Pssssst! Looking for an unusual New Year's Eve party?

I’m not much of a fan of holidays that exist mainly to get drunk, with the “amateur” nights of St. Patrick’s Day and New Year’s Eve the main culprits.

That said, there’s an unusual New Year’s Eve party planned at the Bay Shore Bar and Grill in Edgemere if you’re looking for something fun and different to do.

With a nod to the prohibition era of the 1920s and ’30s, the restaurant is hosting a speakeasy. History buffs will know that speakeasies were illicit, underground establishments that illegally sold and served alcohol during prohibition. They were covert operations and customers had to know someone in order to be trusted with the location and the password needed to get inside. It is thought the name came about because of the need to not talk about the business and to speak softly while patronizing the place so as to not alert nearby neighbors or the police. It was also thought that many such businesses were run by organized crime mobs.

Bay Shore is paying homage to that past era by hosting the themed New Year’s party Saturday.. Customers must enter the property through the side gate and must know the password to be allowed entry. Fashions from the era are encouraged and costume prizes will be awarded. Music from the 1920s and ’30s will be played and folks who know a few dances from the era might be in for a few surprises.

The party will be held indoors as well as on the back deck and yard. With many believing that 2016 has been a year like no other, a burn barrel will be available for those who would like to destroy their baggage of 20-sucksteen. Write a letter to the year about to leave us and hurl it into the fire. Start 2017 with a clean slate and a positive attitude.

Chef Mike Spivey will keep the evening down to earth with a selection of gourmet burgers available until 10:30 p.m. I’m partial to the Brie Burger, which offers the Bay Shore top-quality burger topped with bacon, grilled brie and apple slices. Other offerings include portabella, black and blue, southwest (pepperjack cheese, guacamole and salsa), and Chesapeake (topped with a crab cake) burgers. Prices range from $9.99 to $14.99.

Jack and Connie Pennington will be your host and hostess for the evening.

A complimentary “Last Indulgence” dessert bar will be offered from 11 to 11:59 p.m. and all “lawbreakers” present will enjoy a complimentary champagne toast at the the magic moment.

There is no cover charge for the party. You just have to know where the speakeasy is and where to sneak in, and you need to know the special password.

Oh, and Chef Mike emphasized that the kitchen will be closing at 10:30 p.m. I guess even chefs would rather be ringing in the new year with a toast instead of slaving over a grill or slinging a mop.

And one more thing … that password?

It’s “Bee’s Knees.”

Be there or be square.

Or something like that.

Giving thanks

The sun has gone down on this Thanksgiving Day of 2016 and I’ve been moved to tears by several warm and fuzzy, feel good stories I’ve seen on television news today, and ditto several moving, poignant posts on Facebook and elsewhere on the web.

Hearing all these testimonies made me feel a little guilty that I have spent a lot of time recently wallowing about what wasn't instead of being grateful for what is.

The past three years have been among the toughest of my life. After being laid off from a job for the first time in my professional life, I lost pretty much everything I had, material and otherwise. In addition to losing property and spending every penny I had saved just to scrape by and survive, I also lost my self-esteem and self-confidence, as well as my very identity and reason for getting out of bed on a daily basis. I didn’t realize how much of my identity was sunk into my job until that job was gone.

But in the big picture, I have much to be thankful for. Those who know my medical history know I’m very grateful simply to be alive. Past medical treatment is beginning to take its toll on my aging body and my lack of mobility often forces me to make decisions about social events when my mind is more than willing but the body says, “No way in hell.”

I’m grateful for the friends that continue to extend those invitations, no matter how many times I turn them down, and I’m extremely thankful for the wonderful friends I have in my life, even though I’m often not as good a friend as they are (you know who you are). 

I strive to be a better person and a better Christian and I’m thankful my good friends and Jesus Christ continue to love me unconditionally.

I’m extremely grateful to once again be a working journalist and happy to be welcomed with open arms by a new professional family. My life continues to be a financial challenge with part-time work, but part-time work beats the heck out of no work. And doing what I love is priceless.

I’m thankful for all the writers, photographers, artists, thinkers and philosophers in my life who make me appreciate more the beauty of our world, the genius of all our brains, the passions and opinions of others and the thinking and researching those passions and opinions inspire me to do.

Chances are, if you’re reading this, you are a personal friend and I’m grateful for you.

Hoping all of you and yours had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day shared with loved ones.

Let the Christmas music begin …

Sometimes, adults should just butt out

I’m a little late getting this post out, but late is better than never most of the time, and definitely in this case.

I’ve been procrastinating a bit for a variety of reasons. First, I did all the interviewing and reporting for a news story that I pitched to a couple of established news outlets, which both passed on the story. I don’t know if it was because the story was too controversial, or if they didn’t know who I was to know the story was well-vetted and accurate (even though I offered to provide contact information for all my sources), or, as I strongly suspect is the case, it would have hit some advertisers that newspaper managers are more and more loath to upset.

Secondly, I had to decide how to approach this topic as a blog post, because it could go in about a million different directions.

In any case, here’s the deal. 

