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, and some of the cultural tensions that he’s feeling in the state right now, as people with more money move to the state.

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 find affordable land here in Vermont after the great Covid migration. When I asked Kate what class she is, she said 'lower middle class by unconventional means.'

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 Porch Forum and you have to be from that town to be on it. Since Tiana's new to town, she thought she might have luck finding someone to help her get ready for her date through the Forum. And she did.

These are some stories from Vermont's 100 year flood last July in Vermont. It devastated our state. In my hometown of Calais, we had dirt roads that were so destroyed, with holes so big that people were down there digging for gold. Moscow Woods Road disappeared off the side of a cliff. At the head of Singleton Road someone put up a handpainted sign that just said, ‘Road Gone.’ These are a couple stories from those first few days after the flood.

This is one of my all time favorite shows. I made it for Vermont Public in 2019 and I think about these guys all the time. It was the little league playoffs in St. Johnsbury in 2019, before the pandemic, recorded in a simpler time. Let's play some good D out there.

East Hill Tree Farm is my new sponsor. It’s the place where I buy all my trees and berry bushes so it’s easy to wax poetic about them. Also it’s a barter. Nicko Rubin is planting some trees here and giving me gardening advice in exchange for the sponsorship. I like this arrangement. So I wrote a song about it with my friend Justin Lander, which I think you will enjoy.

I got in a car accident. For some reason I thought it would make me feel better to talk with Forrest about all the accidents he’s had and how he thinks about pain.