My wife was convinced that all of our marital troubles began in bed, so to speak. She was concerned about performance and performance enhancement. Things weren’t, how do I put this delicately?— firm enough. “It’s too soft,” she kept saying all the time.

She went to bed unsatisfied. She woke up in the morning unsatisfied. She was becoming irritable. I was insensitive to her needs, or so I was told. My wife wanted to try new things in bed!

No, this is not what you think. My wife wanted a new mattress.

I was glad to learn that our mattress was to blame because in my marriage I am usually to blame. Let the mattress take the hit for once.

In truth, the old mattress was just fine with me. But then as a man ages, his mattress needs apparently decrease, if you know what I mean. You’re not 20 years old any more, big boy. A lot of men would be embarrassed about this. But I feel like Bob Dole. I am completely comfortable discussing our mattress needs with total strangers. I find it empowering. That’s right. I am talking about MD— mattress dysfunction.

Look, I am not going to hold back here. My wife is a tigress in bed. Sleeping with her is like sleeping with The Rockettes. There’s kicking. There’s thrashing. You have to be careful not to catch a knee in the groin. Sometimes, she runs in place. Other times, folk dancing. As I understand it, it’s a sleep disorder. She blames the mattress.

I sleep like a zombie. You can fire a Lyle gun next to my head whilst I am in the arms of Morpheus. I can sleep on a Southwest Airlines flight! I believe that’s the standard used by sleep clinicians now. If you can sleep on a Southwest Airlines flight, you can sleep anywhere. That’s just short of sleeping standing up in Times Square on New Year’s Eve.

I feel about sleep the way Sancho Panza did. I say “blessings on he who first invented sleep.” I sleep soundly. My wife says so. She hates that. She often wakes me to report that she cannot sleep. I say that I am sorry to hear that and then I go right back to sleep. She hates that, too. I think it’s my clear conscience. I live by the Golden Rule— do unto others before they can do unto you. (That’s one Golden Rule.) I sleep like a personal injury lawyer. Deep. Satisfying. Sleep. Knowing that on the morrow I will rise to do the work of the Lord. Amen.

But my wife wanted a new mattress. She is not an impulse shopper when it comes to a capital investment like a good night’s sleep. She went online. She read Consumer Reports like a talmudic scholar. She did a Nexis search. And for good measure she did what she always does— she asked her friends. Then, off to Sleepy’s we went.

With more than 600 convenient locations, it’s easy to find a Sleepy’s. We found one on Joppa Road, the fertile crescent of such enterprises. The signs said: “No money down! No interest until May 2012! Take up to 48 Months To Pay!”

I’d hoped that it would be a quick transaction. Alas, you can’t walk into Sleepy’s and just buy a mattress. No. You have to have your back analyzed by “mattress professionals.” Postur-Pedicologists! Serta-fied experts! Sealyists! Simmonsologists!

These people have spent a lifetime studying the mysteries of the human back. OK, maybe not a lifetime, maybe a few days. But they seem knowledgeable. They bring to their craft all of the skills of a good chiropractor (if there is such a thing) and the salesman of the month at Bob Bell’s. Scott Donohue meets the Yalich Clinic. They know backs and they know mattresses. (And I think they can spot a couple with mattress problems.)

They do the professional analysis of your back right on site— even before you are allowed to stretch out on one of their state-of-the-art pallets. I checked off a few items on the “postural alignment spectrum,” whatever the hell that is. Like I told the man, I got no sleep problems, chief. The “mattress professional” was rankled that I did not take “Body Diagnostics” seriously. But I am still not sure what they were looking for.

Naturally, my wife spent 20 minutes working on her analysis. She tests well. I’ve got the printout right here in front of me. Can’t tell what any of it means though I know it has something to do with “the spine” and so-called “pressure points.”

According to our professional analyses, my back is pretty much your common, garden-variety, off the rack, back. My wife, on the other hand, has a complex back. A special back. Her back is very, very rare. On the “postural alignment spectrum,” we are in a very unusual zone.

That’s the problem. Our backs are not compatible. And they never will be. After all these years, to finally learn this from a total stranger on Joppa Road on a rainy Sunday. It gives one pause.

And yes, we did buy a new mattress but I am not going to tell you about it because that would be just too private.

Stanley Newhall is a class act pug. Always dressed to kill, he’s become known among his pug peers as a four-legged philanthropist with a flair for hosting fabulous parties (with a bit of help from his owners, Amy and Chuck Newhall). They recently hosted a tea party at St. Paul’s School in Brooklandville, which promised “Millinery couture and bonnets galore!” Pug guests were asked to arrive in their best hats to enjoy biscuits, tea and a judging to award “best dressed” honors. Always one to help, Stanley asked for a donation to the Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter as admission to the event.

Pet Depot of Timonium donated dog-friendly treats, while Stone Mill Bakery kept the human guests content. For the task of selecting the best-dressed pugs, a panel of American Kennel Club judges was called upon. Rosie the black pug, with her veiled bonnet and painted red toenails, was selected as “best in show.” In his role as host, Stanley maintained his fashion-forward image with a miniature silk top hat from Lock & Co. Hatters of London. After spotting the chapeau in London, Amy commented that they “just had to get it.”

The whole affair lasted just two hours but had a sizable list of guests— 35 four-legged and 75 two-legged— with all in agreement that it was a doggone good time for all.

Bob and Melanie Sabelhaus met at her sorority house and spent their college years dancing ’til dawn at his fraternity parties. Almost 40 years later, they’re still throwing soirees that make their guests feel like giddy coeds. Their joint 60th birthday party was no exception, with activities stretching over the course of a weekend in June.

The festivities started with a crab feast at the couple’s Green Spring Valley home on Friday night. Bob hosted a golf tournament Saturday morning at the Green Spring Valley Hunt Club, but the highlight of the weekend was the “Junkanoo” party for 310 guests on Saturday night.

Junkanoo is a traditional Bahamian festival, and the Sabelhauses transformed their property into the “Isle of Sabelhaus” for the occasion. Exotic tropical floral arrangements and tall, cylindrical vases filled with vibrantly colored fruit and banana fronds sat atop splashy turquoise, coral, pink and lime tablecloths (partygoers were instructed to dress in matching colors). A dance floor floated in the center of the swimming pool beneath strings of glowing Chinese lanterns, though a Miami Delano-inspired lounge filled with sofas, chaise lounges, pillows and candles promised relief for tired feet. Upon arrival, guests were handed leis and name tags that also explained their relationship to the host and hostess of honor. They nibbled on seafood from the raw bar, pork, shish kebabs and lobsters, and sipped pomegranate mojitos and Southsides, until the band left the stage and led guests on a parade around the dance floor, from which few returned until it was time to leave.

“It was the best party I’ve ever been to,” says Melanie. “And the best part was, it was my own.”

Guests were requested to wear white to designer Dan Proctor’s 50th birthday party. They walked into a room that matched their attire: a contemporary, minimalist lounge with low-slung couches and 1,500 candles, all white except for a poster at the back of the room that spelled “love” in black letters.

The 250 party-goers nibbled on hors d’oeuvres served on laptop keyboards as iconic images of love flashed on large screens behind. On a stage beneath the love poster, a Beatles tribute band played the group’s early ballads.

Unbeknownst to guests, Proctor had actually divided the space at the Tremont Grand into two separate parties. The first, in the white room, was a celebration of love. A second set of festivities dedicated to “beauty” awaited guests in another room.

About an hour into the party, a procession emerged with dancers in colorful Indian saris, adding an explosion of color to the white room. Proctor welcomed his guests from the stage, then disappeared behind a wall of fabric and emerged moments later in a vibrant peacock-blue robe reminiscent of traditional Indian wedding attire.

Bright flashing lights began to play across the room as Proctor led his guests in a procession to a transitional room, decorated to feel like an Indian bazaar, where party-goers picked up colorful trinkets and scarves to add to their white outfits.

The second party room, an Indian-themed festival of beauty, was filled with color. The band played songs from “Sgt. Pepper” while on a large screen behind them was projected a live-feed from the Taj Mahal. Cannons periodically sprinkled the room with gold Mylar confetti, making the room feel like “it was snowing gold,” Proctor says.