It seems that a few disgruntled, jealous adults have misused their power and authority (and perhaps even intimidation) over a youth-led organization to enact a new rule that was designed to exclude a very limited number of children from participating in a livestock sale at the Great Frederick Fair.

In what many people close to the situation and familiar with the organization involved believe is nothing more than a retaliatory, vindictive move, The Frederick County 4-H Beef, Sheep and Swine Club voted to exclude from its annual sale any youngsters who sold animals at another county’s fair.

The new rule is so specifically written that this year, it targeted two children and only two — Matthew and Mark Chaney of Libertytown.

Many believe it is no coincidence that the rule was enacted after Matthew won a couple of top prizes at the 2014 Great Frederick Fair.

Rather than encourage their own children to work harder and commit more time to their projects to defeat their competition, parents took it into their own hands to eliminate that competition.

And it worked.

Take a look at the news story I prepared and then I’ll follow up with the rest of the story as it panned out during the last week of the fair.

It’s too late to do anything about this egregious act this year, but someone needs to fix this for next year. Either Frederick fair officials need to demand that no one be excluded from an activity happening under its auspices, or the board needs to tell the Beef, Sheep and Swine Club it can no loner hold its sale during the fair. 

I’m sure a more youth-friendly group of folks would be more than willing to step up and run a similar sale for all exhibitors.

Here’s the story:

All is not well within the Frederick County agriculture community.

And more than a few people are upset about it.

At issue is a controversial move by the Frederick County 4-H Beef, Sheep and Swine club, which regulates and runs a livestock sale at the annual Great Frederick Fair.

In March 2015, the sale club passed a motion that would prevent youngsters from selling animals at the Frederick fair sale if they had sold animals at other fairs outside of Frederick County. The motion was so narrowly written that it gives the perception of specifically targeting just a few students, many believe, leading them to think the motion is vindictive rather than supportive of local youth agriculture initiatives.

Libertytown residents George and Carol Chaney believe strongly that the motion passed by the Beef, Sheep and Swine Club specifically targets their two sons, Matthew and Mark. And they believe that it is no coincidence that the boys’ participation became an issue only after Matthew won grand champion market lamb in 2014.

“If Matthew had gone under the radar instead of winning grand champion, I don’t think we’d be having this conversation at all,” Carol Chaney said.

The March 19, 2015, BSS Club minutes state, “We also had the 4-H versus FFA discussion and a motion was made by Kendall Harshman that if FFA members sell at a different county fair, they aren’t eligible to sell at Frederick fair. The motion was seconded by McKenzie Wolfe and was passed by the club.”

“I believe this motion was the act of adults who pushed it upon the children of the club without giving them full and accurate information,” Carol Chaney said recently. “The youth leaders of the Beef, Sheep and Swine Club were used as pawns to push the agenda of jealous adults.”

She also believes the motion was “railroaded” through at that particular meeting because she informed club officials she and her sons would be unable to attend because of a previous commitment. She told Leslie Harshman, an adult volunteer in the club, that her family had a Howard County 4-H function to attend that evening.

“I was told people asked to have the motion tabled until the next meeting but it was decided the action had to be voted on then,” Chaney said.

Rules make it clear that youngsters cannot belong to 4-H in more than one county. Because Carol Chaney grew up in Howard County and was a 10-year member of Howard’s 4-H, she chose to enroll her children there when they expressed an interest. Chaney also served on the Howard County Fair board for 19 years, so it was only natural that Howard County was where her family would devote its energy, she said.

But the Chaneys never attempted to join two different county 4-H organizations.

As Howard County 4-H members, Matthew and Mark over the years showed and sold animals at the Howard County and Maryland State fairs.

It wasn’t until they started high school and joined Future Farmers of America that they started raising separate project animals for showing at the GFF. Matthew, a Linganore High School senior, started showing at the Fredrick fair as an FFA member his sophomore year. Mark, a junior, will be participating in his second Frederick fair.

FFA rules prevent freshman from showing animals.

The boys attended the April 2015 meeting of the livestock sale club to plead their case. They read aloud from a letter spelling out information about their need to have two sets of animals; the requirement of attending a set number of meetings; and paying dues to two organizations to be eligible to participate.

“It is disappointing to know that adults in positions of knowledge know these facts but did nothing to communicate them to everyone,” the boys wrote in their letter.  “It’s disappointing to know that this was not previously discussed … and when others asked to have it tabled, they were denied. It’s disappointing to know that two very valuable youth agricultural organizations have not tried to work better together and that adults would not work toward promoting fellowship (one of this club’s objectives) and help build character among our members but instead to allow petty jealousy to fester and grow.”

Great Frederick Fair officials believe the decision to exclude certain participants does not support the mission of the local fair.

“These recent changes made by the BSS club do not coincide with our mission statement, ‘The Great Frederick Fair Inc. exists to promote agriculture and the education of our youth about the industry of agriculture,’ ” GFF president Joseph Devilbiss wrote in a March 9, 2016, letter to Frederick County Extension educators Todd McKinney and Donielle Axline.

