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My, You Look a Fright!
by Sonia Linebaugh

One Halloween night, my family and I mingled with the revelers in our small college town’s annual ritual. Everyone dressed for the occasion and strolled about the few blocks of downtown Kent, Ohio in and out of restaurants, bars and shops. From the man on stilts in tuxedo to the math professor who frightened us in trench coat and ghoul mask, a marvelous time was had by all.

Most marvelous of all was the tree. We discovered it quite by chance. A bench sat in a small courtyard between buildings in front of an artificial tree. The four of us sat on the bench to admire the passersby.

After many comments, we became aware that the tree was closer than before. Giving it new attention, we discovered yet another ingeniously costumed reveler. Keeping in character, the tree merely waved its branches in response to our compliments. We left the bench to stand nearby and watch the miracle unfold again.

Costumes Frightful and Civilized
At Annapolis Balloon and Costume on West Street at Rt. 2, trees are missing. “Adult men and boys about 13 go for the scary costumes — blood, guts and gore,” says owner Millie Noyes, a 16-year veteran of the costume trade. “Girls and women never ask for that.” Our experience proves Noyes right.

Find Halloween Express — open only from August through October, it moves from year to year wherever space is vacant in the Annapolis Mall — and you’ll find plenty of blood, guts and gore. Adolescent boys grin happily as they peruse the rubber masks, each one uglier than the one next to it. But there are other hot sellers. Manager Michael Greene says: “One mask that’s more popular than you might expect used to be called The Accused. Now it’s called The Acquitted.” That O.J. Simpson mask sells as well as the perennially popular face of once-disgraced president Richard M. Nixon.

Mighty Morphins’ White Power Ranger and Batman are hot items for younger boys this year at both Noyes’ shop and Halloween Express. Girls go for the Pink Power Ranger, but Pocahantas is even more popular. Snow White or any kind of princess will please most other girls.

It’s a comfort to know some things don’t change. I remember fondly a princess costume sewn by my grandmother that passed from sister to sister in my family. It had a tall conical green hat with floaty gauze and a deep pink gown with gold trim. Slightly more popular with us was a gray and white Puritan costume, also from Grandma. The bonnet stayed on easily while the princess’ tall cone required constant attention and many uncomfortable bobby pins.

Noyes personal favorite for little girls — “I have granddaughters,” she says — is Little Bo Peep with its overgrown baby’s bonnet, but the girls don’t agree. TV and movies have more influence than Mother Goose or the Brothers Grimm.

Adult women might choose Little Red Riding Hood’s cape but show more interest in posing as nuns, sexy webbed-widows or wenches. Says Noyes, “In all my years in business, I’ve never been asked for any witches’ costumes but I don’t have anything here that isn’t popular — pirates, priests, swash bucklers, zoot suiters, grim reapers, Scarlett and Rhett …”

The list goes on and on. Noyes’ costumes come both premade or custom-made by “some women that sew.”

Dressing Up
At Annapolis Opera, it’s Lorraine vom Saal who sews. She’s costume designer, costume co-ordinator and costume renter for Halloween, church and school productions and historical reenactments.

“We have no ducks, bunnies or power rangers here,” says vom Saal. What the opera company does have are Renaissance, turn-of-the-century, Colonial and Victorian garb for men and women. They also have far-East costumes such as Madame Butterfly and The Mikado and near-east costumes including Ahmal and the Night Visitors.

“My favorite changes with each opera,” says vom Saal. “I like working with the glittery laces and satins of the exciting ball gowns. We made two wonderful dresses for La Traviata.

“A peasant shirt,” vom Saal continues, “just doesn’t have the same allure. The 10 soldiers coats that I’m working on for the upcoming Elixir of Love will not be a favorite. I don’t care if I never see red gabardine again.”

Red gabardine is far from the thoughts of seamstress Janet Therrien, of Silver Spring. She’s caught up in bridal satin (polyester), sheer georgette and off-white drapery fabric with a scalloped design to simulate feathers.

It started in August when 3 1/2-year-old Aleksandria

lizabeth Bryd watched Disney's video of the Swan Princess. It was then "Aleks announced she was going to be a bride for Halloween and she hasn't wavered," says Therrien, an accommodating family friend.

"I don't want to even think," continues Therrien, "about the hours I've put into this project. It took one day just to cut out the fabric and another to make the cape. Then I spent a few hours at a time on first one sleeve and then another. It has an overskirt, an underskirt and two sets of wings.

"It surprised me," says Therrien with understated restraint, "how long the small wings took. There are two layers of fabric for each one, batting that's first hand-quilted, then trimmed and machine-quilted. One set goes at the shoulders and the other at the waist."

As Aleks tried on the completed costume for the first time, her proud father took picture after picture of his little angel.

"This isn't the real wedding," Therrien told him. "This is just make-believe."

Aleks fluttered happily in dress, cape and crown (veil still to come), then exclaimed, "It's too heavy. Take it off."

Holstein Get-Ups: Udderly Ridiculous
Adults going to excess on behalf of their children are familiar to manager trainee Melodie Roberson at House of Fabric, in Festival at Riva. Roberson’s Halloween customers are moms (sometimes with dads in tow) looking to make costumes for their kids. Pocohantas is House of Fabric’s number one seller this year in both ready-made and pattern.