At 12:30, doors opened to reveal yet another room, filled with colorful beds, heaping baskets of fruit and a bellydancer. “It was the only part of the night that didn’t play out the way I saw it in my mind,” he says. “It was even better than what I had imagined.”

At 1 a.m., naan and simosas were replaced by a late-night breakfast, but the culinary highlight came at the end of the evening. Monte Cristo sandwiches (a recipe from the now-defunct Gampy’s) were served. The turkey, ham and cheese sandwiches, deep-fried and dipped in jelly, “were reminiscent of the nights we used to dance at the Hippo until 2 a.m. and then go to Gampy’s for them,” Proctor explains.

Those nights, though, were surely never as memorable as this one.

From its nondescript exterior, you might pass by Clementine, as it blends in with the other storefronts along a business block of Harford Road in the working-class neighborhood of Hamilton. But inside, it’s anything but nondescript.  From its homey decor— complete with a seating area of overstuffed sofas and a children’s play corner— to its inventive menu, Clementine is a pleasant surprise. For breakfast, order up some espresso or a blend from Zeke’s Coffee. (They also bake their own muffins and mix their own cream cheeses for bagels.) For lunch, choose from a list of gourmet sandwiches (like sliced grilled chicken breast with maple bacon, avocado, tomato-onion jam and Danish blue cheese mayo) or the daily specials of stir-fries and small-plate entreés. For dinner, we swear by the mac’n’cheese and the Maryland crab soup, but entreés change nightly, depending on what’s fresh and in season. A recent sampler: thyme spring onion and rye-brined roasted chicken breast over bacon and pecan wild rice pilaf topped with sauteéd grapes, kale and shallots— does that paint a picture?  Open for breakfast, lunch and dinner, Wednesday through Sunday.  5402 Harford Road, 410-444-1497

With its handsome fieldstone walls, the circa-1770 space in the lower level of the Admiral Fell Inn has housed a long list of dining establishments, including Cindy Wolf’s original Savannah, Hamilton’s and most recently, True. Now it’s home to Fin Steak & Seafood. With chef Avi Cohen at the helm, Fin returns fine dining to the room, offering multiple cuts of steaks and beef, rack of veal, roasted free-range chicken and double-cut pork loin chops. On the seafood side, look for roasted wild salmon, grilled tuna, crab cakes and San Francisco-style cioppino. Our vote for favorite dessert: Milk & Cookies (triple chocolate, chocolate chunk and peanut butter cookies with a chocolate malted-milk shooter). Open Wednesday through Sunday for dinner; the adjoining bar/lounge is open seven days.  888 S. Broadway, 410-522-2195

If you haven’t driven through Catonsville recently, the new Catonsville Gourmet is definitely a good reason to stop. Housed in what was once a hardware store, this new bistro-style restaurant has a fresh feel— think beach cottage-meets-Restoration Hardware. Odds are, you’ll have to wait for a table, but it’s worth it. There are lots of fresh fish entreés on the menu, along with steamed shrimp, clams and mussels. But we were more intrigued with some of the other offerings: a bookmaker salad, Kentucky ‘hot brown,’ grilled shrimp Cobb salad, fish’n’chips and lobster mac’n’cheese. We love the heartier fare, too, such as the meatloaf and the spaghetti and meatballs. For dessert? How can you pass up a place that offers authentic Smith Island cake? The answer: you can’t. In the rear, there’s a market area with cases packed with fresh seafoods, meats and prepared foods to take home. Open daily for lunch and dinner.  829 Frederick Road, Catonsville, 410-788-0005

Many have fond memories of dining or dancing at Peerce’s Plantation in Phoenix, which closed in 2006. It’s now been reopened as a banquet and catering facility called Peerce’s Landing. Joseph Bivona of Signature Catering has renovated the space, but it still retains its characteristic charm. It can accommodate 250 for seated dinners and up to 400 for cocktails and dancing.  12460 Dulaney Valley Road, 410-252-1033

Drifters, the bar in Federal Hill that once housed Bandaloops, has a new look and a new name: Nobles Restaurant and Grill.  (1024 S. Charles St., 410-727-1355) ... >>In other changes, Timothy Dean Bistro in Fells Point has undergone renovations and has been renamed T.D. Lounge. Now more of a jazz lounge, the kitchen has scaled back the menu offerings. Operating hours are Thursday through Sunday evenings. (1717 Eastern Ave., 410-534-5650) ... >>The Prime Rib has introduced ‘Sunday Night Lite!’ a special three-course menu offered for $33 each Sunday evening, along with a select half-price wine list. (1101 N. Calvert St., 410-539-1804) ... >>The old Redwood Trust building downtown now houses the new club Palma. A new set of owners has done extensive renovations to the cavernous space. (200 E. Redwood St., 410-244-1008) ...  >>Popular Federal Hill bistro and wine bar Metropolitan suffered a devastating fire in July, and expects to reopen in early fall. ... >>After 10 years at Harborplace, California Pizza Kitchen has pulled out. The Lodge Bar is gone, too.

On Thursday, Oct. 30, 1947, television came to life in Baltimore via WMAR (also known as “Sunpapers Television”). 

“At precisely 3 o’clock,” according to a 1957 Baltimore Sun article commemorating TV’s 10th anniversary, “the picture of an Indian’s head in a circle fades out, and when light returns the screen shows the Pimlico Race Course clubhouse. Somebody named Jim McManus [later known as Jim McKay] starts talking and Baltimore’s first television program is under way.” Some 41/2 months after those horses made history, WBAL hit the airwaves on March 11, 1948, followed in November by WAAM, the precursor to WJZ-TV.

Just three years later, the juggernaut that was television had begun:  in Baltimore, television viewers already outnumbered radio listeners during the 6 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. time period, with the three stations broadcasting approximately 450 programs during their 230 hours of weekly airtime. Indeed, more than a half-million televisions had been sold in the area by 1953, according to The Sun, with approximately 90 percent of all households owning one. With WMAR and WAAM on the air from 9 a.m. to midnight, and WBAL starting broadcasting at the wee hour of 7, the question was:  how to fill all the time slots?  With very few nationally syndicated programs, the answer was locally produced programming, and the offerings, an almost eerie omen of things to come.

There were talk shows, such as “Luncheon with the Ladies” or WMAR’s long-running “The Woman’s Angle,” all interspersed with live commercials where anything might go wrong— like the time hostess Ann Mar’s tube of Betty Crocker refrigerated biscuits exploded.

There were shopping shows like WAAM’s “Shopping for You” with Penny Chase; game shows such as renowned local producer Brent Gunts’ “Quiz Club” that offered prizes ranging from Mash’s hams to perfume, or the long-running “Dialing for Dollars” that urged you to remember the “count and the amount.” And there were science-oriented programs— “The Johns Hopkins Science Review” and “This is Your Zoo,” with Babette the Baboon.

But perhaps the most memorable segment of programming was devoted to kids. Royal Parker, cap askew with holes in the knees of his baggy pants, shuffled around as P.W. Doodle. Between 1960 and 1965, a swarthy, black-bearded Larry Lewman welcomed “buccaneers” to the “Pete the Pirate” show, while the indomitable Stu Kerr inhabited a plethora of personalities including Bozo the Clown (in the Baltimore franchise of the show) and the cream-pie-throwing Professor Kool.

New local programming slots opened up when the Maryland Center for Public Broadcasting opened in 1969 in Owings Mills, with WMPB, Channel 67 becoming the first public broadcast station in the Maryland Public Television group.  (Channel 45 began in 1971.) But, alas, as the costs of local production rose at the same time that nationally syndicated programming took hold, the heyday of local programming would soon be over. And so we look back fondly at the kooky, the fluffy, and the landmark programming that defines our local television past. >>

> The Woman’s Angle, 1951-1976, WMAR

One of the very first shows to appear on local television, “The Woman’s Angle” was also one of the longest running, surviving an impressive 25 years on WMAR. Polly Drummond was the first hostess of this precursor to Oprah, a talk show aimed at an exclusively female audience.

