Life Became Very Blurry

Episode 3: Family

For many people, family was central to their experience of COVID-19. That could be both a good thing and a bad thing. Missing family meant sadness and grief, but isolation from the larger world could mean more quality time together.

In the second episode of our new limited-series podcast, "Life Became Very Blurry," we share stories of people's experiences with their families during COVID-19.

”Life Became Very Blurry” is a podcast sharing the voices of Vermonters as they recall the experience of COVID-19. It is based on a three year project collecting oral histories and other records of the pandemic, and released in March 2025 for the fifth anniversary of the first lockdown.

Funding for the COVID-19 collecting project was provided by the Institute for Museum and Library Services.

The Life Became Very Blurry Podcast is produced by Amanda Gustin of the Vermont Historical Society and Mary Wesley, Andy Kolovos and Will Hamilton of Vermont Folklife. Oliver Purdue mixed this episode.

Our theme music is the track “Never Mind The Forecast” from Jericho based artist “Expected Guest.” Find more from Expected Guest on Bandcamp.com

Episode 2: Having COVID

The threat of COVID-19 upended almost everything about daily life, but what was it like to actually experience the disease itself? For some people, it was a bad cold; for others, it changed everything.

In the second episode of our new limited-series podcast, "Life Became Very Blurry," we share stories of people's experiences with having COVID-19.

”Life Became Very Blurry” is a podcast sharing the voices of Vermonters as they recall the experience of COVID-19. It is based on a three year project collecting oral histories and other records of the pandemic, and released in March 2025 for the fifth anniversary of the first lockdown.

Funding for the COVID-19 collecting project was provided by the Institute for Museum and Library Services.

The Life Became Very Blurry Podcast is produced by Amanda Gustin of the Vermont Historical Society and Mary Wesley, Andy Kolovos and Will Hamilton of Vermont Folklife. Oliver Purdue mixed this episode.

Our theme music is the track “Never Mind The Forecast” from Jericho based artist “Expected Guest.” Find more from Expected Guest on Bandcamp.com

 

Episode 1: March 2020

Pretty much no one alive today has experienced anything as far-reaching or as completely overwhelming as the COVID-19 pandemic. It felt like the whole world had turned inside out in a matter of weeks, days, or even hours.

In the first episode of our new limited-series podcast, "Life Became Very Blurry," we tell the story of March 2020 - those first few hectic weeks when COVID-19 arrived in Vermont.

”Life Became Very Blurry” is a podcast sharing the voices of Vermonters as they recall the experience of COVID-19. It is based on a three year project collecting oral histories and other records of the pandemic, and released in March 2025 for the fifth anniversary of the first lockdown.

Funding for the COVID-19 collecting project was provided by the Institute for Museum and Library Services.

The Life Became Very Blurry Podcast is produced by Amanda Gustin of the Vermont Historical Society and Mary Wesley, Andy Kolovos and Will Hamilton of Vermont Folklife. Oliver Purdue mixed this episode.

Our theme music is the track “Never Mind The Forecast” from Jericho based artist “Expected Guest.” Find more from Expected Guest on Bandcamp.com

 

Life Became Very Blurry: Teaser

”Life Became Very Blurry” is a podcast sharing the voices of Vermonters as they recall the experience of COVID-19. It is based on a three year project collecting oral histories and other records of the pandemic, and released in March 2025 for the fifth anniversary of the first lockdown.

Funding for the COVID-19 collecting project was provided by the Institute for Museum and Library Services.

The Life Became Very Blurry Podcast is produced by Amanda Gustin of the Vermont Historical Society and Mary Wesley, Andy Kolovos and Will Hamilton of Vermont Folklife. Oliver Purdue mixed this episode.

Our theme music is the track “Never Mind The Forecast” from Jericho based artist “Expected Guest.” Find more from Expected Guest on Bandcamp.com

Episode 51: Railroads

For more background on this episode, please visit: https://vermonthistory.org/railroads-1989

Episode 50: School Consolidation

For more background on this episode, please visit: https://vermonthistory.org/school-consolidation-farewell-to-the-one-room-schoolhouse-1986

Episode 49: The First Vermonters, the Abenaki

For more background on this episode, please visit: https://vermonthistory.org/first-vermonters-the-abenakis-1976

Episode 48: Act 250

For more background on this episode, please visit: https://vermonthistory.org/act-250-1970

Episode 47: Back to the Land: Communes in Vermont

In the 1960s and early 1970s, Vermont acquired a reputation for being a haven for hippies and a hotbed of counter-cultural communal living.  There was some truth to that. But the communes and alternative life-styles of that generation had a deeper history than most outsiders—and most of the commune residents themselves—knew.  And, like their predecessors in the nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, the often colorful, sometimes controversial, and much-discussed communal experiments of the late twentieth century ended up having a profound impact on the next generation of Vermonters.

For more background on this episode, please visit: https://vermonthistory.org/back-to-the-land-communes-in-vt-1968

Episode 46: The VT/NY Youth Project

For more background on this episode, please visit: https://vermonthistory.org/vt-ny-youth-project-1968