Best Zip Code for Perfect Life

29902. That's the zip code for Beaufort, South Carolina, located on the very southeast coast. If you like moderate winter temps(with the exception of this year), natural beauty that includes ocean, salt marshes, and pristine rivers and streams, and pre-civil war architecture(Sherman didn't burn it all up), this is it. People are friendly, our traffic jams occur on fridays between 1-3pm when everybody is trying to get away from work for the weekend. If you like to fish, kayak, or play golf, there isn't a better place. There aren't any high-line audio dealers in the area, the closest ones are probably 4-5 hours away, but if you can get on a computer, you'll be able to converse with other Audiogoners just like I do now. The downside, you might have to stop and say hello to a friend, neighbor, or a fellow worker when you're out and about in town. The big cities have many things these little towns may never have, but you can go visit anytime, and when you get your fill, you can head on back to these small places and remember exactly what it was that got you to move there in the first place! No place is perfect, but Beaufort should be on anyone's short list. Happy New Year to you'all..Skip

Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 27514-27516. If God isn't a Tarheel, why is the sky Carolina Blue? Plenty of pre-war architecture (some pre civil-war). Bass fishin' was practically invented in the region. Big undergrad and reseacrh university town atmosphere means hippie and yuppie cyclists abound. Look a few miles oustide of town and you can practically buy your own nature preserve, and enlighten the wildlife with Dark Side of the Moon at your leisure. Sixty percent of UNC's approximately 25,000 students are women, and 75% of them are very attractive women in their early twenties. A few great audio dealers in Research Triangle Park area (home of Cary Audio). Lots of well paved windy country roads (and a Ferrari dealership two hours away in Greensboro). Again, big (liberal) college town atmosphere assures plenty of bookstores, music stores, restaurants, etc. PLUS you get to live in the national capital of college basketball, fantastic golf courses, great live music of all sorts (see big college town info above), a four season climate with none too drastic, an international airport nearby, and a beautiful but increasingly spoiled coastline within 2 1/2 hours drive. The downside is that you get Jesse Helms as a Senator, but no one in Chapel Hill votes for him anyway. He once said of Chapel Hill, "They ought to just put a big fence around it and call it a zoo." I grew up there and came to the city to make my fortune but will return ASAP.

Explain 'a zillion'? All things are tradeoffs. I think my favorite 'low cost' city is Denver, CO. It's getting expensive though. You can find some older houses just south of the city, or some out West.

Colorado Springs is nice too. Very safe. Primarily a military town with strong Christian and liberal influences. Local music and social scene is more limited but Denver is an hour away. Dunlavy, Genesis, and Rowland are made there. Semi-affordable, great old victorians downtown.

Another great city is Portland Oregon, where I live now. It rains too much, but it is beautiful and has skiing, hiking, beach, great old bookstores and a few good music venues. It's a little like a smaller, simpler san francisco. The houses are expensive relative to most local incomes, but cheap if coming from most other cities. There are some beautiful old Victorian houses around Portland. Some in 'revitalizing' neighborhoods if that is your thing.

02156: 2 minute walk to lake, 4 minutes to great Italian restaurant at town center, with 12 minute rail/20 minute drive to Boston's Symphony and/or Jordan Halls (though parking's a bitch!). 10 minute walk to newly-"hot" town center. Great solid American "four-square" and victorian turn-of century homes (lots of cross-beamed ceilings and built-in bookcases result in less add-on acoutic treatment!) in a QUIET neighborhood withfine schools K-5. Cold 'n icy now, but a neighborhood of hardwoods whose color pallet's to die for in October....... (Yeah, the northern pioneer valley is nice 'n rural, but truly insufferably humid in that Connecticut River valley in the summer, no? (My kid summer-camps there...it's brutal!))............ (Got a sis in Chapel Hill with big new house--quite a deal, and she loves it. OTOH friends whose taste and mores I trust claim Raleigh/Durham's a mess of ugly strip-mall development: cheap, sweet and unidimensional. True?) We've friends farther out in the sticks, but it's awfully nice to be able to stroll by the lake and then be hearing world-class live music in any number of venues within a half-hour. Not sure I'll ever move away...except maybe to parts of France I continue to visit..........It's easy to envy the left coast this time of year, though. Can't find any well-travelled friends who could stand to live in the South, despite its great economic value. I know these can be fightin' words around here, but I keep being told about vapid culture. I understand the need to build a ref system is especially great if you live far from interesting live musical venues, but as I get older I find myself increasing the ratio of live/recorded music I partake of. Hence the geographical Catch 22, no? Finally...zip code, shmipcode--it's all about inner peace and the extent one can bring oneself to love others, no? A great millenial New Year to all!...wherever ya sit! Ernie

What about Portland? Anybody from there?