“Moms will do anything for their kids,” says Roberson. “One mom was in here with a Kit Kat bar trying to matching the colors.” She intended to transform an M&M pattern into her daughter’s favorite candy.

The black-and-white Holstein cow costume is not as popular as the Indian princess but, says Roberson, “we only have one left, though I wouldn’t wear it my self.”

We agree. With a plastic udder protruding at the abdomen, the old cow in this costume is headed for a verbal slaughter we’d rather steer clear of.

More incongruous than ridiculous is this costume story from a few years back. Our family computer expert tells it this way: “The mask — a survivor from my daughter’s YMCA Indian Maiden days — was the centerpiece of the costume. The black hood completely covered my head. It had pink, blue and orange felt face and hair reminiscent of a northwest Indian mask. A black nylon cloak covered me down to the tops of my feet. Only my bare feet with toenails painted red by my daughter were visible.”

Our computer guy then caused a furor as he walked silently about the halls at his conservative place of work. “People were confused,” he says. “There are few as tall as me but the red toenails threw them off. They kept trying to think what woman could be so tall. I finally identified myself and they laughed at the good joke. Some still talk about it.

He sums up, “I’ve never seen a costume like it before or since.”

“Scary” Boys Who Come Calling
Halloween costumes range from sublime to frivolous, from scary to off-the-wall. But every year, the un-costume shows up, too. Every “treater” has been confronted with that awkward moment when a gang of 14-year-old boys shows up at the door in no costumes at all, sometimes not even with bags. They’ve been told by their parents or decided for themselves that Halloween is for the little kids and doesn’t suit their newest self-image.

As they knock brusquely on the door, you can almost see the child/man balance in their bravado. Some treaters serve them to a lecture with their goodies or just a lecture if they’re not half-fearful of retaliatory tricks. We always just give them the treats.

By next year they’ll have slid off the fence into the girls-and-cars phase. They won’t be back.

Long Live Halloween
Times have changed. When my dignified, law-abiding mother-in-law chuckles over the corn shucks she and friends threw on the road to make cars swerve when they were kids, the rest of us are properly horrified and murmur threats about juvenile detention hall.

Why, in my own youth, we went only so far as tossing dried corn. Later, kids resorted to toilet paper. Now, kids at my door smile and say thank you while parents wait in the background.

Times change as fast as costumes, but for the price of a couple of bags of candy, Halloween is still a hoot.

“Buddy” Hartge, 1921-1995, "Strived To Be First"
People fretted when Buddy Hartge, ill with lung disease, insisted last year on entering the Chesapeake 20 sailboat race from Annapolis to West River. Others knew the indomitable spirit of Hartge, whose family created the Chesapeake 20 sailing sloop at their boatbuilding haven in Galesville.

Hartge forged ahead, even though his illness had forced his reliance on supplemental oxygen. But his boat, Endeavor, crossed the starting line too soon, and the crew, which included his friend Joe Atwell and son-in-law Bill Raley, had to begin again.

With Hartge skippering the boat he knew intimately on waters where he’d spent most of his life, Endeavor crept out of last place and, remarkably, into contention.

In a finish that long will be remembered in the region, Buddy Hartge won. “He wanted to race that last race and he had the will and the gumption to do it,” said Preston Hartge, Buddy Hartge’s son. “He always strived to be first.”

The determination of Vernon St. George “Buddy” Hartge is being remembered as family and friends grieve his death, in Florida, earlier this month. Hargte, 74, died on Sunday, Oct. 8, at his home in Palatka, which is near St. Augustine. His death was due to respiratory failure from pulmonary fibrosis.

A celebration of Hartge’s life will be held on Saturday, Oct. 28, at the Hartge Yacht Yard in Galesville.

Hartge was a prominent member of the family whose name has been synonymous with boats and the sporting life for more than a century. With his brother Emile and sister Elsie, Buddy Hartge presided at Hartge Yacht Yard for a generation. He was known for his work with his uncle, Dick, in building and restoring Chesapeake 20s. He was especially skilled with wood, building the hollow masts out of Sitka spruce for the Chesapeake 20s and other vessels.

Buddy Hartge had the reputation as a winning sportsman throughout his life, from his baseball-playing youth to his bowling successes to his hunting, fishing, crabbing and many outdoors pursuits. In Florida, where he moved about 15 years ago, he had honed his golf game into the mid-70s.

He had been commodore of the West River Sailing Club, as well as a founder of the Galesville Volunteer Fire Department and a volunteer firefighter for many years.

Hartge is survived by his wife of 49 years, Mardi Robinson Hartge; two daughters, Mary Hartge Winchester and Edna-Wynne Hartge Raley; his son, William Preston Harge, all of Galesville; and six grandchildren.

Among other survivors are sisters Alma H. Strong, of Galesville, and Elsie H. Wallis, of West River; and brothers Emile, Erwood and Robert of Galesville, Lawrence of Fernandina, Fla. and Henry of Huntington Beach, Calif.

Instead of flowers, the family requests donations of sympathy be sent to the Hospice, 3204 Crill Ave., Palatka, Fla. 32177.

