I'm just not understanding the Single Column option.

What I'd like to do is not have any sideboxes at all. I'd like some of the boxes at the top of the center column and others at the bottom. Basically like this: http://bradmcalister.com/outside/bw/

I've got the boxes turned on for single column in the layout boxes controller and off for left & right. I've also globally turned off the left & right columns. But my sideboxes don't show up at all now. How do I get them to show up in the center column?

I'm not sure if I'm understanding what you are trying to do since I don't see any sideboxes in the picture that you linked too.

Things at the top and bottom of the center column can be placed in the header and footer, not in sideboxes.

On my site (http://www.coquitodesigns.com/catalog/), I used EZ-pages to add all the links to the footer, and manually added the category menu's to the header.

Which sideboxes were you trying to add?

Note: the "single column" setting is for some future application, and has no effect on anything currently.