, "absolutely, pull up a chair."

This is episode 4 of a special series called What Class Are You, wherein I drive around asking people to talk about class and privilege and power and money and how much or little of it they've got. Kate is forty-three. She lives in the woods here in central Vermont. She's part of a community of young people around here who live frugally and often communally, in yurts, and tents and buses. Kate lived this way for 20 years, saving up money to buy this piece of land...but it's gotten harder to...

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 talks about the American class system as he sees it, starting with the middle class.

What Class Are You is a series about money and privilege and how much or little of it you've got. This story is about Isaac, an 18-year-old in Newport, Vermont.

First episode in a series called What Class Are You? This time...Susan Randall, a private investigator in Vermont, talks about growing up upper-middle class.

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 board at a local general store. You can find secondhand tires there. Or read complaints about the Selectboard. Every Vermont town’s got a Front...