McKinney and Axline are paid employees who oversee Frederick County 4-H under the auspices of the University of Maryland’s Extension Services.

Alluding to a previous letter sent to Rick Walter, without response or acknowledgment, Devilbiss wrote that the fair “felt inclined to readdress our position.” Walter oversees 4-H activities in Howard, Frederick and Montgomery counties.

“The Great Frederick Fair Board of Directors has come to a unanimous decision that all FFA members must have the opportunity to sell their animals during the Thursday night sale,” Devilbiss wrote. “We are hoping you can accept this decision and cooperatively move forward.”

By June, the fair board appeared to back off the strength of its previous letter when it sent another letter to McKinney and Axline.

“The Great Frederick Fair Board of Directors supports the 2016 Beef, Sheep and Swine Sale will be run as it has in the past, but encourages and continues to support the 4-H and FFA to find common ground for sale rules that will work for both organizations,” Devilbiss wrote in a letter dated June 3. “We are hoping you can accept this decision and cooperatively move forward.”

While the fair board appears to support the participation of all 4-H and FFA members, an Aug. 10 letter from BSS club leader Robert Fogle Jr. says the opposite.

“The fair board sent a letter in June informing the 4-H Extension educators and leaders of the club that they support the club and the club’s management of the sale, therefore the sale will be ran as it has been in the past under the rules and guidelines you as an organizational body approved at your meeting,” Fogle wrote in his letter.

After spelling out dates and times for arrivals and weigh-ins and other rule reminders, Fogle wrote, “You cannot have sold animals at another county fair either as a 4-H member or FFA member.”

Fogle’s statement contradicts the BSS Club’s minutes of March 2015, which state only that FFA members who sell animals in another county are not eligible to participate in the BSS sale. No mention is made of 4-H members.

Email and phone requests for an interview to Devilbiss were returned by Karen Crum, executive assistant to the fair board.

“The Frederick County 4-H Beef, Sheep and Swine Club has always run the sale but we expect 4-H and FFA members to be able to participate,” Crum said Sept. 8. “We expect the sale to be run as it has in the past with 4-H and FFA working cooperatively together.”

Chaney said that this decision as it stands according to Fogle affects only her two boys. Another child who would have been affected (and has also won grand prizes recently) aged out of the program, but a couple of siblings from those families will be affected in the next few years.

The decision to exclude a finely targeted group of youngsters from the sale mystifies community members and 4-H veterans alike.

“This decision doesn’t make any sense all,” Dan Braucher, a former 4-H extension agent, said Friday. “The rules state that you can’t be a 4-H member in two counties but that isn’t the case here.”

Members of both organizations have always been encouraged to take advantage of the educational opportunities offered by the fair, the 30-year agriculture educator said. Each organization sets its own requirements for participation and it is the responsibility of each youngster to meet those requirements.

“This decision to exclude some kids because they sold animals in another fair makes no sense, there’s no logic to it,” Braucher said. “You can only sell an animal once; these boys have two different sets of project animals to meet the requirements of each organization.”

Matthew and Mark have gone to the additional expense of raising two complete sets of animals needed to participate in the two different county fairs. In addition to the expense of raising, grooming and training animals, the man-hours are doubled as well. They have to keep two sets of record books and need to be able to discuss their projects with judges.

“This sale is important because that’s where the kids make some money back and allows them to buy animals next year,” Carol Chaney said. “This idea that the boys are ‘double-dipping’ is ridiculous. They work twice as hard to be able to show at the two fairs.”

Braucher said he just couldn’t come up with a single, positive, educational reason for this exclusion, or see any way it would help or support the mission of 4-H.

“I think it’s a personal vendetta that will hurt both groups,” he said. “We’re all role models and this decision puts a dark spot on us.”

Scott Shorrow, who owns Landscape Concepts in Frederick County, has supported the livestock sales for the past couple of years at the invitation of the Chaneys.

“I’ve been a fair vendor with a display for my company for several years,” Shorrow said. “But I started going to the goat and beef, sheep and swine sales because of the Chaney boys.”

Shorrow was disappointed to hear of the club’s decision that appears to target just the Chaneys.

“For them to be excluded from this sale makes no sense,” he said. “They have to have separate projects, separate record books, twice the expenses, twice the time involved. They don’t have an advantage over anyone simply by participating in multiple shows. You can only sell an animal once.”

Shorrow said he isn’t privy to all the inside politics and doesn’t know many of the families involved, but sees no positive outcome for the sale club’s decision.

“The Chaney boys work hard and do well in these shows, that’s what it is, cut and dried,” he said. “That’s what this is all about.”

Shorrow said agriculture is a way of life for Matthew and Mark.

“This is their life, their passion,” he said of the boys’ livestock training. “They don’t do sports, they don’t have jobs or other hobbies — this is their job, their hobby, their passion. Why should they be punished for having a passion that perhaps others don’t have?”

Shorrow said he would not participate in this year’s BSS sale.

“I’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars at these sales but I can’t participate in a sale that excludes anyone,” he said. “I can’t be a part of something that excludes kids.

