democracyroad

Welcome to our first published show from STown 
(a somewhat Mythical West Virginia town located in Our County, Our Country, our World.)
 
Let us be mindful of the Rainbow Crow, and her Sacrifice.
 
We follow the News Cycle: Local, National, Global, Cosmic!!
STown  Reporters include the Birds (Nature's own Flockers). So very little will remain unobserved.
 
The Last Stop Cafe Hosts: Karen Valentine, James Boyd, Erik Janus, JB Christensen, John Case.
 
Our First Guests: Susan Pipes, Sara Thomsen
 
Questions, Comments, Contributions, Complaints
host@enlightenradio.org
 

 
 
Enlighten Radio Presents
 
Stop The Car!! Mark Dody, Erin Murphy, Matt Del Gusto, Joshua Frank, Meril Crabtree
 
 
The Interstate existence is largely indifferent to human values. Leave it -- what has been left behind?
Wednesdays 10 Am on player.enlightenradio.org
Hosts: Janet Harrison, John Case
This Episode Recorded July 15, 2026
Heaven for Helen
by Mark Doty
 
Heaven for Helen Mark Doty 1953 Helen says heaven, for her, would be complete immersion in physical process, without self-consciousness
to be the respiration of the grass, or ionized agitation just above the break of a wave, traffic in a sunflower's thousand golden rooms.
Images of exchange, and of untrammeled nature. But if we're to become part of it all, won't our paradise also involve
participation in being, say, diesel fuel, the impatience of trucks on August pavement, weird glow of service areas along the interstate at night?
We'll be shiny pink egg cartons, and the thick treads of burst tires along the highways in Pennsylvania: a hell we've made to accompany
the given: we will join our tiresome productions, things that want to be useless forever.
But that's me talking. Helen would take the greatest pleasure in being a scrap of paper, if that's what there were to experience.
Perhaps that's why she's a painter, finally: to practice disappearing into her scrupulous attention, an exacting rehearsal for the larger
world of things it won't be easy to love. Helen I think will master it, though I may not. She has practiced a long time learning to see I have devoted myself to affirmation,
when I should have kept my eyes on the ground.
 
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questions, comments: jcase4218@gmail.com
 

 
Enlighten Radio Presents
last s top preview 2
last stop cafe
 
 
thursdays 6 pm
Hosts: Karen Valentine, John Case, James Boyd
test show 2
This Episode Recorded 7/2 at the Red Caboose Studio, Harpers Ferry, WV
 
Our Blog   Our Player   Our Podcasts
questions, comments: jcase4218@gmail.com
 
 

 
 
Enlighten Radio Presents
Diamonds in my Coal Bucket
 
Appalachian poets deliver compelling and powerful stories and images of (among the) most ancient mountains. Dora Malech, Robert Lewis Weeks, Frank X. Walker, Sarah Loudin Thomas, Pauletta Hansel, and more...
Broadcast Wednesdays, 10 AM on player.enlightenradio.org
Hosts: Janet Harrison, John Case
This Episode Recorded 07072026 --
Mountain Mama
by Sara Loudin Thomas
 
Mountain MamaThere is truth in the trailer park
and honesty in the car on blocks.
Starvin’ Marvin and “as seen on TV”
live cheek by jowl with the likes
of handmade quilts and apple butter;
old-time music and the oral tradition.
Some folks say it isn’t True,
isn’t the way things used to be.
But lose a grandfather to the mines,
an uncle to the war, your mother
to a cancer that gnaws at her soul—
lose a child for no reason you can see.
Then you’ll find the fragile beauty
in the never-ending yard sale.
You’ll learn to love the tourists
who buy corncob pipes, coonskin caps,
and lumps of coal carved like bears.
When the giant timber companies
run the local sawmill out of money
and Aunt Eunice can’t remember your name—
when your best friend moves to California
and minimum wage is doing alright, man.
Then you’ll find the potent wisdom
in workers’ compensation, food stamps
and tonight’s lotto number—
dear God let me win.
A one in a billion chance is better
than watching the land your ancestors
cleared wash away . . . no wish away
on the promises of strip mines
and a future you can’t afford to wait.
At night, the lights from Wal-Mart glow
like the promise of a better tomorrow.
 
Our Blog   Our Player   Our Podcasts
questions, comments: jcase4218@gmail.com
 

 
Enlighten Radio Presents
The Last Stop Cafe: Preview
It Ends Here. The Last Stop
 
 
Player.enlightenradio.com
Hosts: Karen Valentine, John Case, James Boyd
Karen, James and John try out a new news follower show with a legacy WSHC style news show. Thursdays at 6 PM Eastern on player.enlightenradio.org
This Episode Recorded 6-25-26 at the Red Caboose Studio, Harpers Ferry, WV
 
Our Blog   Our Player   Our Podcasts
questions, comments: jcase4218@gmail.com
 
 

 
 
Enlighten Radio Presents
 
When a man passes, the streets get shorter.
 
 
London streets, county roads, streets of Jerusalem, Is moonlight warmer than the city lamps? W. Ethelbert Miller, Amy Lowell and Naomi Nye headline the feeling of being followed, or following: Nobody?
Broadcast Wednesdays, 10 AM on player.enlightenradio.org
Hosts: Janet Harrison, John Case
This Episode Recorded 06/24/2026
Streets of Jerusalem
by Homer
 
Streets Naomi Shihab Nye 1952 – A man leaves the world and the streets he lived on grow a little shorter. One more window dark in this city, the figs on his branches will soften for birds. If we stand quietly enough evenings there grows a whole company of us standing quietly together. overhead loud grackles are claiming their trees and the sky which sews and sews, tirelessly sewing, drops her purple hem. Each thing in its time, in its place, it would be nice to think the same about people. Some people do. They sleep completely, waking refreshed. Others live in two worlds, the lost and remembered. They sleep twice, once for the one who is gone, once for themselves. They dream thickly, dream double, they wake from a dream into another one, they walk the short streets calling out names, and then they answer.
 
Our Blog   Our Player   Our Podcasts
questions, comments: jcase4218@gmail.com