For Del. Clagett, A Ceramic Thanks
Anymore, you won’t have to go to Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary to see how nice a place it is.

All you’ll have to do is ask Anne Arundel County Del. Virginia Clagett to show you the jug the Sanctuary gave her. It’s bound to be a nice place that has the sense to make the First Annual Jug Bay Award a hand-thrown ceramic jug big enough to hold a half-gallon of cool milk. Or perhaps some of that Jug Bay chardonnay produced next door.

But if you skip Jug Bay, you’ll miss the poignantly familiar beauty of this “small but ecologically significant piece of forest, river and wetlands.” Tom Cassidy, a past president of Friends of Jug Bay, calls the Sanctuary “one of the region’s most spectacular natural areas. It has these values because people and elected officials have worked for years to ensure that it remains protected.”

You’ll miss the 11 kinds of snakes, eight kinds of frogs, seven species of salamander, seven kinds of turtles, three and one half kinds of toad, and three kinds of lizard that slither, hop, crawl and swim there.

You’ll miss the migrating and nesting birds.

You’ll miss what brand-new Friend of Jug Bay Greg Lemmond, of Crofton, doesn’t want to miss: "The chance to get out in the woods and get muddy.”

Listening to the ceremonial day’s 10 speakers on Oct. 21, you learned that in Jug Bay Sanctuary on the Patuxent River, 500 acres surrounding one of the East Coast’s largest freshwater estuaries, will remain — for as long as politicians hold sway — as natural as it was in 1975.

You learned that Jug Bay is a successful experiment, both in public and private cooperation and in combining pleasure, research and habitat for wildlife.

You learned that this lovely spot was nearly a trailer park and that Clagett — who called her award “the high point of my 22 years in public life” — was a soldier in the army of officials and volunteers who preserved it.

Even better, you might have been inspired by Clagett’s faith that “patience, sticking with people, understanding and believing in them makes a difference.”

(At Jug Bay, Visitors are invited on special days and by appointment. Volunteers are always invited. Call 410/741-9330 to verify your invitation.)

— SOM

Don’t Let Your Cauldron Bubble; AA County Will Save You Trouble
In a fit of Halloween housekeeping, I’ve unearthed hidden household poisons from all my dark corners and forgotten drawers. With what’s turned up, I could concoct quite a toxic cocktail: Take a dozen or so AA and AAA batteries and a couple of burned out fluorescent lights. Add a dusty can of drain cleaner. Cans of old oil-based paint. Bug spray. Lighter fluid. And assorted cleaners, solvents, and removers.

Naturally, I wouldn’t brew such a potion in my kitchen. But if I do what comes naturally, tossing it into my Tuesday trash, I’ve added my contribution to a recipe for big trouble.

Any of these compounds have the potential by themselves or in consort to leech out of their containers that disintegrate over time. Once out, they can poison, sicken and even kill pets and do nothing but damage to other living things. For instance, lead, which comes from old paint and batteries, is the culprit in thousands of cases of developmental disabilities among children.

I don’t think about what happens down the road when I’m in a fit of clean-up. So, like thousands of other well-intentioned citizens, I’m likely to toss my household toxics into the garbage, along with Frank Perdue’s chicken wrappers, where they’ll disappear from my sight as garbage trucks haul it all off for burial in a county landfill.

But, as all fans of Dracula know, buried is not dead. My household toxics can live for hundreds of years, moving from spot to spot and victim to victim with uncanny ease.

Now, at least in Anne Arundel County, there’s a better alternative.

November 4, from 9am to 3pm, you can give household toxics away. Pack up all your toxics — ideally in their original containers, for easy identification and disposal — and bring them to the Glen Burnie Convenience Center, near the Glen Burnie Mall. Wondering how you know what’s toxic? Look at the label for the words: flammable, poisonous or toxic.

Anne Arundel County began such household hazardous waste drop-off days in 1988 to keep toxics out of the trash stream.
“We hire a contractor, currently Laidlaw Environmental Services, to come to us, handle the material on site, and dispose of it,” says Anne Arundel County residential recycling coordinator Carol Taylor.

What to do with such stuff is a complex question even for experts. Some is incinerated. Some is sealed off in chemically safe landfills. Some, like oil based paint, paint cans and batteries, can be recycled.

Altogether, disposing of toxics cleanly is expensive work, costing the county as much as $170,000 in a single day — though you’ll pay nothing for dropping off your household toxics.

Household toxics used to be collected twice a year; that schedule has been upped to eight times each year, at locations spaced throughout the county. “After March 1, we’ll be holding Household Hazardous Waste Drop-Off Days almost every month, to make it convenient for everybody. We hope people will plan ahead, saving their toxics in a safe, out-of-the-way place till they can bring them to us,” says Taylor.

“Ultimately, she adds, “I hope as many county residents as we can reach will take bring us their hazardous waste and keep it out of the landfill.”

— NBT

Share Your Strength, Too
In 1991, the nation's largest literary benefit to fight hunger began on college campuses. This year, “Share Our Strength Writers Harvest: The National Reading” spreads to 300 Barnes & Noble superstores across the country.