He fully expects to support the goat sale, which is governed by a different club.

As of Tuesday, the statement from Fogle denying sale participation to the Chaneys was the last official word on the sale.

If, when the dust settles, that decision remains, Carol Chaney said her boys will abide by it and let it roll off their shoulders.

But exclusion from the sale won’t prevent the boys from showing their animals, and won’t stop them from their mission of breeding, raising and training champion animals.

“Both boys are extremely competitive and they are passionate about their livestock projects,” she said. “This decision will just make them more competitive.”

Swimming is creating lifelong memories for Long

Author's note: I'm using my blog to archive some of my favorite stories I've written over the years. Much of my work has been lost online because of news outlets creating new websites and not migrating old content to the new sties:

This article was originally published as a Talk of the Town column in The Dundalk Eagle on July 31, 2008. I reprint it here in anticipation of the Rio de Janeiro Paralympics, which kick off tonight with the Opening Ceremony.

Jessica Long continues to add to record books and her personal scrapbooks as she counts down the days to the International Paralympic Games that kickoff in September in Beijing.

Major media outlets, of course, are all over Towson’s Michael Phelps and Katie Hoff, who between them could bring home as many as 14 Olympic medals.

But lost in the shuffle are Paralympians at large, and here, Long specifically.

Long, 16, is the Michael Phelps of Paralympic swimming. She routinely wins seven, eight and nine races at every meet she enters and long ago lost track of the number of medals she owns.

Just over the weekend of July 13-15 at the Can-Am tournament, she set a new world record in her first dip in the pool — much like Phelps setting a new world record in his first Olympic Trials race in late June.

The girl who started her competitive swim career as a member of the Dundalk-Eastfield Rec Council team could hardly have envisioned what was ahead for her that first day when she jumped in her grandmother’s backyard swimming pool and discovered a second home.

She’s been around the world, met celebrities and made lifelong friends and has some pretty amazing photographs and memories to share with her grandchildren.

It would seem difficult to top 2007, when Long in April became the first Paralympian to win the James E. Sullivan Award, given annually to the nation’s top amateur athlete. Later in the year, she was named ESPN’s top female athlete with a disability, and along the way she won every race she won.

Bit it appears 2008 has not been any kind of a letdown.

Her success in the pool continues , and the recognition and lifetime moments outside of the pool  continue to pile up as well. 

On July 21, Long was one of 22 athletes invited to a reception and official send-off of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic teams at the White House. President Bush hosted the gathering in the Rose Garden, and then each athlete posed for individual pictures with Bush in the Oval Office.

Pretty heady stuff for a teenager!

President George Bush posed with Jessica Long on July 21, 2008 in the Oval Office at the White House. Jessica was one of the athletes selected to represent the 2008 Olympics and Paralympics teams at the visit with Bush. White House photo Eric Draper

In May, the double below-the-knee amputee was the recipient of the Juan Antonio Samaranch Award, named for the former president of the International Olympic Committee. 

The Samaranch IOC President’s Award has been presented annually since 1990 to an athlete, past or present, who in the face of adversity displays courage, desire and athletic ability to achieve goals in the competitive arena.

Long received the award during a ceremony at the 2008 Paralympic World Cup in Manchester, England, on May 10.

At the Can-Am Paralympic swim championships in Victoria, British Columbia, in July, the American swim team set 36 American, 18 Pan-American and five world records. Women set all five world records. including Long’s new record in the S8 100-meter butterfly. Her performance in that event earned her Swim of the Meet recognition, and she also claimed Swim of the Day honors on both Friday (100-meter butterfly) and Saturday (200-meter individual medley).

President George Bush met with members of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic teams in a July 2008 visit to the White House. White House photo by Shealah Craighead.

U.S. team head coach Julie O’Neill said in a statement that she’s pleased with the team’s performance following its final tune-up prior to China.

“Overall the team looks fantastic,” she said. “Most of them are in the middle of a hard training cycle right now and despite that there are still many lifetime best swims, new records and great races. All of the coaching staff is very pleased with how the team looks heading into Beijing.”

Paralympic swim competition will be held Sept.  6-17 in the same venue as Olympic swimming in Beijing.

Keep an eye on Long, who’s sure to make multiple appearances on the medal stand.

Maryland athletes expect the Rio gold rush to continue

Much has been said about the Herculean efforts — and accomplishments — of the Maryland Olympic delegation in Rio de Janeiro.

And deservedly so. For 16 exciting, exhilarating, exhausting days, Maryland’s world-class athletes set world and Olympic records, made Olympic history (to say nothing of herstory), and stood on medal podiums more times than residents of a tiny state could ever have hoped. 

Along the way, those athletes made their families burst with pride, gave their fans much to cheer about and, perhaps most importantly, inspired a future generation of Olympians.

But the fun, excitement and state pride doesn’t end with the Closing Ceremony of the Summer Games.

The Olympic facilities are getting a much-needed rest — and perhaps the green water problem in a couple of the pools has been worked out — before nearly 4,000 disabled athletes descend upon Rio for the International Paralympic Games.

