Hello everyone. I can't send out a show without acknowledging which has happened a couple days ago with the election and if you get the newsletter you've already heard all this so you can just skip to the show.

It's now day two and a lot of us are still in shock and last night I was sitting in my house in the dark up on this hill and I kept thinking about all of you most of whom I have never even met but but after years of making this show, your company and your

civility have become really important to me.

And I wanted to thank you all.

I've never been good at describing what this show is about, it's about a lot of things, but I realize

that one goal is to share true and sometimes difficult stories about being human.

Often it's about trying to be a better human. And finally, my hope is that

listeners can recognize themselves in each other listening to this show and

that we find that we're more similar than we might have thought.

These shows I recognize our modest contributions and for a lot of us here in the United States

right now the prospect of healing these very deep cultural and political divides

seems impossible. But I am grateful for your thoughtful and responsive listening and

I do think that careful and thoughtful listening is a skill we're going to need in the years to come.

It seemed like the right time to thank you and say that you've been wonderful company these past few years. I guess the last thing I'll say is

I've got lots of shows planned but if there are questions that I'm not asking or

people you think I need to talk with I hope you'll write to me I'd love to hear your ideas and I think we'll all need to figure

out together the stories that need telling right now. Okay, now back to the show.

Welcome to Rumble Strip Vermont. I love car interviews. Okay, well we're almost at a gas. So it's going to be pretty fascinating, especially if we do run out of gas.

That's Charlie Hunter and me driving around Bellows Falls in his Honda element.

Now, what do you want to see some interesting parts of?

All of those falls is interesting.

Charlie's a painter.

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