Rumble Strip Erica Heilman / Rumble Strip, Erica Heilman

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.