Spa

The Bedford Springs Hotel was never just a hotel. It was history itself for the good folk of Bedford, who found that people they met all along the East Coast had heard of their little town because of its single most famous landmark. A vestige of more elegant eras, the 183-year-old resort hotel has housed seven presidents, the Supreme Court, Japanese prisoners during World War II and several generations of conventioneers sporting badges on their lapels. It was the summer White House during the administration of President James Buchanan and the site where the U.S. Supreme Court delivered the Dred Scott decision, reportedly the only time it met outside chambers to decide a case.

Perhaps you're one of the 5,000 people who volunteered to clean up Germantown Avenue on Sunday as part of the Presidents' Summit for America's Future - and you're wondering what else you might be able to squeeze in between collecting trash, scrubbing graffiti and sweeping dirt. (Then again, maybe you're not a volunteer and your intention is to stay as far away from Germantown Avenue as possible until the dust settles and everybody goes back home.) You should know, if you don't already, that the Avenue is lined with scores of stores, shops and eateries that are as varied as the neighborhoods it runs through.

A little-known city law says that every time a masseuse gives a member of the opposite sex a professional rubdown, it could have an unhappy legal ending. City Councilman Darrell Clarke yesterday moved to lift an almost four-decades-old legal ban on men massaging women and women massaging men. Clarke asked Council's Committee on Licenses and Inspections to amend the law, which has been in effect but apparently not enforced since the early 1970s. "I couldn't believe it when they told me that," Clarke said before the committee meeting.

Could a concept as enlightened as seasonal, healthful cooking possibly exist at the Cherry Hill Mall? Yes, I know we're talking about the hallowed ground where the first climate-controlled indoor mall east of the Mississippi was born nearly half a century ago. I know we're talking about a town so thoroughly infested with big-box commercialism that any hopeful sprout of independently owned-restaurant spirit is often squashed by the cheesecake weight...

WYOMING, N.Y. - To many travelers "of a certain age," the pinnacle of summer vacation fun could be found at places such as Gaslight Village in Lake George, N.Y., with its "old-timey" feel, rides from bygone days, and vaudeville entertainment. Lake George's Gaslight Village closed in 1989. But for a little something different, something that carries a definite whiff of nostalgia, head to western New York where another Gaslight Village is located - a real one. Wyoming, a charming little village of 500 residents, is in the county of the same name 50 miles southeast of Rochester.

Asked last month who was ahead at quarterback on the Eagles' depth chart, Chip Kelly said the competition was "even" between Michael Vick and Nick Foles. He even threw Dennis Dixon into the mix, and said that the former Oregon quarterback took snaps with the first team during a three-day minicamp. But Jeremy Maclin shed some more light on the battle when he was asked who he thought would ultimately be the Eagles' starting quarterback. "Right now, you've got Mike going with the ones and Nick 'sprinkled in,' some reps here and there," the wide receiver said Thursday.

NEW COACH Chip Kelly has touted an even competition between Michael Vick and Nick Foles for the Eagles' starting quarterback position, but given the reworked 1-year, $10 million contract the Birds gave Vick, most of us figure he is likely to emerge as the starter. That's pretty much what receiver Jeremy Maclin thinks, as well. Maclin was asked yesterday, if he had to guess, who will be No. 1? "Right now, you've got Mike going with the 'ones' and Nick sprinkling in some reps here and there, so . . . " Maclin said at his Lincoln Financial Field charity event honoring five moms of kids he met through his summer football camp in West Deptford, N.J., where Maclin lives.

Businessman Thomas Bennett did not relish taking a shuttle bus from Terminal C, where he flew in from Pittsburgh, to connect to a flight in Terminal F, at the other end of Philadelphia International Airport. Especially in the rain. "I would put a cover where the bus drop is here," Bennett said the other day, as he waited in busy Terminal F to board a commuter jet to Manchester, N.H. Bennett, who clocks 100 to 150 flights a year, gives the Philadelphia airport a general thumbs-up.

THERE WAS a time when "Spas" meant places for serious weight loss at indelicately named "fat farms," where paying customers would sweat through strict exercise and a semi-starvation regime and an 800-calorie daily diet. But times have changed and so have spas. Today, a visit to the spa is a life-enhancing experience that meshes relaxation with health, and offers a palatable cuisine where calorie levels are more in line with the latest government recommendations, permitting guests on weight-loss programs to consume 1,200 to 1,500 calories.

"Dahling, you look positively fabulous. Where have you been?" And there you are, all tanned and trim, telling jealous acquaintances about your three-week spa vacation. No need to mention that it wasn't Palm Springs. That will just be our secret, comrade. We won't tell a soul that you were getting rejuvenated at Pyatigorsk Spa, in the North Caucasus. That's the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - Russia, dahling. The spa life may not be everybody's idea of a great vacation, but if it's yours, the Soviet Union may not be such a strange place to enjoy it. The Russians have been going to spas for more than 200 years, getting slathered in mud, soaked in bubbles and slapped around by large women with names like Ludmilla.