On Thursday, Nov. 2, local authors Priscilla Cummings, Philip L. Brown and Elsa Walsh lend their voices to the fight at Barnes & Noble Annapolis Harbour Center, from 3:30-9pm.

Annapolis Mayor Alfred Hopkins and area school children proclaim Nov. 2, Writers Harvest Day in Annapolis, in an opening ceremony, at 3:30pm.

At 4pm, Cummings reads from Chadwick Forever, the fourth children's book in her Chadwick the Crab series.

Historical actress Mary Ann Jung portrays Clara Barton, Red Cross Angel—Civil War Heroine, at 4:30pm.

At 7pm, Philip L. Brown — an energetic octogenarian, former educator and school administrator — tells "how the colored lived" in early 20th century Annapolis from his book The Other Annapolis.

Featured at 7:30pm, Washington Post reporter Elsa Walsh reads from her new book Divided Lives, a close-up look at West Virginia first lady and Wheeling Symphony conductor Rachael Worby, prominent New York City surgeon Alison Estabrook, and broadcast journalist Meredith Vieira.

Political biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin calls Divided Lives, "the most intimate, moving and complete picture of how the private lives and public careers of women intersect."

"In my book, real women let down their shields and speak with surprising candor about their lives," says Walsh.

These Annapolis-area authors are in good company.

Elsewhere, writers range from Marion Wright Edelmen to Nelson Demille; from Depak Chopra to Shane Alexander. Paul Auster, Rita Dove, Susan Isaacs, Elmore Leonard, Alice McDermott, Gloria Naylor and Dori Sanders also pitch in.

Financial support comes from Barnes & Noble and American Express. Barnes and Noble, the nation's largest bookseller, divides a percentage of the day's sales between two national anti-poverty organizations. American Express donates three cents for every American Express purchase during November and December to Share Our Strength's third Charge Against Hunger campaign.

In the last two years, American Express card members and merchants have helped raise over $10.7 million for Share Our Strength, the nation's leading anti-hunger organization.

"Writers Harvest readings teach you that hunger is a problem in the United States and there is something you can do about it. They turn regular people into hunger activists," says Bill Shore, founder and executive director of Share Our Strength.

— Liz Zylwitis

Gilchrest Fish-Saving Plan Still Swimming
WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Wayne Gilchrest has had an eventful year in Congress. Gilchrest, whose district includes much of the Annapolis region, has fought fellow Republicans trying to gut laws protecting endangered species.

He signed on recently to the presidential campaign of Senate Republican Leader Bob Dole of Kansas.

But he may have scored his most enduring achievement of the year when he succeeded in passing an amendment to protect fish.

Gilchrest engineered new wording to the Magnuson Act — the nation’s fish-management — to ensure that overfishing doesn’t lead to extinction in our coastal waters.

"We have to protect our natural resources today so they will be there tomorrow," Gilchrest said after his amendment passed 304-113.

The Gilchrest wording redefines the term “optimum yield” to ensures long-term sustainability of fish. Wise planning, Gilchrest observed, can protect taxpayers from huge bailouts such as the $60 million spent by the government after the collapse of the cod fishery in New England.

The Senate will vote soon on its version of the redrawn Magnuson Act. If Gilchrest's fish-saving proposal is to survive, he may need assistance from that presidential aspirant he’s helping — Bob Dole.

— BL

Calvert Homestead’s Quick, Profitable Trip to The Twilight Zone
Remember Barbara Burnett, the Calvert Countian who made marketing big time with her antiques tobacco sticks hung with dried herbs and flowers? In NBT Vol. III: 35 (Aug. 31-Sept. 6, 1995), you read about her selection as one of 20 Marylanders representing our state on QVC’s cable shopping bazaar.

It’s true. Burnett, a handcrafter from little Calvert Homestead, made the big time.

“It was like The Twilight Zone,” said an exhilarated Burnett the morning after the long-awaited (and several times delayed) telecast to QVC’s claimed 68 million television shoppers.

All 500 hand-decorated tobacco sticks sold in minutes, so quickly that she never got to show them off to her television audience.

“They held a sample stick up three times in the preview, gave the phone number once — and sold out,” Burnett crowed.

None of the other Maryland-made products sold out so quickly, not even the giraffes or genuine Maryland crabcakes. In fact, Burnett scored one of the fastest sell-outs among the 47 states that have now been showcased on the promotion QVC calls “Quest for America’s Best — QVC’s Tour of 50 States in 50 Weeks.”

Most of the Maryland manufacturers sold all they had made during the two-hour telecast. As progress was announced, buyers phoned in praise, and crafters cheered one another on. “They’re all just little people like us, who’ve spent years designing something they’ve just put on the market. You’re so happy for all those people who have busted their butts,” said Burnett.

Off screen, a local drama was being acted out. “Outside the Baltimore studio were all these people wearing crazy hats and gawking at us. ‘Look, a vendor!’ they screamed as we went inside,” Burnett reported. “The guys who run the show sign autographs for the QVC groupies.”

Then it was over, all the excitement of the buying frenzy.

“Driving back down to Calvert County, it was real different,” said Burnett. “Like being returned to your TV set.”

