January 2008

COLUMNS & FEATURES

The Last Great Place
Year Number Three By John Fulmer
As Mountain Home celebrates its third anniversary this month, we put out a call for writers, especially those who love nature.

Mountain Chatter
Networking For Children By the Mountain Home staff
The Children’s Miracle Network helps area twins; the boundary project gets a grant; and we hear from a young soldier in Kuwait.

Cover Story
Stepping Out By Kerry Gyekis and Terry V. Babb
Dance is romance but it’s also a heart-thumping form of exercise. Well, maybe that’s the same thing.

Free Form By Dara Riegel
Dara tells us about a place in Corning where dancers can shed their inhibitions and perhaps lose a few pounds as they dance the night away.

House of Mirth By Patricia Brown Davis
Our writer turns a cancer diagnosis into an endless party.

Good-bye, Mrs. Diffenderfer By Sarah Bull
After the early, unfortunate death of a Wellsboro English teacher, we also find that her student has learned her lessons well.

Reading Nature
Kids Without Trees By Tom Murphy
In his review of Last Child in the Woods, Tom describes author Richard Louv’s theory of ‘nature-deficit disorder,’ and why letting our children roam a little outside of their technological comfort zones might be a good thing..

The Lunker
Fingers Frozen on Lake By Fred Metarko
Too cold to fish? It doesn’t seem possible, not in Lunker’s world. But a winter junket to New York proves that even die-hard anglers have a limit.

The Mountain Man
Kind Heart By Roy Kain
When Mountain Man’s life needs illumination, he only has to ring for Bell.

Awakenings
A Last Word By Reverend Bob Greer
Reverend Greer sends us his last column before packing up and heading to Rhode Island.

Yogamama Says
Tale of an Apple and a Tree By Kathleen Thompson
As in, the former doesn’t fall far from the latter. Yogamama watches with pride and some trepidation as her daughter learns the hard truths about yoga.

Mountain Guide By The Mountain Home Staff
The world-renowned Pennsylvania Farm Show comes to Harrisburg this month, and we find a man who has gone there more than forty years. Also, Corky Siegel jams in Lancaster and chill out with Wine on Ice in Elmira.

On Stage Off the Wall
Great 2008 By Larry Biddison
The new year looks promising for art in Tioga. Plays, playwrights in training, and computer artists kick off 2008. Our CEO of Fine Entertainment tells us all about it.

The Needle and the Healing Done By Vicki Jones
How Linda Spencer turned a potentially fatal thyroid condition into a life-changing event.

Be Our Guest
Font of Wellness By Jim Meade and Nelle Rounasville
Right in Wellsboro there lies a B&B that will take you on the road to Wellsville.

Looking Back
A Yarn About Craft By Joyce Tice
Ms. Tice digs into the history of knitting, spinning out some little-known facts about this popular pastime.

The Better World
Cell Phone Sense By John and Lynne Diamond-Nigh
In our newest column, we introduce two manners mavens who ask you to watch your Ps and Qs and please be a little more courteous. Thank you.

Shop Around the Corner
Wild Move By Tricha Martin
Jennie Borneman and Liz Berkowitz, longtime Mountain Home Trailblazer columnist, packed up their backpacks, hiking boots, sleeping bags, and a bunch of other outdoorsy stuff and set up shop on Wellsboro’s Main Street.

Walk a Mile in His Shoes By Molly Long-Meddaugh
Or, more precisely, six to eight miles a day and ten to twelve miles on Saturday and Sunday. Want to lose weight? Follow in this restaurant owner’s footsteps.

Cooking Bachelor Style
Sino-Satyric Relations By Terry Miller
In another disastrous dating situation, a filly named China makes our cook quiver and bolt for the door. Wonder if he has a recipe for liver spots?

Wine & Dine
Here’s to Your Health By Holly Howell
Booze that’s good for you? An oxymoron, you might say. Yet certain red wines have an antioxidant that some believe can be beneficial for the heart. But as a certain Greek philosopher once said: ‘Avoid extremes of all sorts and seek moderation in all things.’ Would that we could with reds like these.

The Book Page
Shedding Light on a Dark Side By Kasey Cox
Depression is out of the closet and thank God for that. This disorder affects rich and poor, man and woman, and its stigma has finally fallen away thanks to authors such as William Styron and Kay Redfield Jamison who had the courage to tell their stories.

Ask Gary
Portal Problems By Gary Ranck
Once again, our carpenter in chief has an answer to your questions, this time about doors. And in his tip of the month? There’s a reason why they’re called vents. So don’t cover ‘em up; let ‘em breathe.