As inspiring as our able-bodied athletes are, there’s something about watching disabled individuals perform at an athletic level that puts most of us couch potatoes to shame.

The athletes who are now reporting to the Olympic Village have become world-class athletes in spite of disabilities they were either born with or received because of illness or traumatic injury. Several athletes — including Maryland’s Brad Snyder, a blind swimmer — are disabled because of injuries sustained while serving in the U.S. military. 

So while gold medalists Helen Maroulis, Katie Ledecky, Michael Phelps and other Maryland Olympians are relaxing, making the talk show rounds and other personal appearances or preparing to head off to college, Paralympians Jessica Long, Becca Meyers, Daniel Romanchuk, Gail Gaeng and others are preparing to pick up where their Olympic counterparts left off.

And when the sun sets over the Paralympics, our Free State athletes are expected to be just as successful as the group they will replace in Rio.

Long, who grew up in Middle River and got her competitive swimming start with the old Dundalk-Eastfield Swim Club, will be the U.S. delegation’s most decorated Paralympian in Rio.

Jessica Long with her medal from the 100-meter breaststroke at the 2015 IPC World Championships. Photo from Facebook

She made her first Paralympics appearance as an unknown 12-year-old at the Games in Athens in 2004. Swimming under the radar at her first major international competition, Long returned home with three gold medals.

She heads to Rio after also having competed — and won— in Beijing and London.

Jessica Long trained for a time at the North Baltimore Aquatics Club. Photo from Facebook

NBC has promised unprecedented coverage of this year’s Paralympics, though the coverage will still pale in comparison to other nations’ treatment, let alone the network’s coverage of the Games just concluded.

Check out the schedule here and catch the livestream coverage here.

In the coming days, look for biographies of our athletes and tips on what to keep an eye on as they uphold Maryland pride in yet another international sports spectacle.

Identity crisis averted; The Pigman is back in business

Steve Austin, proprietor of This Swine’s for You catering services, has jumped through all the hoops as required by Baltimore County government officials and is back is business.

Sort of. Now The Pigman, as he’s affectionately known on the North Point peninsula, is suffering from an identity crisis since county officials told him he had to serve food from a completely contained entity.

Steve Austin, proprietor of This Swine's for You catering services, relaxes during a quite moment in his new food trailer. Photo by Marge Neal

For more years than Austin can recall, he set up his pit sandwich stand on the front parking lot of Donovan’s Lounge on North Point Road. He cooked pork, beef, turkey and ham on a custom-built, 55-gallon drum grill perched atop a trailer base that he towed to the site with his trademark red catering truck.

He pitched a white canopy, set up a meat slicer and set out condiments, napkins, utensils and all the other accouterments needed for the food service effort.

After the county shut down Austin and other stands like his, the local businessman invested in a custom-built trailer, outfitted with a grill, oven, stove, sinks, refrigerators and everything else he needed to essentially have a restaurant — or at least a commercial kitchen— on wheels.

To get the show on the road, Austin had to have all the electrical work done and then had to get the trailer inspected and approved by the county.

Once he had the approval of the county’s Food Nazi, as Austin not-so-affectionately calls the county inspector, he put word out on his Facebook page when he was open for business and waited for his regular customers to return to the fold.

Steve Austin and his daughter, Christine Thamert, staffed the food trailer Thursday at Donovan's. Photo by Marge Neal

But that was slow to happen. Folks tend to be creatures of habit and The Pigman’s customers were used to looking for the well-used drum grill and the white canopy.

The trailer with the raging generator at the front end did not look familiar.

But Austin, in true show business fashion, figured out what he needed to do to get his customers back.

In addition to the trailer from which he prepares and serves food, he also now brings the familiar red catering truck, as well as the grill, which he puts in the corner of the bar’s front parking lot.

In case anyone is wondering why Austin made the switch from his more customer-friendly stand to this trailer and its obnoxious generator. Photo by Marge Neal

“Now that I have the grill back and the canopy up, more people are coming in,” Austin said Thursday. “Having the grill here seems to be helping, people are used to seeing that here.”

Austin sells pit beef, ham, turkey and pork sandwiches and platters, which include your choice of two sides from baked beans, macaroni and cheese, macaroni salad, cole slaw and potato salad. On Sundays, he also offers a limited number of racks of ribs.

The stand is open from 11 a.m. until the food is sold out. Austin sets up at Donovan’s Lounge, 6900 North Point Road in Edgemere.

He’s also available for catering private events. For more information, check out his website.

The latest addition to the This Swine's for You fleet of catering vehicles. Photo by Marge Neal

As new school year starts, Edgemere speed camera is back!

It’s baaaaaack!

The much maligned, vandalized, disappearing, street-crossing, disappearing again, reappearing and disappearing yet once again speed camera in Edgemere has returned.

Local resident Kenneth Brulinski Jr. spied a crew reinstalling the camera early Monday morning, just in time for the beginning of a new school year. Brulinski posted on the Facebook page of a local Edgemere group a picture of the crew installing the mechanism, along with a warning to local drivers about the device's return.