— NBT

Way Downstream ...
In Montana, hunting and fishing groups have united to fight a proposal by Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., to sell up to 8 million acres of government-owned land. The Southeastern Montana Sportsmen's Association is one of 10 organizations announcing a campaign last week.

"These bills serve big business and nobody else," said Ray Moody, president of Southeastern. A spokesman for Burns called the campaign "a political attack" on the senator ...

Florida provides our good news/bad news entry this week. Researchers said last week that mercury levels in fish from the Everglades have dropped this year by over 30 percent.

Now the bad news: Even though the mercury levels have declined, the Everglades fish still aren't' safe to eat. Where does the mercury come from? From garbage incinerators and industrial pollution ...

In France, the European Science Foundation is deploying an old Russian spy plane to study depletion of the atmosphere's protective ozone layer. The modified Myasishchev M-55 will fly at altitudes up to 67,000 feet during the Airborne Polar Experiment ...

Russia may have killed communism, but the country hasn't yet warmed up to environmentalism. Ask Johnathan Spaulding, a U.S. citizen who was beaten by Russian police last week after he criticized them for detaining anti-nuclear activists.

Spaulding, who works for a U.S. government- sponsored environmental project, said he was taken by three police to a local precinct where he was punched, kicked and slapped in the ear with open palms. A lieutenant said later that police wrongly mistook Spaulding for a pickpocket ...

Our Creature Feature this week also comes from Russia, where some wacky former Reds are running quite the sale. An army anti-aircraft unit near the town of Cherepovets put an ad in the newspaper last month offering to sell old missiles for the equivalent of $180.

The military men have a suggested use for the missiles that have struck terror into the hearts of Westerners since the 1950s: They've taken out the fuel and the ammo, replaced them with sand, and recommend that people stand the missiles in their gardens — to be used as scarecrows to frighten away pests.

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Dousing Fires Over Crab Rules
The torching of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's building on Smith Island wasn't all that surprising. Maryland's new crab restrictions have hit many watermen hard. The pain is especially felt on Smith Island, where the fragile economy is built almost solely on making a living from the water.

Nor is it surprising that the Foundation was singled out given the organization's unstinting call for tightened restrictions, albeit restrictions not finally adopted.

We've seen the lashing out before. In Florida this summer, commercial fishermen dumped nails at boat ramps on the day the state's new netting ban went into effect. Florida Keys extremists threatened violence over government efforts to protect coral reefs.

We've watched over the years as environmental advocates were harassed and beaten in the West in showdowns over endangered species. We know a respected Greenpeace chemist, Pat Costner, whose beloved deep-woods home near Eureka Springs, Ark. was burned to the ground.

These incidents have a common thread that we'd be wrong to underestimate. Crabbers — like commercial fishermen, treasure-hunters and loggers — are feeling even more insecure than the rest of us these days.

It's all about security, and few of us have much of that in our changing economy. Mergers and cutbacks are common even in healthy industries, as we saw in Annapolis this month when Nationwide Insurance "eliminated" over 200 jobs. Then we see what’s happening in Washington, where Congress wants to yank away such safety nets as Medicare.

It's easy for people tell watermen to "simmer down" or something equally patronizing. But matters aren't so simple.

What we would do is advise people to look around to what’s happened elsewhere. In New England, planners fiddled while the cod-fishing industry collapsed. Same goes for the much of the salmon industry in the Northwest.

Last week, an organization in Washington called Population Action International put out a frightening new report about the rapid decline in the world's fisheries. The catch of nearly every species that feeds the world — mackerel, haddock, anchovy and tuna — is a fraction of what it was 25 years ago.

In every case, the collapse is fueled by growth in population that leads, as the report points out, "to too many boats chasing too few fish."

The Chesapeake Bay faces identical pressures. Environmental advocates like to say that pollution is the main danger to the Bay. In fact, population growth is the biggest threat to people along the Bay and the creatures living in it.

Rather than criticizing watermen for acts of destruction, we'd like to deliver a sermon to the state. When Maryland regulators take steps like new crab rules that damage people's lives, they need to do a far better job of explaining their actions and teaching people what is happening in every corner of the world.

If they don't convince people, then they can expect more anger, more pain and more flames.

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Greek Islanders Wooed

Dear New Bay Times~Weekly:
I recently read your ad: "Ask not what New Bay Times can do for you. Ask what you can do for New Bay Times …"

Enclosed is a photo of myself on the Greek Island of Delos taken last month. We had little luck trying to sell the Greeks on advertising in NBT. It's hard to believe, but they have yet to become familiar with NBT.

— Drew M. Martin, Annapolis, Md.

No Mo Perots

Dear New Bay Times~Weekly:
You wrote in a Sept. 21 editorial that people all across the nation want something different at election time. You implied that voters want someone other than a Republican or Democrat. You cited Ross Perot's 19 percent vote total in 1992.

Nineteen percent of the vote for someone who spent $60 million as an independent candidate does not tell me that voters are turning against their own political party. In fact, if 19 percent voted for Mr. Perot, that means that 81 percent voted for the Republican or Democratic candidates.

