Armory

On most Sunday afternoons, 6-year-old Nicole Durand would be playing with her younger sister.But yesterday afternoon found Nicole standing on the sidewalk on North Howard Street in front of the 5th Regiment Armory holding a version of the U.S. flag that substituted a peace sign for the 50 stars."

C The Ellicott City National Guard armory is slated to close in 1997, leaving Maryland without an engineer battalion to respond to natural disasters.Soldiers forced to leave their units will be retrained and absorbed by other units in the state, said National Guard officials. The closing is part of a reduction nationwide to cut the 776,000 staff positions by about 100,000. The cuts will be achieved through attrition and by eliminating vacant posts, officials said."Nobody is going to be asked to leave the Guard," National Guard spokesman 1st Lt. Hunt Kerrigan said.

Young actors dressed in 19th-century garb marched to the stage, singing traditional carols. Beggars and bankers, peasants and nobles all mixed in a crowd. Several of the characters were familiar, present in multiple incarnations: Tiny Tim Cratchet as the child with a crutch, and as a mischievous young man; Ebenezer Scrooge as a youth and as an elderly man. It's the opening scene of Remembering Uncle Scrooge, a two-act musical that debuts this week in downtown Bel Air. The actors, in character and costume, hope to mingle with the audience at the dinner theater, the first event in the refurbished Lt. Gen. Milton A. Reckord Armory on North Main Street.

After a run of 38 years, it's likely that the 5th Regiment Armory in the city will not be available for high school indoor track come December. And, perhaps, the sport is done in the century-old building for good. The Military Department (National Guard) of the State of Maryland announced a few months ago that a long-overdue resurfacing of the armory floor was planned at a cost of $600,000. It is expected to be finished by November. The new surface decided upon is quarry tile, which will last almost indefinitely, but is extremely hard and not conducive to indoor track meets.

There's good news for local runners, jumpers, hurdlers and throwers: Indoor track will proceed as it has for the past 38 years at the 5th Regiment Armory come December. The sport, which has been conducted on the region, county and city level in Maryland and has offered state championships for years, was put in danger following last season, when plans for a new floor at the armory were announced. A quarry tile surface, totally unsuitable for indoor track, was initially selected because, as Lt. Gen. James Fretterd, adjutant general of the Maryland National Guard, explained at the time: "It was our best alternative considering the extremely high cost of alternate flooring."

Maryland sold the old National Guard Armory on Longwell Avenue to the City of Westminster yesterday for $1, but imposed three conditions.The Board of Public Works approved a sale agreement that binds the city to renovating the building, preserving its historic facade and keeping it in community use.City officials had agreed earlier to the conditions.The agreement capped more than 16 months of negotiations by Mayor W. Benjamin Brown and Del. Richard N. Dixon, D-Carroll, with state officials.

Mervo coach Freddie Hendricks is preparing to field one of his most formidable indoor track teams in years. He has lightning-quick sprinters, dominating middle-distance men, and quite possibly the area's best shot-putter. One thing he's sorely lacking, however, is a place to field them. As practice for the winter season begins today, Mervo is one of dozens of area schools feeling the impact of renovation that has closed the floor at the 5th Regiment Armory, a facility many area teams have called home for nearly four decades.

The bars on the windows of the Nintendo and the child care rooms reflect the Westminster armory's past existence as the city's police headquarters -- not its scheduled reincarnation in July as the Westminster Family Center.With after-school activities for teens, "We'll have a program that other towns can only dream about," predicted Thomas B. Beyard, city director of planning and public works.The city bought the 160-year-old National Guard Armory building on Longwell Avenue from the state for $1 and will spend about $350,000 on the family center, he said.

Hidden in the basement of a fortress in the center of the city is a remarkable but little-known treasure trove of memorabilia from every war in American history, collected over two centuries by Maryland National Guardsmen.Civil War rifles, Japanese sabers from World War II, a jeep that Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower rode in, Iraqi chemical syringes and a tumble of other battlefield souvenirs pack five dark rooms beneath the Maryland National Guard's 5th Regiment Armory castle off Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

Every piece of furniture that antique dealer Aileen Minor displays shows amazing craftsmanship -- deep, ornate hand carving and polished veneers.All of it is as perfect as anything on a showroom floor, and each piece has lasted a lifetime."