Drummond was soon followed by Ann Mar, the former hostess of another early television show, “Dinner at the Belvedere.” Mar reminisced in a 1979 Sun Magazine article of the many celebrities she interviewed during her tenure: including Emmett Kelly, who “opened his makeup kit and transformed [her] into Weary Willie [his clown character],” Ronald Reagan and Victor Borge. Mike Todd first announced his intention to marry Elizabeth Taylor to Mar on “The Woman’s Angle.” Duke Ellington performed “Mood Indigo” live in the studio.

But “The Woman’s Angle,” which aired at 1 p.m. weekdays, is most indelibly associated with Sylvia Scott, who began hosting the program in 1959 and remained until the show’s demise. Initially, Scott took responsibility for booking all of her guests and producing the show. And although “The Woman’s Angle” retained its characteristic blend of interviews and daytime chat, complemented by a recipe or two, Scott’s stylish elegance and perfectly maintained hairdo— not to mention her ever-present cup of coffee and cigarette— created “a lunchtime world of neatly crossed ankles and furniture polish,” according to a piece written by Sun critic Judy Bachrach in the 1970s. In 1976, the show was canceled and Scott retired to the Eastern Shore, where she ran an antiques store in Oxford.

> Romper Room, 1953-1994, WBAL, WAAM, WMAR

“Romper stomper bomper boo/Tell me, tell me, tell me do/Magic Mirror, tell me today/Did all my friends have fun at play?” asked Miss Nancy before gazing into the Magic Mirror and revealing who she saw in its depths. For many children, hearing your name on “Romper Room” was nearly as thrilling as being on the show itself.

Created by Bert and Nancy Claster for WBAL in 1953 as “kindergarten for preschoolers” before the availability of widespread kindergarten, the show originally starred Nancy Claster as Miss Nancy, the studio teacher who led 4- and 5-year-olds in games, taught lessons and sang songs, all of her own creation. When Nancy Claster fell ill with cancer in 1964, her daughter, Sally Claster Bell, took up the studio teaching mantle as Miss Sally with Bell’s sister Candace Claster filling in on occasion as Miss Candy and frequently as the fuzzy Do-Bee. “They let me dance and buzz,” jokes Candace Claster.

Romper Room was franchised nationally and internationally (including Britain, Japan, Puerto Rico and Australia), and all the Miss Bettys and Miss Susans initially came to Baltimore to be trained by the Claster family, often in their own home. “Some teachers even brought interpreters,” Claster recalls.

“‘Romper Room’ was ahead of its time,” says Claster proudly. The shows “were integrated in the South in the early ’50s. We had handicapped children and children in wheelchairs on. Part of our teachers’ obligations included 10 hours of community service in addition to hours on air.”

Most Romper Room activities were educational, like Romper Stompers: the cups that children would walk on while holding on to attached straps promoted hand-eye coordination. And many Baltimore children first learned the Pledge of Allegiance from Miss Nancy or Miss Sally.

But it’s the Magic Mirror and Miss Nancy’s incantation that people seem to remember most. Candace Claster tells that just before Nancy Claster’s death in 1997, Oprah Winfrey had Kelsey Grammer as a guest, and the two commiserated about how Miss Nancy never saw them in the Magic Mirror. Parents had to write in for children’s names to be read during the segment, and at that time, there was little chance that an Oprah or Kelsey would be “seen” by chance. After the episode aired, Oprah’s people contacted Nancy Claster, and they came to her home and taped a special Magic Mirror spot where she saw the two stars. She was 80 years old, and she was still Miss Nancy.

> The Buddy Deane Show, 1957-1964, WAAM/WJZ

With the success of “Hairspray” on screen and stage, there are few Baltimoreans who are not at least familiar with “Hairspray’s” prototype, “The Buddy Deane Show.” The teen dance and music show hit Baltimore in 1957 and ran until 1964 on WJZ-TV until the show was canceled rather than integrated— unlike the movie. 

Hosted by former WITH radio DJ Buddy Deane, who was among the first to play rock’n’roll on the radio, the show was Baltimore’s answer to “American Bandstand.” It ran six days a week, featured a regular rotation of dancers known as the Committee, hosted lip-synced performances by artists of the day like Bobby Darin and Connie Francis and introduced teens to new dances such as the Stroll and the Madison.

Along with the Committee dancers, the show included teens invited from various community centers to dance on the show. Baltimorean Michael Dayton danced on the show in 1959, along with his sister, Nancy, and other members of the Victory Villa Teen Center. “I remember we had to get permission to leave school for a half day,” Dayton recalls. He also remembers meeting some of the Committee members, participating in contests where dancers would predict whether or not a song would be a hit and, of course, dancing, if only with his sister.

Even today, nostalgia for the program runs high. Former Committee members still meet for reunions. Joe Kozak still fields calls from folks wanting to speak with his late wife, Arlene, who was Buddy Deane’s production assistant during the run of the program. “You could go into any bar in the city and it would be on,” remembers Kozak. “[‘The Buddy Deane Show’] kept Dick Clark out of [Baltimore].”

The show ended in 1964 when, amidst protests and bomb threats, WJZ decided Baltimore was not ready for black and white teens to dance together on television.

> Duckpins and Dollars/Bowling for Dollars, Pinbusters, 1964 - late 1970s, WBAL

The national phenomenon known as “Bowling for Dollars” began locally on WBAL in 1964. Created by Bert Claster (who had many television successes, including “Romper Room”), the show was originally known as “Duckpins and Dollars” based on Baltimore’s bowling preferences, but became “Bowling for Dollars” with its first foray into the national market via Milwaukee in 1971. Los Angeles and a score of other cities soon created their own hometown versions of the program. Initially, it ran once a week, but as stations scrambled for local programming between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. (as a result of FCC regulations that stipulated that network programming could only take place after 8 p.m.), the show ran every day. In Baltimore, it was taped live.

“Bowling was very popular,” explains John Claster, Bert Claster’s son and a retired television production executive, and contestants could apply to be on the show through their local bowling centers. Eventually, lanes were installed at the WBAL studios on TV Hill to create a studio for taping.

Each night, seven contestants would walk through the set’s sliding door, engage in a one-minute interview with the show’s nattily dressed emcee, Tom Cole (or Ron Riley or Dennis Murray), introduce up to six family members or friends in the audience, and take a chance on bowling a strike for the jackpot, which began at $200 but grew by $20 with every missed strike.

Then there were the Pin-Pals. Viewers at home sent postcards to the station, and if their name was chosen, they would win the same amount as the studio bowler.

With the success of “Bowling for Dollars,” Claster Productions created a version of the show for younger competitors called “Pinbusters.” John Bowman (who’d hosted an earlier TV dance program, “Teen Canteen”) was the host of the show for most of its run, later being replaced by Royal Parker. Six four-frame games took place during the broadcast with kids in various age categories. The winners took home trophies, rather than cash.

“Bowling for Dollars” left the Baltimore airwaves in the late ’70s, but remained in syndication until 1981. It had run in 36 markets nationwide.

> Professor Kool’s Fun Skool, 1967-1981, WMAR

Of his many roles— including the Night Janitor, Bozo the Clown, the “Dialing for Dollars” host, the WMAR weatherman— Stu Kerr might be best remembered by generations of children who grew up in the 1960s and ’70s as Professor Kool. With giant floppy shoes, an academic’s robe and mortarboard, floppy bow tie, glasses, mustache and a glossy black bob, Kerr was transformed into the loony teacher who made kids believe they liked school because, as he sang to the tune of “Jingle Bells,” “it’s lots of fun.”

In a 1986 interview on “Evening Magazine,” Kerr recalled trying to sell his idea for Professor Kool to station personnel who doubted kids would want to watch “school” on television. “This will be a fun school,” explained Kerr. “And it ran for 14 years.”

In this “school,” lunches included purposely gross selections such as “poison ivy pudding.” Professor Kool was also known to fling a cream pie or two and dance the hokey-pokey. He also hired a young puppeteer named Kevin Clash (creator of “Sesame Street’s” Elmo) to be a part of the program when Clash was in 10th grade.

