Katkin, I'm so glad you told us about this program. The gardens were so beautiful and inspiring...but so was the MAN, himself. Imagine. A sharecropper's son with no formal education, just deciding he wanted to do something like that. Working until midnight or later, after his regular job, by tractor light! What dedication, talent, and perserverance. Saying that he wanted people to feel differently after they went through his gardens than they did before shows the true artist in his soul. My favorite line was when he said someone (a horitculturist, I think) said "You should NOT be able to do that," and he replied, "I did't KNOW that." It's astounding what we CAN do when no one tells us it isn't possible! (Or when we refuse to listen to those who TRY to tell us that.) I'm thinking I'll buy the DVD, since the proceeds help support his work. And I know if I'm ever near Bishopville, I want to see those gardens for myself, and perhaps meet the genius behind them. Marcia

Thank You Goldenpond! I got to visit Katkin's garden when I lived in St Lucie County but that has been a couple of years now. I am pleased to see the beauty she has continued to create in her own definite style! Katkin, What can I say? Both you and your garden just get better with time! nova also doing the "We are not worthy" bow!

Thanks for that personal data, Deedles. I'm 65 in a few weeks. There was a real change in lifestyle in those roughly 15 yrs of our childhoods, wasn't there? My parents' house was built immediately after WWII in a new suburb of St. Paul; one grandmother lived in old 1880s house in decaying neighborhood of St. Paul and one in 1915 [new] house in town outside St. Paul. We all washed dishes but only the grandmother downtown did the scald routine. It was the rural grandma who had the big farm kitchen but the room was awful, much like the one that the kitchen planning film was trying to replace. Mostly because of lighting and lack of decorating taste. I was dating DH whose parents built a mod house by the U. of M. in 1963 with all the Midcentury Modern features that ecologists now hate. The house fascinated me. They had a skylight, a massive open fireplace, lots of glass windows, and a dishwasher! Two ovens! waterless cookware! A garbage grinder! but a dinky dining room and a one-cook kitchen. And vinyl floor even in dining area and countertops of white shiny Formica with flecks of gold. One thing that we don't see anymore and good riddance is the early plastic tablecloths that were literally tacky--they attracted things to stick to them yet the rural people loved them--cut down on laundry I suppose. We had to struggle to remove a plastic tablecloth from another family table in abt 1970 when we visited the bachelor uncle in Iowa--it adhered to the table.

This is so funny, my MIL and I used that *exact* line (a man...) about my house a few weeks ago, for the exact same reason! It really is puzzling because although my house is no mansion, when it was built it was definitely on the upper side of the general style of the neighborhood--a group of pilots bought parcels on the same block and all built houses at the same time. So it is/was a decent sized house...with woefully few closets! I have a grand total of 4-no walk ins, no coat closet, no broom closet, no pantry. There is one closet in each bedroom, just standard sized. One narrow linen closet. And, that's it. I truly don't understand how someone designed this house and simply ignored storage space. Oh, the bathrooms are all very small and have no built in storage either. I have closet envy about my MIL's house. She has at least one decent closet in each room, and 2 in the MBR. A wide hall closet. *2* linen closets, one near each bathroom. Large pantry in the kitchen. And there she is, one widowed lady living all alone with all that storage space while the 4 of use cram things in, frantically try to figure out what to keep and what to discard, etc. Oh, and my vacuum cleaner and broom are stuck next to the door in my garage. Literally not a place in the whole house to keep em otherwise. Ann