Goodlife: Previous Stories

On a farm tucked away in Penns Valley’s eastern end, Brian Futhey practices alchemy.

He holds a pipette in one hand, a small glass beaker in the other. Today’s experiment is proceeding as planned. He’ll need to test the acidity of his raw milk, freshly obtained from his Jersey cows, before he turns 10 gallons of it into a soft, Camembert-style cheese called “Leigh-Belle.”

It might be a hot summer day, but the air is a pleasant few degrees cooler in the gorges of Ricketts Glen State Park. Here dappled sunlight filters through leaves of giant hemlocks and oaks, offering a visual counterpoint to the gurgle and splash of flowing water.

Few conversation pieces can top a ceiling mural with nine half-naked women.

Representing the Muses of Greek mythology, they float above the immense dining room of an ornate 135-year-old Huntingdon mansion fit for a robber baron — or two retired schoolteachers.

Anne Ard may not be a doctor, but she’s in the healing business. As executive director, the Ferguson Township resident leads the Centre County Women’s Resource Center, whose shelter, hotline and other programs help abused women and their children repair their lives.

Heidi Biever is standing with her back to a room full of wiggling, giggling elementary school students. Dressed in black yoga pants, a striped cap perched jauntily atop her blond braids, she surveys the group in the wall-length mirror before her, then strikes a pose.

When the fire in Bill Clarke’s 6-foot-tall roaster, filled with coffee beans from Ethiopia, reaches about 400 degrees, he stops talking, waiting motionless with one ear turned toward the machine.

When Chris Fagan wanted a home office, he knew which direction to take. Up. Because his earth-berm house in Ferguson Township burrows into soil on three sides, he couldn’t easily build an addition four years ago.

It’s hard to picture Sam Spade stuck like this. One fedora, then another, sits on the customer’s head inside the Madison’s Hat’r shop on Pugh Street in State College.

March can be the cruelest month — especially for gardeners who spend the winter months thumbing through seed catalogues and longing to plunge their fingers into the soil of newly thawed ground.

In her office, Patricia Best keeps a nameplate inscribed with a Michaelangelo quote: “I am still learning.” At 63, she follows that creed. The Ferguson Township resident may be retiring in June as superintendent of the State College Area School District, ending a 41-year career. But she’s not saying goodbye to education.