Along for the run of the show was John Ziemann, a studio technician who was with WMAR for 35 years. Ziemann played Professor Kool’s nemesis, “Miss Spiderweb,” a silent, stealthy witch-like wraith who wreaked havoc in the classroom. As the villain of the show, Miss Spiderweb was frequently the target of the kids on the set and at personal appearances. “They really had it in for me,” says Ziemann, now deputy director of the Sports Legends museum and president of the Marching Ravens band. In fact, he sustained injuries on the set that sent him to the emergency room on three occasions. Still, he says, “those were my 14 best years in television.”

> Hodgepodge Lodge, 1970-1980, MPT

“It was baptism by fire,” Jean Worthley recalls of her first days on “Hodgepodge Lodge.” “We didn’t even have a TV [at home]. I didn’t know anything about TV.”

Undeterred, Worthley, a former preschool teacher, came up with the idea of “a naturalist living in a cabin.” Directed by Joan Rader, the program featured Worthley as “Miss Jean,” teaching an audience of children (including two of her own) who went “off to the forest to see Miss Jean” (as the theme song went) to learn about nature through hands-on activities, including cooking and crafts, in a small cabin built on the MPT site.

This was not without its challenges, especially when live animals were present. During a segment on bats, one precocious child volunteered on air, “You know Miss Jean, they have placentas like you and me!” And at the end of another episode, a thirsty wolf gulped down a bowl of water and promptly threw up over the rug.

Worthley remembers the feathers saved from her orange-winged Amazonian parrot, Aurora, which she’d send to the many viewers who wrote in. She also has kept gifts viewers sent her over the years, from a stick that a little boy wanted her “to keep forever” to a sewing bag made from an armadillo.

Now 83, Worthley credits some of the success of “Hodgepodge Lodge” to timing. “People were just beginning to get interested in ecology and environment,” she explains. But more importantly, she says, was the show’s mission: “It was television that made you want to do something.”

> Wall $treet Week, 1970-2005, MPT

It was idle cocktail chatter that sparked the original idea for MPT’s blockbuster hit show, “Wall $treet Week.” “One of our development people went to a party,” recalls the show’s creator and producer, Anne Truax Darlington, “And someone said, ‘Why are you wasting time teaching people French cooking? Why don’t you teach them something useful? Why not teach them how to manage their money?’”

The idea resonated with Darlington, who “was in the throes of managing money,” she recalls. “I knew what the problems were.” She remembers thinking, “If I can put together a program that demystifies this, that people can learn from and not even know they are learning, well, then I would really have something.”

The premise for “Wall $treet Week” was simple. The show would be produced on Friday night, after the wrap-up of the week’s financial markets. Discussions would be in “simple English” and not “Wall Street talk.” The handsome set complete with wood paneling, velvet sofas and Oriental carpets was modeled after gentlemen’s clubs on Wall Street, and included a lounge area and a conference room to break the show into manageable visual and informational segments and because Darlington “was determined ‘Wall $treet Week’ was not going to look like any talk show they had ever seen.”

At the center of it all, of course, was the charismatic Louis Rukeyser (whom Darlington had first seen on London television in the mid-’60s when Rukeyser was an international correspondent for ABC) presiding over a panel of analysts including locals Pete Colhoun, Frank Capiello and Carter Randall. With his bespoke suits, his brash self-confidence, and even his facility for punning, Rukeyser was a force to be reckoned with, adding “with Louis Rukeyser” to the program’s title when introducing it on air.

In the first year, “Wall $treet Week” was broadcast on the East Coast and as far west as Chicago. By its heyday, it was shown nationally and internationally. In 2002, MPT decided to replace Rukeyser with a younger talent from Fortune magazine in New York. Rukeyser staged an on-air protest and was summarily fired. The program was never the same without Rukeyser and “Wall $treet Week” went off the air in 2005.

> Evening Magazine, 1977-1987, WJZ

“I’m an ‘Evening’ person,” proclaimed bumper stickers in the late 1970s. They weren’t a rallying cry for late-night club-hopping. Instead, they were proof of the wildly popular half-hour program with the local focus, “Evening Magazine.”

The program originated in San Francisco, one of the five cities with stations (including Baltimore’s WJZ) owned by Westinghouse. The Baltimore version was launched in 1977 with hosts Linnea Anderson and Dave Sisson (later hosts would include Donna Hamilton and Tim White). Each show included two locally produced stories, one story from a Westinghouse affiliate, and various “tip segments,” including The Phantom Diner and a sparkling young woman known as “Daring Denise” who would try anything viewers prompted— from hang-gliding to horseback riding. “If I can do it, so can you,” Daring Denise, a then New York-based actress (now better known as WJZ news anchor Denise Koch) would tell her audience. “I dare you.”

The show worked, explains original co-host Anderson, now public relations/marketing director for the American Red Cross of Central Maryland, because of the “novel idea of immersing oneself in the community,” she says. “[‘Evening Magazine’ covered] the quirky, the offbeat, the things that made Baltimoreans say, A-ha!”

Along with interviewing celebrities such as George Carlin and Jack Lemmon when they passed through town, Anderson remembers a segment that followed then-Baltimore Mayor William Donald Schaefer as he shopped for red-dot specials at the Hecht Co., a profile of uber-Orioles fan Wild Bill Hagy and interviewing a young Kevin Clash (creator of Sesame Street’s Elmo) when he was living at home and just “a little kid doing puppets in his bedroom.”

While a 1979 News American article deemed it a “fluffy magazine show” and asked “Is it too mellow for its own good?” the following year, Evening Sun journalist Michael Hill wrote, “Aesthetically, it is clearly the classiest locally produced program on the air.” Better yet, the public loved it.

“We found stories everywhere,” says Mary Ellen Iwata, now a vice president for program development at HGTV, who produced the show from 1980 to 1987. During the show’s run, it became de rigueur to find “Thanks for Appearing on ‘Evening Magazine’” decals on store and restaurant windows. “Everywhere we went people would say, ‘Put me on ‘Evening Magazine!’” says Iwata. 

>>More local faves

Mr. Toby’s Tip-Top-Merry-Go-Round, 1954 -1957, WAAM
On this local kids’ show, “Mr. Toby” would tell stories and show cartoons. Former television personality Greg Otto, who introduced “Mr. Toby’s Tip-Top Merry-Go-Round” show when he was 11 years old, still remembers the day when Mr. Toby’s (aka Keith Hefner’s) brother, Hugh, stopped by the studio to try to sell shares in the new men’s magazine he was promoting.

Captain Chesapeake, 1971-1990, WBFF
“Ahooooy crew members!” Along with the oddly grinning Mondy the Sea Monster and the invisible Bruce the Bird, the ever-turtlenecked George Lewis welcomed youngsters for an afternoon of cartoons and lore from his sturdy deck chair. “Aye, aye, Captain.”

Dialing for Dollars, 1948-1977, WMAR
George Rogers characterized his time playing “Mr. Fortune” as “10 long miserable years,” but the long-running show that found its contestants through the phone book drew viewers to their telephones and their televisions. Immortalized in Janis Joplin’s “Mercedes Benz”: ”Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a color TV? /’Dialing for Dollars’ is trying to find me. /I wait for delivery each day until 3, /So Lord, won’t you buy me a color TV?” Stu Kerr took over as Mr. Fortune until the show left the airwaves in 1977.

People Are Talking, 1978-1988, WJZ
It’s hard to believe that Oprah Winfrey was only 22 when she came to WJZ-TV from Nashville in 1976 to anchor the evening news. While co-anchoring with Jerry Turner didn’t work out, co-hosting “People Are Talking” with Richard Sher did. The two tackled tough topics like drunken driving, and interviewed celebrities such as Britt Eklund and magician James Randi with an easy camaraderie. In 1982, The Messenger praised the hosts’ on-screen chemistry, and Oprah teased that Sher was “like a girlfriend to me.” Each has moved on to other endeavors, of course, but for a few years, these friends ruled morning television.

