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RavePodcast recommendation: Rumble Strip
This podcast, grounded in the Vermont home state of its creator, Erica Heilman is a tonic to our times. I came to it via RadioLab as Erica recently won a Peabody Award for her Finn and the Bell piece. I don’t know if I’ve ever been as moved as I was listening to Finn and his story. It is amazing. But the reason I’m posting about Rumble Strip is that there are several episodes about community and how to do that hard work as a verb as well as some salt-of-the-earth types that really spoke to me. (Looking at you, dairyman Forrest Foster.)
Many of the people Erica profiles are extremely self-sufficient, with professions that demand a firm centering in material reality, yet also live by community because in an isolated and harsh environment, that’s the key to survival. They find a way to get along, to work through their differences, because there isn’t any other way.