The local speed camera has quite a history, beginning with an earlier design that was installed many years ago when the revenue-generating, speed-trap program was first initiated by county officials.

Cameras perched atop tall, skinny poles were installed on North Point Road in front of Sparrows Point Middle/High School. One camera pointed north and one was aimed southward. A driver traveling more than 12 miles faster than the posted speed limit of 30 miles per hour would trigger the camera and would find out only when the ticket and photo arrived in the mail.

At some point, at least one resident took matters into his own hands and decided to remove one of the offending cameras. If my memory serves me correctly, the crafty individual used a rope or chain and a pickup truck to pull down the pole.

Unbeknownst to the vandal/community hero — depending on your perspective — the camera had already been deactivated and was slated to be moved somewhere else. It seems as though there really wasn’t as much speeding in the area as originally suspected, and county officials (and/or representatives of the company that owns and operates the cameras) decided to move them to an area where they were needed more (roughly translated, they were moved to an area where they would generate more revenue).

The area was camera-free for a while until a newer, big-box camera was installed. Concrete pads were poured on both sides of North Point Road — one in the front lawn of the high school near the two original poles and one closer to the elementary school on the southbound side. While new pads were built for the new camera, the company did not remove the old pads or the one remaining pole from the original cameras.

Though two pads were built, only one camera came to town. It would sit on one side of the road for a while and then, in the dark of night, it would be moved to the other side. The moving back and forth from pad to pad went on for quite a while until one night, the camera was loaded into the back of a white van and taken away.

Well, that white van visited Edgemere again early Monday morning to return the camera to town. The Big-Brotheresque mechanical spy is now sitting on the concrete pad in front of the high school on the northbound side of the road.

Early Monday morning, a crew reinstalled a speed camera on the north side of North Point Road in front of Sparrows Point Middle/High School. Photo by Kenneth Brulinski Jr.

Traffic congestion makes it almost impossible to travel at speeds of 42 miles per hour or faster along that stretch, particularly when school is in session. But I guess it is possible so consider yourself warned. Thanks to the public service announcement from Mr. Brulinski, you now know the camera is back.

School starts Wednesday, so slow down, watch for pedestrians and make sure that camera never has to work while it’s back in town.

And don’t forget that cars traveling in both directions must stop for school buses that are loading or unloading students.

Because there’s a hefty fine for passing a bus while its red lights and stop sign are activated.

Thank you, Chevy Vega!

I chuckled today as I clicked through a list of the “25 worst cars ever sold.”

I’m happy to say I never owned one of those cars, but I did get lucky by accident because of a car on the list and another that I was surprised to see omitted.

I bought my first car in 1976, when my brand-new driver’s license was all of one week old. I wanted to buy a new car. My theory on wanting new was simple: I was just a stupid girl with no mechanical knowledge or ability and, with the limited income of a full-time college student, I didn’t want to buy someone else’s problem. I'd much rather have a budgeted monthly bill than a host of unscheduled repair bills.

Armed with a maximum budget of $3,000, I set out to shop, knowing the only cars falling within that price range were the Chevy Vega and the Ford Pinto. Chevrolet had also just released a new car called the Chevette, but I was avoiding that because even stupid girls knew enough to avoid a car in its first year of release.

A 1976 Honda Civic. Not my car, but damn close.

A male friend of mine and I set out to shop and landed at Luby Chevrolet to look at a Vega and check out the Chevette.

Luckily for me, Luby at the time was just one of two Baltimore area Honda dealers. I didn’t even know Honda had cars on the market; I knew them simply as a motorcycle outfit.

I saw this adorable little car tucked away in a corner and asked the salesman about it. He informed me that I didn’t want that car; it was “foreign” and “new” and not many mechanics would be able to work on it when maintenance was needed.

The salesman got rude when I became insistent that I wanted to know more about the car and began to ignore me and talked instead to my male friend.

To his credit, my friend Pete told the salesman that I was the one spending the money and he needed to talk to me. 

I was already over the salesman and we left. We went to Doug Griffith Chrysler-Plymouth on Harford Road, where the salesman was more than happy to sell me a 1976 Honda Civic. It was adorable (stupid girl observation) in a color that was a reddish-orange. It came with an AM-FM radio and a rear-window defroster, which I thought was so state-of-the art! It also was one of the few models with a trunk, as opposed to a hatchback. 

When the dust settled, the on-the-road price was $2,985 and change. I put $400 down (money saved from being a summer playground leader) and then had three years worth of monthly payments of $90.76.

I loved that car and battered the hell out of it for nearly five years. It hauled kids to special events, nursing home residents to Orioles baseball games and once was picked up and moved to a sidewalk by some of the aforementioned rec center kids.

My beloved first car was obliterated in 1981 when a car ran a red light and broadsided it. I loved that car so much that, even when confronted with the visual proof that the frame was torn up and the dash and roof was folded over into itself, I begged a mechanic to fix it.