Mr. Perot didn't win a single state; therefore he won no electoral votes. In 1980, John Anderson won no electoral votes. In 1976, Eugene McCarthy won zero electoral votes. Going even further back, Strom Thurmond and Henry A. Wallace, independent candidates for president in 1948, were no match for Harry Truman or even Thomas Dewey.

Independent presidential candidates have always been losers. They frequently have taken votes away from more qualified and electable major party nominees. They often have been spoilers. Judging from our history of presidents and the role of independents, a good argument could be made to ban independent presidential candidates. It could be made; I'm not making it.

Your editorial complained about independent candidates having to collect signature petitions from a certain percentage of the voters. Independent candidates want to get into the big battle without having fought in a primary election.

We don't necessarily need to make it easier for spoilers to run in our elections. We need to recruit better Democrats and Republicans to run for public office.

Yes, voters are looking for something different, preferably candidates with integrity and good character and candidates who haven't been "bought and paid for" by every special interest.

— John Douglas Parran, St. Leonard, Md.

Department of Clarifications:
An article in NBT’s Oct. 12-18 edition about accomplished welder Lisa Sade made reference to C&L Marine Pipe Works as one of the businesses where she learned her trade. C&L, which does marine welding and fabrication, continues to operate in Millersville and recently celebrated its fifth year in business.

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When Angels Dress in Human Clothes
by Janice Lynch

When tragedy piled onto loss, the forgotten angels of childhood began to congregate in my life.

The last time I gave any thought to angels, I was five or six years old and determined to catch my guardian angel by locating her shadow. I was puzzled that a being who my mother described so realistically, as if she were a winged girl from down the street, could exist and not have a shadow like the rest of us. No matter how I tried to trap her, I could not. As I grew older, that angel became a silly hybrid of the church I’d abandoned and the Peter Pan books I’d outgrown.

For the next 25 years, if there were angels in my life, I did not notice: I was so busy with the task of growing and becoming, I had no time to observe. I turned 31 and was living a happy and comfortable life: I had two beautiful children, a grandmother who lived next door and who I cherished, a husband I loved. I was pregnant with our third child. My freelance writing business was successful.

I celebrated New Year’s Eve of 1994 with friends and, on the last day of January, gave birth to my third child. On the last day of December, 1994, I was in the hospital, where I’d been admitted for grief and depression. That journey was a hard one: I had a new baby, separated from my husband, lost my business, started a full-time job, learned that my grandmother was ill, learned that she was dying, divorced my husband, sat with my dying grandmother.

In the quiet spaces of that loss and change were the standard difficulties and challenges of living with small children: boredom and frustration, joy and anger, exhaustion and exhilaration, impatience and imagination. Every day I wanted to die but could not because my children kept me grounded: Nothing on earth could have separated us.

And the forgotten angels of childhood began to congregate in my life. When the baby was hospitalized for four days with pneumonia, a volunteer midshipman held her all night so that my family and I could sleep. Angels appeared as friends who would come at a moment’s notice to take my children for an hour or a day to give me time to spend with my grandmother, to celebrate her, to love her.

Angels appeared in unusual places. The manager of the Safeway drove through ice and snow to deliver my daughter’s essential medicine. I met angels where I thought none could have existed: in malls and on the street, in restaurants and libraries. I met other single mothers, most with older children, who assured me my life would become easier again, and whole, and that the hurt I felt would not last forever.

An angel fed a meter for me when I took my children sightseeing in Washington. An angel advised me, “Every skill I taught my daughter I taught her for survival.” Another angel taught me how to cut corners on food. Still another called me on the anniversary of my grandmother’s birth. An angel comes to my house each day and loves my children while I work.

Perhaps it is not so much that these people are angles as that they are kind and good. But such qualities can be at such a premium in our hectic and full lives that, when they do appear, they seem angelic. They live the cliché that advises us to “Practice random acts of kindness.”

These angels have shadows. They are not perfect beings. When they dance, they stomp on their partner’s feet and lose the beat. Even so, because they are so human and so tender, their angelic moments are even more profound. In a year that gathered tragedy upon loss upon tragedy, my angels reminded me to dance, to keep my face to the sun, and to honor the life that surround me.

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Gambling II: On the Ship of State
From nickle-dime wagers to big boats, this author gets plenty of action

When I stopped by the High's in Annapolis the other day, I was confronted by an admitted gambler who wasn't too pleased with the column of last week questioning the logic of the proposed state gamble on gambling to provide jobs and put big money in the coffers in these fiscally jittery days.

Darned if I wasn't in the post office yesterday when a disgruntled lady Bingo player accosted me. Guess I hit a raw nerve, though taking flack goes with the column-writing territory. Matter of fact, gripes are as welcome as kudos; one doesn't necessarily write to please readers — often the aim if a column is to prompt
or even provoke more than cursory thoughts on timely subjects.

In addition, complaints are appreciated by all columnists (and editors) because they not only indicate the complainant is a reader of the publication (and publications must have readers), but let it be known the writer might not have expressed himself convincingly.

The gist of the laments about the gambling column was Bingo and nickel and dime slots involve only petty cash, no serious money can be lost, so what's the gripe? Hey do they think I've spent all my slot machine time on one armed bandits that only take quarters and silver dollars?

