Nine-hundred fifty-eight issues in 19 years would be heavy lifting, were it not for all the people who’ve carried part of the load of Bay Weekly since our birth as New Bay Times on Earth Day, April 22, 1993.     Each year at this time, I page back through our 19 leather-bound volume books. Each one of them making heavy lifting — not only for all the newsprint pressed in them, nor for all the words typed on that yellowing paper. The memories are heavier still, revived...

I could tell you that the General Assembly, which adjourned this week, managed to spin straw into gold and everybody’s happy.     But you wouldn’t believe me, because you know that even in fairy tales there’s a heavy price levied on too much cleverness.     Truth is that nobody’s very happy with the results. In this Assembly, one diner’s meat has been another’s poison.     If you were blown over by the prospect...

You’ve got no control over where most of your tax dollars go. The exception is Line 35 on the Maryland state income tax form. Check that line and you make a direct contribution to Chesapeake Bay and the Endangered Species Fund. The Fund — split evenly between the Chesapeake Bay Trust and Maryland Department of Natural Resources — supports Bay restoration and conserves native wildlife and endangered species.     Last year, the tax check-off amounted to more than...

The results of my Fairhaven neighbors’ trudgery lined the roads: piles of tires, rusted bed springs and auto parts, heavy old televisions and fat black sacks stuffed with litter. Anne Arundel County hauled the loot away, and our roads and fields were blessedly clean — for about 24 hours.     Then the litter showers resumed, starting with a sprinkling of fast-food trash and stepping up, within the week, to more tires. They, like the mattress and television and couch...