So thanks, Chevy Vega, for being such a crappy car. Because of you, I have enjoyed a 40-year love affair with Honda vehicles.

For Dundalk, annual celebration brings community together

Forty years ago this summer, Heritage Fair made its appearance as a one-time-only tribute to the nation’s bicentennial.

The activities of the bicentennial year of 1976 were more touted than anything anyone could remember. There was a national bicentennial commission and states, cities, towns, villages and local neighborhoods had been planning appropriate events for years.

But a funny thing happened to Dundalk’s nod to the country’s milestone anniversary.

It was so popular that residents asked that the event become an annual gathering. Thanks to the diligent work of a handful of volunteers, some hard-scrabble fundraising and the cooperation of community organizations, private businesses and local government departments, the three-day Heritage Fair at Heritage Park celebrates its own milestone anniversary this weekend.

Running Friday through Sunday, the festival has grown to the size of a temporary small town itself, with three days of nearly non-stop music, carnival rides and games, an arts and crafts area, plenty of activities and demonstrations, business and community organization booths, a beer garden and plenty of food and drink offerings.

Thanks to this year’s timing of July 4 being a Monday, the three-day block party will be capped off with the annual Independence Day parade and fireworks on Monday.

Thanks to the perseverance of this event, it now serves as the catalyst to brings families and former classmates together, causes people to traverse many states to come “home” for the weekend and cause others to camp out early for the parade to claim the spot that has been the family’s watch spot for 50 or 60 years (or longer — the parade predates the fair by many years).

The fair’s musical acts run the gamut from local school groups to nationally known groups. This year’s main headline offerings are Almost Queen (a Queen tribute band), Friday at 8 p.m.; Heart by Heart ( a Heart tribute band featuring two Heart members), Saturday at 8 p.m.; and Kix (a rock band with its roots in Maryland), on Sunday at 8 p.m.

Image from Heritage Fair website.

All three main acts will appear on the Shipway stage.

Two stages plus the karaoke stage in the beer garden will provide a variety of acts, including performances by the Sparrows Point High School steel drum band, The Gigs (a local favorite) and The Mahoney Brothers, a tribute group that has gained quite a Dundalk following.

Tickets cost $8 per day, and admission includes all entertainment.

For more information, or to view the entire entertainment schedule, visit the Heritage Fair website.

One final request: Throughout the weekend, if you see a fair volunteer (they would be hard to miss; the staff the ticket booths, main gate, beer garden and parking areas, they empty trash, answer a lot of questions and in general, roam the grounds and are helpful wherever they're needed), thank them for their efforts. They're the reason the fair still exists!

We need to keep encouraging girls

I read an obituary today in the Baltimore Sun that reminded me just how far women have come in our society, in a relatively short period of time.

Just like technology has exploded in recent years, despite the intelligence being there for decades upon decades. so too have women begun to explode into their potential.

The obituary was for one Richard Wyman, who was a “philanthropist and executive at Hochschild Kohn,” according to the headline of the Sun’s tribute.

So just how did this son of a shoe store owner and a mere “homemaker” ascend to the lofty position as an executive at an iconic Baltimore department store?

The “homemaker” who gave birth to him was one Carrie Kohn Wyman, described as the sister of Martin Kohn, president of what eventually became a Baltimore store chain.

As we sit firmly ensconced in the heart of 2016, I am faced with the contradiction of knowing the Democratic party will put forth a woman candidate for the presidency of the United States while I read an obituary of a man who ascended in his career because a female couldn’t be trusted to take such a position in a family-owned business.

I realize many might believe this is a far reach, and I have no desire to take away from Mr. Wyman’s abilities. His paternal family owned a shoe store and he went to work for his father's family business, probably believing he would eventually take over that entity.

But he had that vision, that dream, simply because he had the good fortune to be born a boy in an era when girls just weren’t as valued. I’m not that old, but even when I was growing up in the 1960s and ’70s, women realized there wasn’t a whole lot of expectations of them. Marriage and children (and in that order) was still the expectation for most, and those who insisted upon entering the work force became nurses, teachers or secretaries. It was a true renegade girl who harbored goals of becoming a doctor, scientist, lawyer or pretty much anything else that required having a brain.

When I was a kid, public school dress codes mandating dresses or skirts for girls existed until I was in eighth grade. Sports and recreation opportunities that existed for girls were rare and paled in comparison to the quality of those offered for boys.

Service academies didn’t start accepting women until the year after I graduated from high school, and when I applied for my first part-time job with the county’s recreation and parks department, I was passed over —openly — for a man who was thought to possess better skills to handle a “problem” population.

When that much better equipped man quit after just a couple of weeks, I was asked to take the job. I ran after-school programs in that “troubled” community for eight years and built relationships with kids that exist to this day.

The bottom line is that many of us have experienced this kind of discrimination and still do to this day. The equal pay for equal work thing is still a big struggle; men make much more money for doing less work than some women, let alone the same work. Women have to prove themselves over and over and over again, while men drink with the boss, get undeserved promotions and undeserved pay raises while the women quietly plug along, making the paychecks work and the office click.