It’s Academic, 1961 - present, WJZ
There was something about those kids on your high school’s “It’s Academic” team. Not only did they have to be smart, but they had to think quickly under pressure, and have a steady buzzer hand. You knew they were going to go far. The brainchild of the late Sophie Altman, “It’s Academic” celebrates its 48th season of taping in Baltimore. Local alumni include Laura Lippman, while alums of the show’s national markets include George Stephanopoulos and Sen. Charles Schumer. In September, students in Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Virginia will begin yet another series of rounds leading to the Super Bowl of smarts.

MotorWeek, 1980- present, MPT
With an opening camera sweep that follows the curves of gleaming automobiles as closely as those of a supermodel, clearly the cars are the stars on “MotorWeek,” the television automotive magazine that this year celebrates its 28th season on MPT. Broadcast nationally, and written and produced locally by host John Davis, the show has long been the go-to place for car enthusiasts who welcome the informative results that testing and driving approximately 150 cars a year brings. The key to the show’s success? “We don’t get in the way of the cars,” says Davis.

I’m an old soul in the kitchen. Many of my favorite recipes come from my first and only cooking teachers, my mother and her mother, and what I didn’t learn from them, I’ve picked up from homey illustrated compendiums published by women’s magazines like McCall’s, Ladies’ Home Journal or Good Housekeeping. I use butter, sugar, eggs and no mixes. I roll out pie crust with my mom’s old rolling pin. I tend to rely on recipes instead of making up my own.

Frankly, I’d never been interested in moving too far from classic in my cooking. But then, recently, I met Aki and Alex.

New York-based Aki Kamozawa and her husband, H. Alexander Talbot, chefs both, write Ideas in Food, a blog that chronicles their experiments with food fueled by their sense of wonder, fearlessness and an understanding of cooking chemistry (ideasinfood.typepad.com). In their blog as well as in the cooking classes they lead, “Flavor. Efficiency. Creativity” is one of their mottoes. “What is. What can be. What if?” is another. In their hands, parsnips become the stuff of ice cream and raw oysters are garnished with ethereal foam made from the oysters’ own liquor.

On the first day of their cooking class at Woodberry Kitchen in June, I watched them use the enzyme Activa RM, which is in yogurt, to “glue” two skirt steaks together to make a thicker, easier to cook, piece of meat. Then the duo used methocel (a product that allows chefs to form firm or weak gels at different temperatures) to stabilize hollandaise sauce even at high temperature. Finally, they showed visitors how to infuse strawberries with vin cotto (a thicker, more concentrated version of balsamic vinegar) by vacuum sealing them in plastic bags.

I was skeptical at first, but Alex explained, “We’re using these ingredients to improve and fine-tune our cooking. If there’s harm to the palate or the texture, it’s not working.”

This made sense, I conceded, and while I didn’t have any enzymes handy in my kitchen that night (check the Ideas in Food blog for mail-order sources), I was inspired to make mayonnaise (my substitution for hollandaise) and marinate strawberries in balsamic vinegar, which I served over Greek yogurt.

On the second day of the class, Alex used a pectin solution to join sliced radishes together in sheets that could then be used in terrines or other preparations to build what he calls “layers of flavor.” This phrase stuck with me, and when Alex began to construct a similar sheet made from maraschino cherries to be used as a cocktail garnish, I heard myself blurt out, “Those cherries taste best in a Manhattan!”

“That’s it, let’s make a Manhattan crisp,” exclaimed Alex as a staff member rushed to mix up a concoction of Maker’s Mark, sweet vermouth and bitters with which to infuse the cherries before joining them together in a fruit sheet bound by pectin.

That night, I stood in the kitchen and like a musician letting go of sheet music and throwing her soul into improvisation, I closed my eyes to all my cookbooks and a million food melodies came into my head. I thought about textures and imagined a garlic ice cream or basil sorbet to complement fresh sliced tomatoes.

Then, feeling lazy, I remembered the mayonnaise I’d made the night before. What would it be like frozen? I put a scoop in a plastic container, stuck it in the freezer and waited. Alas, when I pulled it out I could barely chip fragments off the surface and it had lost its fresh light flavor. Disappointed but undeterred, I moved on.

One of my favorite brownie recipes calls for a can of Hershey’s syrup and two icings, one flavored with crème de menthe. Since I had a bunch of mint in the refrigerator, I decided to make my own chocolate syrup and infuse it with mint along the lines of the “layers of flavor” idea. I made a simple syrup of sugar and water, poured it over chopped mint leaves, let it steep then added the strained syrup to cocoa, sugar and water. I brought the mixture to a boil, cooked it for a few minutes and voila, chocolate mint syrup! I followed the rest of the recipe as it was, substituting my homemade syrup for the canned one and adding a bit of the simple mint syrup to the icing instead of the crème de menthe. I was thrilled with the results. In the same way that chili pepper can give chocolate a bit of warmth and depth and tingle, the mint gave the chocolate coolness, depth and tingle.

Emboldened by my success, I thought of the Manhattan crisp and wondered how I could re-create that cocktail’s flavor in the classic pineapple upside-down cake. The topping of the cake is often a mixture of canned pineapple, maraschino cherries and pecans bound together with brown sugar, butter and rum. I decided to forgo both maraschino cherries and instead soak plump dried Rainier cherries in a bourbon-sweet vermouth mixture until they were soft, figuring I could use the soaking liquid in the butter and brown sugar topping. I also replaced the canned pineapple with fresh, and toasted the pecans so they’d have a deeper, richer flavor.

I also suspected ginger might be just the lift my cake needed, but since I didn’t want it to taste spicy like a Christmas fruitcake, I sliced about an inch of peeled fresh ginger into thin pieces and boiled them in the pineapple juice left from the pineapple (supplemented with some extra from a can) for several minutes before letting them steep.

I’d planned to use just the pineapple-infused juice only in the cake, but the steeped ginger smelled so heavenly that I chopped it up and threw it in the batter, too. I’d also planned to replace the vanilla with bourbon, but in my excitement, I forgot. In the end it didn’t matter. The cake was more complex and more delicious than I could have imagined. I couldn’t pick out the ginger specifically, but there was an underlying spicy slow burn that cut through the richness of the buttery cake. And, for once, I was eager to eat a candied cherry that gave off a small burst of booze.

In a couple of afternoons I had created layers of flavor by stepping away from the tried and true and letting my taste buds guide me. I’m not ready to give up my library of cookbooks quite yet, but I see my relationship with them changing. I’m no longer the student learning from my recipe mentor. I am a collaborator.

Chocolate Mint Brownies

Manhattan Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

Gazpacho Sorbet

In 1999, when investment adviser Diana Jacquot moved to her house in Homeland, she found privet, pea gravel, railroad ties, rectangular lawns, struggling roses, old lilacs and lots of acuba. It was the exact opposite of what she wanted: “raised beds, ponds, a patio and no straight lines.”

That first summer, with the aid of two moonlighting landscapers, Joel Harner and Mike Schertzer, Jacquot shaped garden beds, killed grass and reused bluestone squares from a path to form curved borders around the back lawn. The landscapers dug the pea gravel into the soil, built a patio, a goldfish pond and a drystone wall with raised beds, which Jacquot filled with plants from her previous garden. She then proceeded to develop a lush shade garden under a canopy of a large Norway spruce, a red maple and a dense Bradford pear tree, adding a crape myrtle, a smoke tree, a red bud, a Kerria japonica and an espaliered pyracantha.

Over the years, Jacquot lost the original tree canopy to age and wind. Now an original crabapple and the small new trees— a yellowwood, a paper bark maple and assorted conifers— are her largest trees and her once shady garden is in full sun. The two landscapers, who now have their own company, Harvest Moon Landscaping, recently helped Jacquot plant more young trees such as crape myrtles, a magnolia and a styrax japonica.

“It’s a mini-arboretum. I would say that my small trees are the prize plantings in my garden— headed by the Japanese white pine,” she says. “The Japanese maples, crape myrtles, chamaecyparis and dwarf conifers, plus a tricolor beech, provide structure to a spring and summer garden and the focus of interest in fall and winter.”

In nine years Jacquot has transformed every inch of her rectangular one-third-acre lot into a multi-layered, intricately planted tapestry that was recently featured on the garden tour of the Horticultural Society of Maryland.

