"I was very much in a funk," Kline says, and Bernard was crying over her empty nest.

Then, Bernard had an idea. Why don't the two of us do a newspaper column about empty nesting -- and middle-aged life? "There were so many issues," says Kline, 53, ticking off such topics as sex issues, dating, divorce, menopause, aging parents. "There didn't seem to be any forum to talk about these issues."

That notion soon turned to, "let's do a radio show." Thus was born 2BoomerBabes, on WCEI 96.7 FM, on the Eastern Shore, which has been airing Monday evenings at 7 since the spring and can be heard at www.2boomerbabes.com.

Kline remains amazed at how quickly the two women got the OK from the station manager, a fellow baby boomer -- at their first meeting -- and then found a main sponsor, Shore Health Systems, whose marketing manager, also a boomer, agreed to sponsor within 10 minutes of hearing their pitch.

"Our mothers were friendly with each other. We really think it's our mothers up there, orchestrating it," she quips.

Guests have included Lisa Lillian of the Hungry Girl cookbook series; Judith Orloff, who wrote Emotional Freedom; and Wall Street Journal columnist Jeffrey Zaslow.

This isn't the first time the two women have worked together. They met about two decades ago, when Kline, who lives in Great Falls, and her family moved to the Washington area.

"Kathy had two kids who were the same age as mine," she says. "We were two fish out of water in suburbia."

So, they started a News Channel 8's Our Kids, an informational show about children, with such themes as music, fashion, sports and family friendly restaurants. "We had no background in television whatsoever," Kline says.

Nevertheless, the show ran twice a month, for nearly a year. Then Bernard "had the nerve to move to the Eastern Shore, which broke my heart," Kline says.

Talk show host is one of several careers Kline has had. With a master's degree in education, she also does educational testing. That followed a year teaching special education.

Kline had grown up in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, and then received a degree in psychology from the University of Illinois, followed by a master's in social work in 1981.

Marriage then took her to Africa (her husband worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development), first to Liberia for three years, where she worked at the U.S. embassy, then to Kenya for another three years, where she worked for a small business development project for women.

In Liberia, she and her husband lived next door to the Israeli embassy.

"They invited us to all their festivities," says Kline, who remembers a seder held on the top floor of what had once been a fancy hotel.

The evening featured a steel drum band, matzah ball soup prepared over coal pots and "skinny" chicken. She also remembers sitting next to Amram Ben-Tzvi, whose father, Yitzhak, had been Israel's second president.

The evening "was really a surreal experience," she says, noting that, from a Jewish perspective, it had been a little easier to live in Kenya. "There was a temple" there, says Kline, a member of Shoreshim of Reston.

Kline's first experience living outside the United States came as a high school student, when she spent a summer in Celaya, Mexico.

"It was wonderful," she says. -- Debra Rubin

Suggestions for profiles may be sent to infocus@washingtonjewishweek.com.

Name: Barbara Kline

Lives in: Great Falls

Birthday: Aug. 29, 1956

Synagogue: Shoreshim

Favorite Jewish holiday: Pesach

Favorite Jewish food: "mom's noodle kugel"

Favorite Jewish celebrity: Jon Stewart