HELEN NEARING

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MEN: How did Scott react to such constant visitors? Was he distracted or did he just take it all in stride?

HN: He'd go about his work. He'd say, "Well, look, I've got to go out and weed the garden" or "Come out and help me and saw wood or something or other." He would take it for a certain amount of time, and then he'd say, "Well, that's enough, let's go out and do something else."

Now they come partly to buy his books, talk about him, to see the house we built, as well as the garden. And I welcome all and every, but it disrupts my work so much that I have difficulty writing there. I can tend to minor things, but I can't do any creative writing. It's too much.

But I welcome that, it's okay. I'm there for open house. I put up a sign saying "Visitors: 3 to 5," but they come any time of the day. I see them coming in and looking at the sign, and the most considerate ones pull out and go away, and I run after them and say, "It's okay, you can come in!"

MEN: Are they mostly young people?

HN: No, no, no, no. Many are people who've really done it, in their 50s, 60s. They come up and say that they have built houses and want to see how I've pointed the stonework and that sort. We have all ages and all propensities. Some of them don't know a cabbage from a radish, but they love to look around.

MEN: When did you get a television?

HN: Never. I've never owned one. Never will. I'd watched television three times before this year. I'd seen Nixon resign. I went deliberately to the neighbors next door to see that. I saw Carter and Amy walk down the (Pennsylvania) avenue hand in hand during his inauguration celebration, and I was at a party where they showed (Princess) Diana's wedding. So those three times I had witnessed television until I came down for the winter here in Florida. Now I watch the "MacNeil Lehrer News Hour."

MEN: I know you're well aware of this, but people are going to find that incredible.

HN: Apparently 1 percent of the population in the U.S. does not have television, 1 percent.

MEN: I have trouble envisioning a world in which I don't know what the weather's going to be like three or four days from now, or the news in Asia, or what the business markets are up to.

HN: But to what good? To what advantage? How has it enriched lives really except with some money and the ease of application? You will feel the weather coming when you grow accustomed to it. Read a newspaper if you want to know the news. We read endlessly and got much more from that experience.

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