CONCEPT: “It’s not that big, but it’s an excessive garden,” says Jacquot. “I’ve always said I’ve never met a plant I didn’t like.” Curved paths surround the house, patio, drystone walls, bird feeders and goldfish pond. Curved beds showcase fine plantings so numerous that Jacquot’s mid-sized garden rivals in plant numbers and diversity many of the city’s largest and best gardens. “Even though they are small, I wanted garden rooms,” Jacquot says of the distinct corridors and areas around her yellow brick house filled, in English style, with layers of trees, shrubbery, vines, perennials and annuals with year-round texture and color. Without Jacquot’s artistic flair and meticulous neatness, a garden this densely planted could easily look like a jumble rather than a work of art.

BIGGEST CHALLENGE: Adapting her garden to so much new sun. “It used to be 75 percent shade, now it’s 15 percent.” Another challenge is “keeping it going” throughout the spring, summer and fall. This garden begins blooming in March and doesn’t finish until frost. By diligently giving spent plants “haircuts” and deadheading, Jacquot ensures it looks good in between great flourishes of blooms.

BIGGEST SATISFACTION: “Gardening, if you give yourself over to it, guides the time of year and attunes you to the seasons,” says Jacquot. “I listen for the sound of the first frog— this year it was March 13...You are in tune with the cycle of life. ... A whole universe, and an environment for birds, insects and fish, will happen if you have enough diversity.”

GARDEN TIME: “It is the center of my life,” says this accomplished gardener who has never taken a gardening course. She gardens before work and again after work until sunset. “It is my passion ... Other people call it an obsession!”

In winter Jacquot reads extensively and looks at catalogs. “Someone once said, ‘The garden is most perfect in February, when you’re dreaming of it.’” In spring she cleans up winter debris, prunes and feeds the roses. Instead of letting bulb foliage die back, she cuts it down, leaving a little bit and feeding it. She cuts down irises and peonies after blooming then plants unusual annuals, like pale yellow impatiens, and containers of vines. In summer she fills a few empty spots with new roses and perennials acquired in travels with other gardeners. She deadheads and shears plants like Coreopsis to promote second and third blooms. Because everything is so densely planted, Jacquot has few weeds. In fall she slowly cuts down spent plants, transplants and divides perennials and mlches leaves for garden beds. And in all seasons she keeps a notebook of ideas and spots that need work.

GARDEN THERAPY: “It is an antidote to sadness and a full contact sport.  I do Pilates. I am passionate about skiing. I hike. But nothing takes more out of my body than gardening,” she says. “At the same time, it tunes you into a place in yourself. It’s a retreat, a sanctuary, a silent place with the processes of nature and wonder around you. It is very personal, yet it involves a lot of friendship, too. I love the people I’ve met through gardening.”

TIPS: 1) You need good earth, not clay. You have to prepare the soil with compost. 2) Read labels to find out what conditions the plant requires. Day lilies, monarda, rudbeckia do well here in summer. 3) Embrace the idea of change. If things get too big or die, if the weather or your tastes change, do something new. When something dies, I say, “Oh great. Now I can plant something else.” 4) Edit all the time. Take things out you don’t like and give them to a friend. Don’t be afraid to move things around. 

Resources
Harvest Moon Landscaping, 410-399-2000
Cavano’s Perennnials Inc., a wholesale nursery open to the public Saturdays, April to June, 6845 Sunshine Ave., Kingsville, 410-592-8077, http://www.cavanos.com
Valley View Farms, 11035 York Road, Cockeysville, 410-527-0700, http://www.valleyviewfarms.com
Carroll Gardens, 444 E. Main St., Westminster, 410-848-5422, http://www.carrollgardens.com
Highland Gardens, 423 S. 18th St., Camp Hill, Pa., 717-737-8633, http://www.highlandgardens.org
Joy Creek Nursery, clematis, http://www.joycreek.com
Chamblee’s Rose Nursery, http://www.chambleeroses.com
Seneca Hill Perennials, http://www.senecahillperennials.com
John Scheepers Inc., bulbs, http://www.johnscheepers.com

In the beginning was the lawn. And the lawn filled the three-quarter-acre plot and the lawn required constant mowing, and no garden existed at this 1950s Butler stone rancher in North Baltimore. Then, in 1989, a couple who had never gardened before arrived. “We knew we’d better do something!” says one homeowner, a retired businessman, who in 19 years has become such an expert at landscape design that his garden has been featured on tours of the Horticultural Society of Maryland and Ladew Topiary Gardens.

“We knew nothing. We started from scratch,” says the other homeowner, a retired attorney who previously lived in apartments, with occasional geraniums in his law office, and is now an expert plant propagator. “There were a few foundation shrubs and a few scattered trees, but not one deciduous tree— just a volunteer osage orange and two crape myrtles.”

The two, who requested that their names not be published, knew enough to consult respected landscape architect Catherine Mahan, now of Mahan Rykiel Associates. Mahan drew up a plan for the sloped rear property, and the two started implementing it. “The idea of enclosure came naturally,” says the retired businessman. “We wanted a magical space inside the enclosure.” That is exactly what the two have created.

With the help of Corey Branch of Pinehurst Landscape Co., they terraced the sloping back lawn into two level areas connected by a terrace of intricately planted dwarf conifers and perennials. The lower level they used for volleyball and croquet and, on the upper level, they built a unique pool inspired by the old polar bear exhibit at the Baltimore Zoo.

A waterfall now cascades past huge boulders into the pool, with an evergreen backdrop of prized blue spruce, cryptomeria and a 20-foot photinia hedge for privacy. “Usually, a large part of the cost of a pool is removing the dirt, but we used it to create a berm,” explains the businessman who dreamed it up. Surrounded by grasses and Japanese maples, the pool looks like a curvaceous, naturally occurring pond. Open all year, it adds to the year-round garden
interest with winter reflections of evergreens on its icy surface.

As the pair traveled to gardens up and down the East Coast, as well as international gardens such as Sissinghurst, Hidcote and Great Dixter in Southern England, they brought home ideas. The retired lawyer took courses in the well-known horticulture program at Dundalk Community College; the businessman refined the geometry and form of the garden. Inspired by the English concept of garden rooms, he scribed with garden hoses an oval for the grass terrace and began planting around it.

After visiting the Dublin gardens of garden guru Helen Dillon, they then changed those plantings to incorporate her concept of cool colors (lavender, white and chartreuse) on the east and warm colors (yellow, gold and occasional burgundies) on the west, colors that reappear in varying combinations throughout the property. Aided by Jay Stump of Spring Valley Landscape Co., they sharpened the curved borders that had expanded past the croquet gardens to a wide, western boundary. 

These neatly scribed serpentine beds all flank a north-south axis defined by a stone fountain-turned-planter at one end and on the other, a whimsically painted, curlicue Harry Lauder walking stick branch, a concrete bench and in front of it a pebble mosaic dreamed up by the increasingly creative businessman.

This mosaic carpet of cut slabs of black slate, pea gravel and Mexican beach pebbles resembles cracked ice. Others recall a flowing rock river, a spider web, a whirling vortex and a spilled bucket of oatmeal. Like the clematis-covered arch to the lower terrace and the Harry Lauder walking stick sculptures, the pebble mosaic adds whimsy and surprise to the garden rooms.

“A lot of gardeners are too serious,” says the retired attorney. In addition to a peaceful, quiet environment, he says the element of fun and magic has always been important to them. “Besides indulging our intense interest in garden design and plants, the garden gives us a real creative outlet,” says the businessman, who never realized how innovative he could be until he began gardening.

Currently he’s building a path through a perennial island. As usual, it’s no ordinary path but one with 1-foot-square flagstones in a diamond pattern with cross- stripes of bricks joined by Mexican beach pebbles. “When you add some hardscape like this path, it defines the area and gives you a focal point around which to plant,” says the once-novice-gardener, now a pro. Like many artists, he finds that one creative garden project leads to another. 