Admittedly, I can't say much about Bingo because I haven't played since a kid at PTA fund-raisers where the ante was a cent or two a card and the first person to shout the magic word won a homemade cake or a few tins of food. But hearing contemporary Bingo players talk of chances to win thousands of dollars prompts me to think you no longer play a card for a few pennies each round.

Nothing wrong with Bingo for churches, fire departments and other sponsors promoting worthy causes, but when the games are taken over by gambling promoters, I get suspicious. They want too much of the pie.

I don't go along with those who dismiss nickel and dime stuff as inconsequential. Many a time, I have seen people I know well lose more than they can afford feeding slots a nickel or a dime at a time. Spend a hour on one and you dump about 40 bucks into its gaping mouth.

Sure, you might win a bit back (and we know where that usually goes), but remember the entrepreneur who put the machine there expects a fair (?) return in addition to being able to pay for the device, which isn't cheap — and also all that money in the jackpot you can see behind the little glass window takes more than its share of what's dropped in the slot.

A Claw In His Pocket
Sure, we're hoping sooner or later the jackpot coins are going to tumble down all around us after the three bars are lined up. That's why we play. But, soon as we run out of time and cash (or both) someone else will take our place, and his first coin or two will start the cash flow from the jackpot. It happens every time.

Don't try to tell me you can only lose a few bucks feeding gambling machines. I remember well the father of a copy editor at the Sun who regularly lost most if not all of his weekly wages on claw machines — those big glass containers with everything in them from wrist watches and teddy bears to key rings.

No kidding; this guy was addicted to them. He could spend his week's pay in an evening, go home and at best show the family a cheap watch he won along with a bag of junky items to pass out to the kids. Payday after payday, that was the routine; so the wife worked.

That was a long time ago when wages were small, but while they're bigger today, so is the price one pays to play. Claws are pretty much gone, hungry poker machines have taken their place in bars. Same results.

So much for nickel-dime stuff. I'm not against it; it's just that it shouldn't be promoted by professionals of the gambling kingdom. Come on boys, give the suckers an even break. Nor should it be heavily promoted by state governments, especially those which frown on all gambling other than the lotteries they keep telling us we have to play to win.

Sailing the Ship of State
Last week, tongue in cheek, I suggested the state yacht might be a good vehicle for a riverboat casino in Maryland. I really figure it currently serves a much better purpose as a vehicle to promote our bay-oriented state. What better way to impress visiting business leaders and other dignitaries than taking them on a cruise aboard the palatial 112-foot Maryland Independence?

Over the years, many an important business deal beneficial to the state has been cut on the state yacht which until recent years was referred to as the governor's yacht — and we're not the only state to have one. It's good business, and Gov. Parris Glendening deserves praise for his recent announcement the state won't scuttle it.

So what if the governor takes a pleasure cruise now and then, or that its used for charitable purposes, the site for important press conferences, or as an isolated meeting place for government boards or state agencies? That's the way it has always been, always will be — no apologies necessary.

Hey, in these billion dollar government budget times, this dame of the Chesapeake that cost $630,000 when King Crab's administration purchased it nine years ago is operated on peanuts — an annual budget of $160,000.

After promoting the ship of state, so to speak, I feel somewhat guilty admitting that I enjoyed the floating perk of several governors. But I'll probably never be invited aboard again, so don't accuse me of devious support.

There have been at least three, probably four, governor's yachts since I dropped anchor in Maryland in 1956; the biggest, best, most impressive and swankiest of which was the Potomac, which before docking in Annapolis was the yacht of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the site of many private meetings involving world leaders including Winston Churchill.

Of course, FDR used it for private cruises, sometimes for fishing, but doesn't a president deserve a perk, a place to get away from it all — especially during the trying times of FDR's last years in office?

It was the Potomac he was fishing aboard off Ocean City when a nearby charterboat hooked a marlin that splashed atop the waves, prompting the president to order the captain to get closer so he could watch the fight. The Potomac got too close for the comfort of the charter skipper who shouted for it to get away. The Potomac's skipper informed the other captain the president was aboard.

In anger the marlin skipper responded in a shout loud enough for FDR to hear: "I don't give a damn whose aboard, get that boat out of here." So much for deferential treatment to heads of state.

The Great Flag Heist
My first boardings of the Potomac came when Ted McKeldin was governor and wanted to fish the bay. What gourmet breakfasts we had before being picked up somewhere in the bay by smaller boat for the actual fishing part of the cruise. McKeldin loved hunting and fishing and was a great outdoors companion.

So was Millard Tawes who invited me aboard several times on the next governor's yacht, which he used occasionally to promote Ocean City's marlin and other offshore fishing. It was the entertainment headquarters for the then Governor's Cup Challenge, a well publicized affair that involved governors from New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia.

In the 60s, Ocean City's offshore charter and sportsfishing fleets needed promotion, marlin runs were declining and the resort/fishing community was losing its image as the White Marlin Capital of the World — and all the business that went with it.

The last time I was aboard that vessel, the business was spur of the moment monkey business. The late Bill Chew, a wealthy developer from Garrison, Md., and I were enjoying an evening on Ocean City when we wandered to the docks, saw the boat and Bill said he'd like to "inspect" it.