While the Sun’s obituary mentions the death of Mr. Wyman’s father, no mention is made of how Mrs. Wyman left this earth. She, quite understandably, is not mentioned among the survivors of an 87-year-old man.

This blog post is affectionately dedicated to the memory of Carrie Kohn Wyman who perhaps in a different time would have become the CEO of the family business. 

Women of her era weren't aware of the glass ceiling because they weren't allowed out of the basement.

In her memory, and countless others like her, we need to keep telling girls they can do anything they want. And be there to mentor them along the way.

I just don't know the answer

Our collective hearts are broken yet once again as we try to come to terms with another senseless massacre on American soil.

I’m not a fan of guns and don’t desire to own one myself, but I do respect the rights of others to own them. I don’t know much (if anything) about guns so I can’t argue the merits of one type over another. I will admit I don’t understand the need for regular, everyday citizens to own high-powered, 30- and 45-round assault rifles, but they’re legal in many places so who am I to argue.

What I do feel in my heart is that more gun control laws are not the answer.

Our country has long had a law enforcement problem — both at the policing and court levels. When law enforcement officers can get some charges to stick and actually get offenders to court, the alleged criminals get off with a slap on the wrist or they get off on some arcane, obscure technicality, usually because a human in the paperwork chain screwed something up.

The murder of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando on Sunday morning is just the latest in an all-too-common occurrence in our nation. In this case, the deadly combination of mental illness, religious radicalization and hatred caused an American citizen to arm himself, march into a popular Orlando night spot and mow down innocent people just out to have a good time on a Saturday night.

The pro- and anti-gun camps have been slinging it ever since, while seemingly forgetting about the tragic loss of life, the probable permanent physical and emotional dismemberment of injured survivors and the emotional impact on the family members, colleagues, friends and neighbors of those lost.

As a friend of mine so aptly put it on a Facebook post of his, our elected leaders didn’t see fit to ban box cutters, cargo vans, fertilizer or any number of other products when those items were used to kill large numbers of humans.

Laws are on the books that prohibit any number of behaviors and acts, from rape and murder to street drug use and drunk driving. But women get raped on a daily basis by predators; citizens of all ages die on America’s streets every day at the hands of murderers; family members find relatives dead of drug overdoses every day; and the courts are full of trials and hearings for impaired drivers.

The bottom line is, law-abiding citizens will follow every law thrown at them. They might bitch and complain about the proliferation of laws and the far-reaching tentacles of government, but abide by those laws they will.

With a favor I hoped wasn't ever necessary, Paris showed its support for the Orlando terrorist attack. Photo credit: Owner unknown, posted on Facebook.

Criminals and criminal wannabes will always find a way to skirt laws, no matter how many you throw at them.

Now, it just so happens that the Orlando killer — I refuse to name him — procured his weapons legally. Despite two FBI investigations looking into the suspected behavior that led to this massacre, this guy passed the background checks and bought the weapons through a reputable arms dealer.

But if he had failed that background check, he would have found another way to get those guns if he really wanted them. And if he had suspected that he would fail the background investigation, perhaps he would have opted to go around that process and buy the guns on the street.

In any case, he bought them and then used them to carry out a heinous act of terrorism and hatred. He targeted gays just because of who they were and he mowed them down without concern for human life.

While the gun camps scream at each other, here’s where this nation needs to do some serious introspection: how we treat mental illness.

Just like I don’t understand why dental and vision coverage is separated from “regular” health insurance, I don’t understand why mental illness is treated differently than any other malady which may befall us. We aren’t told that our policy will cap treatment of strep throat or bronchitis or a torn ligament to $2,000 per incident, or limit the number of times we can go to the doctor to get that ailment treated. 

But visits to mental health practitioners are limited each policy year, and the co-pay is outrageously expensive and in many cases, cost prohibitive.

Combine those elements with the very real stigma that still exists when it comes to acknowledging mental illness and it’s not hard to see why so many people go undiagnosed and untreated.

In the case of the Orlando murderer, as far as I’m concerned, he had three known strikes against him.

He was strongly suspected to be an Isis sympathizer, he loudly announced his hatred for gays and his own friends and family members said he suffered from mental illness.

Yet he was still legally able to buy the guns that he used to forever change the lives of thousands of people directly and millions indirectly.

As I said to my sage Facebook friend, I don’t know the answer. Worse yet, I don’t know if there is an answer. Our society may have very well fallen to the depths that means this sort of massacre will happen again and again. It already has. 

Terrorists, both home-grown and foreign-born, have targeted elementary school children, cinema lovers, high school students, college students, members of the military, government workers, marathon runners and now members of the LGBTQ community to display their hatred and bias.

I’m sorry i don’t have the answers because I’d love to be part of the solution.

For the nth time, my heart goes out to the city of Orlando, the latest name in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. I hope and pray its citizens are able to come to terms with the senseless losses they have suffered, and I hope they are able to work for solutions as well.

But, also for the nth time, I wonder who will be next.

Because there will be a next. It’s not a matter of if, but when.

And that saddens me most of all.