RESOURCES
Pinehurst Landscape Co., 410-592-6766, http://www.pine-hurstnursery.com
Mahan Rykiel Associates, 410-235-6001, http://www.mahanrykiel.com
Maryland Pools, 410-995-6600, http://www.mdpools.com
Redhead Landscape Design, 410-296-4435
Heritage Landscaping, 410-682-6688
Spring Valley Landscape Co., 410-902-8890

In downtown Asheville, N.C., live music is everywhere. Jazz blows from open-door cafés, bluegrass twangs out of the clubs and Southern rock pulses from talented street performers. Drumming, chanting, whooping and clapping reverberates from Pritchard Park, where musicians, families, hippies and business folks— ties and jackets tossed aside— are dancing and rapping to the beat in the traditional Friday night Drum Circle.

I mosey into Malaprops Bookstore, where author Prioleau Alexander is staging a reading from his book about white-collar burnout. Later, the shop will be hosting poets for Wordfest, a citywide poetry and literature event. Down the block, crowds are filing into an exhibition at Woolworth Walk, a restored five-and-dime–turned-gallery with a lively vintage soda fountain.  

Later, at N.C. Stage, I catch a public rehearsal of “The Crucible,” whose cast includes local resident Tim Carhart, who played the infamous redneck molester in the movie “Thelma and Louise.”

Back outside, people are strolling, checking out menus, drifting out of evening yoga classes and rummaging in the wine shop.
Within this convivial, vivacious setting, it is beginning to dawn on me why so many tourists wind up as residents.

In his book, “The Geography of Bliss,” Eric Weiner dubs Asheville the happiest city in the United States. He notes that “Asheville is big enough to have a thriving arts scene and choice of restaurants, yet not so big that it is burdened with big city problems, such as traffic jams and high crime rates… a five-minute drive can take you deep into the woods or deep in a Thai restaurant.”  

ABC’s “20/20” recently sang Asheville’s praises as well with its own program on happiness. Both the book and the news broadcast proclaimed what its residents already knew: Asheville’s cohesiveness, civility, spiritual tolerance and powerful natural surroundings all make for one happy populace.

Having spent many summers at a camp in the Blue Ridge Mountains, I was well aware of the bewitching beauty of the region. Then, when my Zen Buddhist friends relocated from Santa Fe, N.M., to Asheville, seeking a more authentic organic-minded community, my husband and I booked a trip in an attempt to discover what this magical place is all about.   

Asheville itself lies in glorious surroundings, bordered by steams and lakes, hot springs, mountains and meadows containing the most diverse collection of herbs in the country. In the mid-1800s, the first tourists arrived by railroads to “take to the waters,” breathe in the therapeutic mountain air and seek improved health via those wild herbs, reputedly rich with healing properties. In the late 1800s, artisans and crafters were commissioned to Asheville to construct the Vanderbilts’ summer residence, Biltmore, which, within its self-sustaining design, set the model for the region’s prevailing farm-to-table movement. F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe, whose mother ran a boardinghouse here called The Old Kentucky Home, were its most famous residents in the 1930s.

Many of those artisans who built the Biltmore remained, launching a still-burgeoning, multi-generational arts and crafts community that has lent an alt-culture vibe to the town ever since. Or as one woman I met summed up: “Asheville is Greenwich Village in the mountains.”

And like New York City, I find that in this town of 72,000, there’s always something to do. “Asheville is a continuous festival; the plays, the concerts. ... There is something going on every 10 feet downtown,” says Jonas Gerard, a painter located in the River Arts District, a warehouse district along the French Broad River where many of Asheville’s 4,000 artisans and craftspeople work and run galleries.

Gerard, who was interviewed in the “20/20” program, is an undisputedly happy, colorful character emblematic of the blissful spirit that prevails among Ashevillians. Bouncy rock music streams from his studio as he works. The nationally known abstract expressionist with a penchant for bold, bright colors is a strong proponent of the district’s open studio policy; visitors wander in to find him be-bopping while dabbing paintbrushes onto canvas. Tiny signs announce “It’s Okay To Touch.” From within this communal rehabbed warehouse district of artisans and foundries, Gerard says, “Coming to Asheville has been the most loving, sweetest experience of my life. There is a unity here that bonds everyone to everyone else.”  

The River Arts District is a fun place to wander, as most artist studios lie within a quick walk or drive of one another. I poke my head into a dozen of them and meet creative types of every sort. There are a few coffee shops and restaurants sprinkled about as well, but instead I head to Asheville’s famed Savoy restaurant, where, over appetizers of grilled figs, prosciutto and goat cheese, I meet chef and owner Eric Scheffer. Scheffer decided to move here 13 years ago after gazing at the mountains with his wife during a Thanksgiving visit. Without much afterthought, he tossed aside his family’s film and televison production business in Los Angeles and entrenched himself in Asheville.

Scheffer is rapt with the region’s readily available herbs and produce. Farmers deliver to his back door, and he has purchased a farm nearby to cultivate his own produce and meats. “I live this great adventure every day in my own restaurant,” Scheffer tells me. That is apparent as he effortlessly darts between supervising the kitchen and entertaining his customers, many of whom fly their private planes for a meal here.

Another popular restaurant among Ashevillians is The Market Place, located downtown. Owner Mark Rosenstein integrates local ingredients into his seasonal menus from nearby farms, gardens and fisheries. His new casual dining room, Bar 100, features a menu based upon ingredients available within 100 miles.

Rosenstein, like many of Asheville restaurateurs, is a regular at Asheville’s Saturday morning “tailgates,” the name for its dozens of regional organic farmers’ markets.

I visit two, including Asheville City Market, which features more than 60 vendors in a parking lot beneath a viaduct. (Something like Baltimore’s own downtown farmers’ market beneath I-83.) The scene is at once retro-small town and New Age, a mix of old-time farmers selling plump pole beans and modern-day cultivators dispensing beeswax candles. It’s also a great way to get a taste (literally) of that Asheville bliss.

Upon spotting me, the newcomer, the vendors strike up genuine conversation and offer up samples of their wares— everything from artisan cheeses to fresh whole-grain breads. How could anyone not be happy here? I buy a bag of nuts and a hunk of hard cheese for a snack— and a bar of lemongrass soap for my teenage daughter back home. 

I learn from the locals that the farm-to-table movement isn’t the only progressive idea popular in Asheville. The Five Day Weekend Movement, a national push to reverse the workweek, is based here and another, Strive Not to Drive, encourages the local work force to stay out of their cars and in-town at lunchtime, promoting healthy living, local businesses and the environment.

So, let’s see, so far we’ve got a great arts district, live music of every sort, excellent restaurants specializing in local produce, farmers markets seemingly everywhere and a local movement that espouses working just two days a week. Who wouldn’t be happy here?

But you can’t visit Asheville without taking in the spectacular mountain scenery, so one early morning we pack a picnic and head out on the Blue Ridge Parkway for a hike at Max Patch Bald, a favorite trek of locals. After exiting the highway, a smaller road takes us through breathtaking, classic mountain communities with split-rail fences, red tobacco barns and covered bridges. It’s just a half-mile hike up to the 4,629-foot summit, which, as its name implies, is bald of trees and shrubs— nothing but grass. But the view extends for miles— all the way across eastern Tennessee, and beyond the Great Smokies. Even the most jaded can’t help but feel humbled.

Looking out, I think of the people I’ve met in Asheville and what author Weiner meant when he wrote “our happiness is completely and utterly entwined with other people...happiness is not a noun or a verb, it’s a conjunction.” And in Asheville, those conjunctions occur in some of the most blissful ways.

Getting there
US Airways flies from BWI. You will change in Charlotte, but locals say it’s quicker to drive the 90 minutes yourself. For tourism information, see http://www.exploreasheville.com.

STAY
The pampered people opt for the scenic Grove Park Inn and Spa (828-252-2711, http://www.groveparkinn.com).  Those seeking the “grand experience” should book a room at The Biltmore (800-438-5800, http://www.biltmore.com). The crunchy-minded head to Hawk & Ivy (828-626-3486, http://www.hawkandivy.com), a holistic B&B farm whose owner leads Asheville’s Slow Food movement.

