Folks who want to light up a smoke will have to work a little harder this year at Riverbend.

LISA DENTON: OK, Barry, we're coming up on Memorial Day weekend, which means an extra day to get off the couch.

Organizers of Libertyfest II hope it will be a hot time, but nothing like last year, when the inaugural outdoor community celebration saw temperatures reach 107 degrees.

Q: Dad, I didn’t get a job I really wanted. What do I do?

Andrew Zaleski figures his engineering background might come in handy when it comes to building a boat for the Floatila community float down the Tennessee River on Saturday, May 18.

"Lookout Mountain controls everything."

For local artist Miki Boni, retirement was never really in the plans — and not just because she can't afford it.

BARRY COURTER: Lisa, I'm glad and sad to see that The Comedy Catch is hosting a fundraiser for Wally Witkowski's family to help pay some of the bills following his long illness and subsequent death.

You don't have to look far or hard to find graffiti in Chattanooga. You do have to dig a little to find Graffiti, a Hill City Joint, however.

Q: Dad, what is the biggest mistake in life?

For almost 30 years, gauging the changes, trends, fads and pulse of the city has been a constant source of interest for me.

Damon Johnson is pretty sure he is the most famous guitarist to come out of Geraldine, Ala.

BARRY COURTER: Lisa, it's a veritable honeypot of things to do on the calendar this week. We've got festivals, theater productions and events with food, which is always good.

Professional artists, the ones who make their living selling their work, say they find many advantages in calling Chattanooga their home base.

Pop/rock singer Gavin DeGraw, best known for "I Don't Want To Be," which was used as the opening theme song on the TV show "One Tree Hill," will headline at Riverbend on Friday, June 14, according to Joe "Dixie" Fuller, talent and production coordinator for Friends of the Festival.

Editor's note: Barry Courter has a 24-year-old son who is a college graduate and a 19-year-old daughter who is a freshman in college.

It's been years since I've given more than a second's thought to what someone else thinks of my musical taste.

BARRY SAYS: The recent passing of Kelley's father triggered a good deal of fond memories in the family recently.

Surprises are not often what one is looking for when it comes to eating, but some people do like a little adventure.

BARRY COURTER: Lisa, I'm thinking of getting a bunch of T-shirts printed up and selling them at the Chattanooga Market.

Smoked meat has been a Southern favorite since people a couple of hundred years ago or so figured out that slow-cooking the lesser cuts of meats over indirect heat would make them tender and tasty.

Every so often, Marsha Bain changes up the menu at Marsha's Backstreet Cafe on Brainerd Road, but one thing she never messes with is the chicken salad.

Ed Du Bois has long and short versions of the story.

Editor's note: Barry Courter has a 24-year-old son who is a college graduate and a 19-year-old daughter who is a freshman in college.

For the last few years, a couple of the folks from Graceland have grabbed a few goodies from the Elvis Presley collection and made the rounds on a mini media tour.

BARRY COURTER: Lisa, the Chattanooga Symphony & Opera has done some far-out things over the years, which is commendable, but they've nailed it this time.

Scott Perrin, a 1981 graduate of Notre Dame High School, was in New York on business when the West Fertilizer Plant exploded five blocks from his house in West, Texas.

The Tommy Jett Entertainers Reunion will move this year to the Silver Ballroom at the Sheraton Read House, 827 Broad St.

Editor's note: Barry Courter has a 24-year-old son who is a college graduate and a 19-year-old daughter who is a freshman in college.

Visitors to the new Chattanooga History Center at the Aquarium Plaza will hear a familiar voice when they're greeted by a 10-minute orientation film.

The smile on Roland Carter's face is almost as wide as the bow tie he is wearing. He seems to always have both on him.

A couple of times a year, authors Jill McCorkle and Lee Smith get together with musicians Matraca Berg and Marshall Chapman to tell stories and perform a few songs from a production they worked on in 1998.

How would you describe the music scene in Chattanooga?

Jamie Quatro's online biography includes a story of a seemingly "magical" turn of events and chance meetings leading up to her signing with Grove Press, publishers of her first book, "I Want to Show You More," a collection of short stories.

It's hard today to imagine summers in downtown Chattanooga without a free Friday night concert at Miller Plaza, but it wasn't always so.

BARRY COURTER: Lisa, if I said to you the words "hotel motel," what would you respond?

Marian Heintz learned a lot about throwing clay, mixing up the right formulas for glazes and firing the pieces in kilns from Talle Johnson.

Editor's note: Barry Courter has a 24-year-old son who is a college graduate and a 19-year-old daughter who is a freshman in college.

When people learn that indie rock band Ivan & Alyosha took its name from Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov" and that no one in the group is named Ivan or Alyosha, an impression is formed.

For the last couple of weeks, people have been calling with their "42" tales.

Tom Bolden, better known to listeners of "The Village Idiots" on WGOW-FM 102.3 as Wally Witkowski, died Monday at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. He had been battling cancer.

BARRY COURTER: Lisa has taken a few days off and, after looking at the schedule of events for the coming week, I understand why.

Sam Gooden was a youngster living and playing baseball in Chattanooga in 1947.

The name is different, but the goal's the same.

Both fans and would-be writers will have the opportunity this month to talk shop with two published authors.

Editor's note: Barry Courter has a 24-year-old son who is a college graduate and a 19-year-old daughter who is a freshman in college.

Hurricane Katrina put a big damper on one of the early camping and music concerts Thomas Helland organized at Cherokee Farms in LaFayette, Ga., and frigid temperatures and rain hampered another, but the weather should be good for this weekend's T-Dawg's Back Porch Hootenanny.

While Five Nights in Chattanooga was not the official first Riverbend, it did start people talking about how a festival like Riverbend could be used to attract large numbers of people to downtown and the venues it offered.

It's been a few years since Judy Smith, service manager at the Northwest Georgia Trade and Convention Center, used a pressure cooker, but she remembers her mother using one for canning.

LISA DENTON: Well, Barry, the Easter feast is over and I'm wondering if deviled eggs and angel food cake cancel each other out.