I was among a few outdoor writers who had been aboard earlier in the day for a little party hosted by Gov. Tawes, so I figured he wouldn't object to us stopping by. As we headed up the gangplank at the Ship's Cafe docks to be welcomed aboard I heard Bill's muffled comment to the effect the Maryland flag flying from the main staff would look good at his hunting lodge on Elliott Island. But I thought no more of it.

The governor was his usual affable self. We chatted as we enjoyed a drink. I became aware that my companion wasn't with us, but thought nothing about it until I looked topside. Atop the cabin stood Chew next to the Maryland flag and I remembered his earlier comment.

What to do. I'm with the governor, and a close friend is about to take the flag from his state yacht. Uneasily, I talked fishing prospects with Gov. Tawes, occasionally glancing topside without drawing my host's attention.

Bill soon returned and later as we walked down the gangplank, I looked back in the last rays of sunset and saw a bare pole.

For years, that flag hung over the mantle at Chew's Duck Inn, where I occasionally shot, but in the last week of the Tawes administration my conscience got the better of me when invited to the Governor's Mansion for lunch. He liked practical jokes so as we were discussing pleasantries, I confessed the incident and expressed the hope none of the crew was reprimanded for losing the colorful pennant.

What was the response? The governor's eyes twinkled and he chuckled. That's my kind of governor. Enough said.

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Now Monthly in NBT: Rock ‘n’ Roll Music by Michael Gaunt

Now on Middleton Tavern’s Menu: The VanDangos
You've heard Heavy Metal, now try Heavy Wood …

The VanDangos' percussionist, Hank Rueter, looks like a beefy young farmer: crew cut, feed cap, shirtsleeves rolled at the elbows. "Yeah, I'm in white-eye rollback most of the time I'm sittin' back there playing," he answers when asked if the heavy, African tubanos are a major outlet for his creativity.

"Even with those three drums, each one has four different spots on it for four different tonal qualities. I try to follow along right behind Richard; like if he takes a certain lead, I will follow along behind him and build it up and add in more and more parts. Same with the bass player John, when he takes a solo, I'll be compounding and multiplying the amount of picks that he's putting in on it. I'll follow along with that and try to up it and up it and when he stops, I stop. We're gettin' really tight on that kind of stuff," says Hank.

The VanDangos are three veteran musicians whose slogan — "you've heard Heavy Metal, now try Heavy Wood" — falls a little short of describing their strange but entrancing, bass-heavy acoustic sound.

Hank's rig includes a digital drum rack that accents his rolling tubano drive. Bassist John David Coppola, whose career has included the Kennedy Center Orchestra and the Olympic Committee chamber group, trades off between an upright string bass and a large acoustic bass guitar. Singer and main songwriter Richard Stone plays an "arch-top" electric guitar to get a sound somewhere between R&B and Country and Western with a little Wes Montgomery thrown in.

"Ever since I've been out of high school, I've pretty much been on the road," Richard says. "Anything from Soul bands to Country and Western bands to Disco for a while — pretty much anything. My favorite job was working for Otis Blackwell (who wrote "Don't be Cruel" and "All Shook Up" for Elvis). I really learned a lot about songwriting from him. My favorite story about him is when he said ‘well, people thought I was crazy but I told ‘em if I write a lyric like "itchin' like a man on a fuzzy tree" those white people'll really like it.'"

Richard's songs — with themes of heartbreak, romance, and urban reality — have abundant humor and a laid-back, coastal feel. It’s a Jimmy Buffet attitude in a minimalist, percussion-driven sound. Their first CD, Psycho Rodeo (due out in December), is a collection of eight original songs plus one, "Daddy Rollin' Stone," by Otis Blackwell. The VanDangos' "Heavy Wood" sound on the record is complemented by the voices of Sharon Manolis and Melinda Root as well as Jennifer Lewin on violin and Steve McWilliams on guitar.

The three musicians each bring their unique backgrounds into the band's original sound. John has worked for the past 10 years as a classical musician, with the Kennedy Center pit orchestra and the prestigious Strolling Strings as main sources of income. His favorite job, however, was traveling with the Olympic Committee chamber group to stints in Barcelona, Tokyo, and Seoul. "That was kind of like riding a wave, it’s great but you don't even really enjoy it till after its done with and you go ‘that was very cool.'"

Hank's musical career began at a little Southern Baptist military school in Virginia. "In the corps there's two sections: cadence section and main section," he remembers. "The bass drummer for the main section was totally slack so I ended up covering for both sections all the time. It’s an ‘improv’ quality that you have to pick up doing the job of two bass drummers. The band director was completely senile and didn't know what was going on, so instead of looking bad in front of a whole bunch of people, I'd just as soon play it myself and cover this guy.”

Although he grew up admiring the work of drummers like Neil Peart of Rush, Hank has always stuck to the tribal drum sound he now brings to The VanDangos: "I never copied anybody, I always let myself dictate what I was gonna do, just because I feel like its cheating myself from trying to find my own groove.

The VanDangos play at Middleton Tavern at Annapolis City Dock on Tues. November 7 and 21, Sat. Nov. 18 and every Tues. in December: 410/263-3323.

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