EAT
For imaginative cuisine, made with local ingredients, try The Marketplace (828-252-4162, http://www.marketplace-restaurant.com).  A bit out of town but worth it is The Savoy (828-253-1077, http://www.savoyasheville.com). Don’t miss the organic chocolate “sipping truffles” at The French Broad Chocolate Lounge (828-252-4181, http://www.frenchbroadchocolates.com). 

PLAY
For listings of tailgates, farms, growers and organic grocers: http://www.buyappalachian.org. For a guide to the River Arts District, check out http://www.riverdistrictartists.com.

John Waters: I’m the doctor, you’re the patient.  We have the usual 50-minute session.  Are you ready, sir?
Henry Johnson: I’m ready.

You have designed yourself an amazingly relaxing and beautiful compound here that has taken you many years to finish.  You’ve finally moved in
and it reflects your personality perfectly.  Can you ever really be depressed in a house you designed for yourself?
I’m always depressed [both laugh]. Always. I don’t want it any other way.

But how does that reflect in your design here?
I hate ‘pretty.’

But people would say there’s really beautiful things in here.
They always do, and I just ignore it.  I don’t know what to do with that.

If somebody came in here and called it ‘pretty,’ that would be bad?
I would feel like I had failed myself.

You designed this place for yourself, so really you are the client and the designer for the first time. It’s much more complicated.  You can never make up your mind because you have millions of things to choose from. So you can be depressed in a house you designed for yourself?
Absolutely. And I love it.

Next question. You have a main house, a rebuilt 18th-century log cabin guest house, a small 19th-century structure that contains sleeping quarters, and a modern greenhouse.  Does a compound like this suggest a split personality?
Absolutely. Sometimes I’m the plantation owner, sometimes I’m the cowboy and sometimes I’m the cotton picker. You just never know what it’s gonna be until you wake up.

OK.  If an architect reflects the client’s psychological awareness, how do you deal with self-analysis when you design for yourself?  Can the neurotic hysteria of your clients be avoided in the self?  Can you not act like your worst clients?
It’s 10 times worse, because I get what I want.

Well, you still have to do it on a budget, though.  Do you think up a budget for yourself, when you start?
No. You once told me— ’cuz you and I were talking about our personal success— you said to me, “I finally can go someplace and not have to look at the price of a book.”

Well to me, that’s what being rich is. That you can buy any book you want and not have to care how much it costs. 
I bought a jacket recently when I did your condo in San Francisco. And I forget to ask the price because I was so busy.  Now, I certainly can afford the jacket, but it was shocking when I got the bill. I had to hide it from my accountant!

Is there anything you feel guilty about in your design?  What should architects feel guilty about in your design?
Oh, always, I’m, I’m… everything is guilt.

Do you mean the same way I’m thinking— whenever you think up a movie, once you make it, it can never be anywhere as good as it was when you thought it up. Because you have to make an idea real.  Is it the same building this compound?
That’s what a schematic is— the first phase of design— you know, research, and then you develop the idea, and then you do the working drawings, and then you do the construction documents, and then you face the reality: “I’ve got to build the fucking thing.” Well, gee wiz it’s nowhere near what it was on Day One and that was two days before or two years before.

Because it can’t live up to the original splurge of creativity in the first idea?
We throw it all out on the plate, and then you’ve said ‘My God, I don’t need 12 courses, I just wanted a snack.’

Give me some examples of what architects do that they should feel guilty about.
Oh, they all think it’s the most original thing in the world. I didn’t invent furniture and rugs and roofs and windows and things like all this. You know Marie Antoinette’s hairdresser said ‘There are no new ideas, it’s only those that have been forgotten.’

So, what architects do wrong is what? Is put it in the wrong perspective, or not know where the idea came from in the first place?
It’s all egomaniac stuff.

You mean just to be noticed, and not for… reasons that have nothing to do with whether it’s good or not?
Just to be noticed is everything. Hell, look at the buildings when you ride around any place and you look up at them and you say ‘My God, how the hell is that building going to talk to that building?’ and you realize there is not intent to talk and to mix and to blend. It’s ‘look at me.’

Well that’s the good thing about a compound is you put all these together and each building has to speak to each other. And they do, but they’re very different.
I think they speak to each other. I mean, you know, this was 1743 and… [indicates the cabin] off of our plantation Down South. I drug it up here.

How’d you get it here?
On a truck. Piece by piece by piece. I remember as a child that was where my favorite sleeping room was when I visited my grandparents. But, you know, we had had the place for 230 years and that’s always been my favorite. I didn’t invent log cabins. It just was up here [taps his head], it was memory. It’s all memory speaking.

Well, this next question is perfect then. Does being from the South give you design superiority or an inferiority complex?
All I know is that us Southerners are crazy as loons. Every Southerner I know that I love is… they’re… we’re all nuts.

So maybe a little of both? Superiority and inferiority put together?
I don’t know the distinction there. You know some people say, ‘You’re so fucking arrogant, Henry.’ I don’t get that I am an arrogant person. I am a slow person. You know I am very naive about things.

There are lots of candles, so I am wondering: Is the extensive use of candles in decorating a suicidal fire hazard— a cry for help?
Oh, I am sure, but I don’t even think of that. There are 83 goddamn recessed light fixtures in this house. Luke Tigue, my lighting designer, he was an angel. Just a genius. And I can tell you, that the modern lighting works in here. It really works. But in general, everybody’s house today looks like a goddamn hotel. It all looks like ‘Dallas,’ so bright. What happened to a silk lampshade? What happened to a fireplace? A candle?

So, inside/outside living, which you certainly have here and is a great part of it— does it reflect exhibitionism or adventure?
It all depends on who’s looking. Cause I get up in the morning like I came into this world, jump out of bed and I go right to the porch and…

So, being nude sets you free in your house?
Absolutely, it seems the right thing to do. And, I’ve been caught early in the morning, at 4:30, out watering plants in the summer and just had no idea…

Well, you’re more liberal than I am. But if you’re nude, too bad then. If they come over without calling then be prepared, right?
It’s not like, ‘Oh I am free— I don’t have to put my robe on.’ It just never occurred to me. I remember living for 35 years in a condo on the top floor at Saint Paul and Chase [downtown], and so it never occurred to me.

So people who live in partial glass houses, like you do, should throw stones?
Absolutely. You know that my inspiration here was John Paulson, the greatest minimalist architect alive today.

Well, tell us a little about him, for people who don’t know. He inspired you in what way?
In concept. The hardest thing to do to live in this house is to edit. Reduce to the bare minimal. Hence minimalism.

But this house doesn’t look like the kind of minimalism where you’re afraid to pull up a chair and read a book in, like some of them do. 
Well I gave up the idea. I though it was ridiculous. With all the beautiful things in the world, why would you want nothing? You know, I didn’t grow up in a Zen family. I grew up in a family that had been in the same house for over 200 years, that threw nothing away. ‘Minimal’ didn’t mean a thing.

But you took some of it.
I was just fascinated with it after having had stuff that you grow up with, everything in the world was saved, you didn’t throw anything away. It was the reverse, so I was of course attracted to the opposite.

Exactly. But you didn’t become a full-tilt radical minimalist.
I just gave in to the— what do they say— the flow?

But your art collection is anything but minimalist because it’s so amazing. What does it say about your mental health? Is collecting a compulsion? Addiction? 
If I am out on the farm and I am picking berries and I need two cups of berries, I’ll pick a hundred gallons of berries. I am obsessed with ‘get everything you can.’ And then pick the best. 

So where do you buy art? Where did this collection come from?
Most of it is a project that I am working on. If I need an 18th-century or 19th-century color palette with hybrid roses, I’ll buy. It’s impulse and things I am working on. This is mostly Maryland artists. You know, there’s Jimmy Rouse, there’s David Brewster, there’s Bud Leake, there are 18th-century paintings here, there’re two Picassos here, there’s all of Amanda’s stuff.

Amanda’s your daughter, Amanda Johnson.
Right, Amanda’s paintings from the Museum School, and the School for the Arts. And Henry Cowe and Danny Dudrow, and Lautrec and Susan Rouse. All the people that I know and surround myself with. It’s part of that thing of not throwing things away. I don’t think there are any accidents in the world, and when I look at something I don’t care if it’s representational, whether it’s modern. I