Back Door

A masked man walked through the open back door of a Pasadena pizza parlor Sunday and robbed the owner of an undisclosed amount of money, county police said.Rex P. Atwood, 33, owner of Vizzini's in the 4100 block of Mountain Road, told police he was in the office with an employee just after 10 p.m. when a man walked in, pulled out what appeared to be a sawed-off shotgun and demanded money.The man grabbed the cash drawer and ran out the same door he came in, police said. Police did not have a detailed description of the suspect.

YESTERDAY morning, I was sitting at the kitchen table and felt a breeze moving over my ankles. The back door and kitchen windows were closed, yet a chilly wind was a-blowin'. This was a sign that it was time to replace the back door screen with its glass storm panel.Pulling out the screens and putting in the glass is part of the seasonal switchover routine that homeowners go through at this time of year.Yesterday, I did my duty, but took little joy in it. In the springtime, when the screens go in and the air is full of promise, you are in a welcoming mood, thinking of ways to invite pleasant breezes into your house.

Where are the boys of summer?They arrived in the summer of my sixth year in the South Baltimore rowhouse. One evening, while cleaning up in the kitchen, I heard voices through the screen door. Young voices, eager, conspiratorial, free. I looked out the back door. Two boys stood in the walkway that runs behind the houses on my block. The passageway is barely wide enough for two people. But for any youthful rogue, the network of concrete lanes that runs from one street to another offers an easy escape route, a shortcut, a hideout.

Two men, one with a handgun, robbed a Glen Burnie store Sunday evening and escaped with an undisclosed amount of money, county police said.The men walked in the back door of the Dollar Bills store in the 6700 block of Ritchie Highway about 7:15 p.m., and one of them pulled a black semiautomatic pistol and announced the robbery, police said.The gunman forced the store manager to open the safe and give him money, and the second man stood watch over an employee in a rear stockroom, police said.

WASHINGTON -- Before Paul Simon retires from the Senate in a couple of years, he intends to board up the back door to the Alamo.Simon, a Democratic liberal from Illinois, has for some years tried to get Congress to pass a constitutional amendment that would force it to balance the federal budget.The heart of the amendment is simple: "Total outlays for any fiscal year shall not exceed receipts for that fiscal year."But, as one pundit put it, the concept sends shivers down Congress' spine -- or would if it had one.Congress can balance the budget without an amendment.

A 31-year-old employee who was shot in the back Tuesday night as he tried to flee during an armed robbery at a Pennsylvania Avenue carryout died Tuesday afternoon at the University of Maryland Medical Center, police said.The victim, Brian Anthony Harrod, was a part-time employee at the Sub Shack near his home in the 1500 block of Pennsylvania Ave.Police said two robbers burst into the store when the owner opened the front door to take out trash. Mr. Harrod and another employee were behind an enclosed partition when one of the intruders grabbed a customer and held a gun to the customer's head.

Washington.--The government is not destined to become svelte, but the budget the president submitted this week -- the first real Democratic budget in 13 years, which is half a generation -- illustrates a paradox that gives cold comfort to conservatives: The largest achievement of modern liberalism, the welfare state, is now the largest impediment to the liberal aspiration for energetic government.Candidate Clinton vowed that an end of ''gridlock'' between Congress and the executive branch would enable Democrats to ''reverse Reaganism.

POLICE LOG* Oakland Mills: 5700 block of Stevens Forest Road: Someone attempted to steal a 1989 Ford Probe Sunday night or Monday by tampering with the ignition, police said.* Owen Brown: 6300 block of Setting Star: A man entered a home through an unlocked door Tuesday night, then was scared off when the resident called out. Police said the man ran to a back door, unlocked it, jumped from the deck and fled through the woods.

The four boys on their way to Roland Park Elementary/Middle School yesterday morning could hardly believe the horror that unfolded before them. As they walked along North Calvert Street to catch a transit bus to school just before 8 a.m., they spotted a man walking behind a woman, a gun pressed against her back.At first, the children thought maybe it was some kind of joke, but they got worried when the man forced the woman into a house. So the children -- ages 11 to 13 -- ran down the street, where they told a man what they had seen, and he called the police.

I'll tell you what Nancy and I can't talk about without a huge fight: her hair.Hair sounds like an innocuous subject, right? Like the weather? Something you can kick around without anyone getting all huffy and stomping out of the room? Hah! Don't try it. Really. It's just not worth it.Here's what I mean. Nancy comes home the other day, right? I hear the car pull in the driveway and I look out the window and there she is. And then I notice something that just chills me to the bone. She's had something done to her hair.