Motor Home

He fretted about losing his boat, his cars and real estate holdings in Philadelphia. She missed her family and friends in the city. So, although they were 1,200 miles away, Ralph Birdsong and his girlfriend, Jill St. Claire, tried to keep in touch with folks back home - discreetly, without revealing their whereabouts. They made one call too many. They reached out and touched someone they were trying to avoid. The Philadelphia police. On Monday, FBI agents were waiting inside the couple's 28-foot motor home at a trailer park in Fort Lauderdale when Birdsong, 28, returned from work.

Marjory Murphy Heckelman, 81, who loved the outdoors, travel and people - and who spent so much time on the road that she claimed world citizenship - died at her Ambler home Sunday after five years of physical deterioration caused by progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), a rare neurological disease. "She considered herself a citizen of the world," said her husband, Jack Heckelman. Mrs. Heckelman lived overseas for 10 years, visited more than 50 countries and nearly as many states, and tried to absorb the culture and make friends wherever she was. She was always ready for adventure.

An admission: I normally hate movies like "The Accused," films based on yesterday's headlines that usually turn out to be turgid, vein-popping speechathons, good for nothing except providing temporary employment for mediocre actors. An example? Last year's "Nuts," which took a seemingly interesting issue - whether a criminal defendant can be designated as insane without his or her consent - proved that it was really boring and in general talked it to death. "The Accused" turned out to be better than I expected, mainly because of the issue it revolves around.

Ther?se Halscheid doesn't have a doorbell, a cable-TV contract, or a telephone land line. She is, officially, "Not at This Address. " At least, not for long. Halscheid, 47, is a poet, educator and full-time house-sitter who currently resides in a Mount Airy twin. In February, home was a different twin on the same block. She also has tended to an unfurnished log cabin in Medford Lakes, a barn near Vineland, a motor home in the Ozarks, and a guest house in the swamps of the Florida Panhandle.

Republican write-in candidate Dick Booth scored an upset over incumbent Michael J. Weinrich in the Ward 4 primary race for a seat on the Upper Moreland Board of Commissioners. According to unofficial results, Booth held a slim lead over Weinrich, winning 53 percent of the vote to Weinrich's 46 percent. The results will not be confirmed for several days because write-in votes take longer to process. If he is determined the winner, Booth will be unopposed in November. "I worked really hard for it," said Booth, who received the endorsement of the Upper Moreland Republican Party.

In parts of Downingtown Borough yesterday, residents pointed to high-water lines on walls and furniture that now mark three major floods in 15 months. And then they quoted the promises that officials made a year ago, they say, about fixing the problem. In June 2003, heavy rains caused the first flooding. In September 2003, even heavier rains caused water from the swollen Brandywine Creek and several of its tributaries to pour into hundreds of homes in the borough. Officials later dubbed that event a "500-year" flood.

His liquid brown eyes are surrounded by wrinkles and his hair has turned gray, but he can seem as irresistible as when he rode across the screen 24 years ago in Lawrence of Arabia. It didn't seem to matter to the fans awaiting him that their "movie star" had not been in a major hit since 1968. At age 53, Omar Sharif still charms with just a kiss on the hand. Sharif, who lives in Paris, was in Los Angeles promoting his role in the NBC mini-series Peter the Great (Sunday through Wednesday at 9 p.m., Channel 3)

The 12 boys who pitched, fielded and batted their way to Little League baseball's biggest moment returned home yesterday for a celebration worthy of any big-league team. Toms River East rolled into town on a bright-red hook-and-ladder fire truck, its sirens blaring while thousands of fans squealed in delight at the boys who lit this Jersey Shore town on fire with victory Saturday in the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa. Police said about 3,000 people lined the five-mile route between the Garden State Parkway and Windsor Avenue Fields while 4,000 more waited on the ball field to greet the scrappy sluggers less than a day after their 12-9 win over Kashima, Japan.

ORVIN BROWN emerged from his comfy home Sunday evening and stepped right into a Wal-Mart parking lot. The retired construction worker walked over to the adjacent Home Depot in search of a metal apparatus for a drawer that no longer slid as it should have. The pesky drawer was inside a 39-foot Fleetwood Discovery recreational vehicle that has almost all the amenities one could ask for in a home: satellite TV, conventional/microwave oven, computers, bathroom and shower. The cozy bedroom expands at the press of a button, as does the RV's center, which holds the kitchen, eating area and living room.

It's not by accident that we're an RV couple. My husband, Bert, and I love to travel, but are addicted to the comforts of home that a recreational vehicle can provide. We are psychotherapists and have an abiding curiosity about the world around us, but sometimes we feel a compelling need to get away from it. Now in our 50s, we feel that we've paid our dues to family and society, and have earned the right to devote the rest of our lives to ourselves. Also, we were fortunate, in our combined 60 years in the labor force, to have acquired the financial resources and requisite skills to make living on the road a possibility.