Baldwin Hall

CARROLL BALDWIN Hall will soon reopen. Savage's stone and slate community center, built in the 1920s, has undergone renovation over the past few years. This week, final touches on the wheelchair ramp and the bathroom should be finished, making the hall available again for community events. Just in time, too. According to Corrinne Arnold, president of the group that maintains the hall - the Carroll Baldwin Hall Memorial Association - no one was sure exactly when the renovations would be finished.

IF YOU'RE in the mood for a walk down Memory Lane, Charlie Chaplin's classic 1931 silent movie, City Lights, is showing at Carroll Baldwin Hall tomorrow night. Admission to the film, presented by the Savage Historical Society, is 5 cents. The evening will begin at 6 p.m. with a social hour. You can buy popcorn and baked goods while Columbia pianist Nancy Berla plays Scott Joplin rags. Wear period clothes if you like, take a camera and have your picture taken with a life-sized portrait of Chaplin, drawn by Jeannette Vollmerhausen of Savage.

THERE WAS a great deal of fun to be had last weekend, when hundreds of children and their parents came to Carroll Baldwin Hall to play games, see the Deathly Diner and show off their costumes.The Savage Halloween party exceeded its organizers' hopes.Carolyn Adami, who organized Savage Halloween parties a decade ago, was a hit dressed in a white tutu as the Lottery Fairy.Eileen Johanson dressed as a gypsy and read fortunes.Mary Ann Gardes came as a black cat.She kept the ringtoss and other games going.

If you have a news tip in southern Howard, call Jason Song at 410-715-2836 during the day or leave a message after hours. If you have information on community events in southern Howard, call Fay Lande at 410-715-2811. Bethel Assembly of God is sponsoring a blood drive tomorrow in conjunction with Savage Fest. An Red Cross bloodmobile will be parked near Carroll Baldwin Hall, 9035 Baltimore St., from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Appointments are preferred, but walk-in donors are welcome. Information or to schedule an appointment: 301-498-3344 The church will also sponsor a health fair at Savage Fest from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. tomorrow in Carroll Baldwin Hall.

Finally, the good weather comes. Old friends return: the violets, the hyacinths, the flowering apple and pear, the gold fish. Old foes return too: the dandelion, the rabbit, the prolific yard cats. The pine tree fell, but the apple and peach both set out suckers I can remove and transplant. Everything is new again.*First the good news about Carroll Baldwin Hall. This historic auditorium and library was built about 70 years ago by the employees of the Savage Mill as a neighborhood recreation center.

As it approaches its 20th season, the Pasadena Theatre Company can look back on a history of shows such as "Noises Off," "Jesus Christ Superstar," "A Little Night Music," "The Madwoman of Chaillot" and "The Heidi Chronicles."A history to be proud of, and now Pasadena is marking the end of an era with "Li'l Abner." This production will be the last show at Baldwin Hall, the company's home for 14 years."Li'l Abner" re-creates Al Capp's comic-strip world. The 1956 show, with music by Gene De Paul and lyrics by Johnny Mercer, focuses on the simple inhabitants of Dogpatch, who learn their town is so worthless, the U.S. government plans to use it as an atomic bomb test site.

Thirty-five years after the publication of her book on the history of Savage, Vera R. Filby is pleasantly surprised that people are still interested. "When they asked me to reprint it, I thought, `Who would be interested in it?' " Filby said, smiling. "Then again, history is history, and it's still accurate up to 1965. After that, it's someone else's worry." "They" is Carroll Baldwin Memorial Institute, a community group that works to preserve Carroll Baldwin Hall, a meeting place for Savage residents.

Imagine, the Pasadena Theatre Company performing in Pasadena.The 200-member theater group, which stages its shows at Baldwin Hall in Millersville, is looking for a home of its own. The old Pasadena Elementary School might fill the bill."

A FREE ICE cream social is scheduled from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. today at Carroll Baldwin Hall in Savage. Thanks to a bit of hard work, some generous contributors and lots of volunteers, it promises to be a wonderful time. Organizer Jennifer Weaver thought a social might be a nice event for the Savage Community Association to hold. When she requested funds from the group, "they said `go ahead,'" she said. To stretch the funds, Weaver and Corrinne Arnold solicited donations and volunteers. Area ice cream purveyors donated lots of goodies: Jim Humprey of Hershey's donated Moose Tracks ice cream (vanilla ice cream with fudge and peanut butter cups)

LIVING IN an old town is like living in an old house -- there's always work needed to keep the joint up.Savage is no exception. Residents periodically invest sweat equity to make our town a pleasant place to live.Maintenance work, such as the cemetery cleanup last fall, is an example of that sweat equity.Now members of the Savage Community Association and the Carroll Baldwin Hall Committee have decided that it is time to do a little more. And, like all the best ideas, this one serves several purposes: to get rid of junk, bring in money and improve the appearance of Savage.

CALENDARS ARE usually designed to let us look ahead to the coming weeks and months. But the Savage Historical Society has fashioned a calendar that does the opposite - it gives us a glimpse of the past through the old photographs featured on the pages for each month. Called A Long Time Ago ... , the black-and-white calendar for 2002 includes 15 photographs of Savage taken during the early 1900s. It is a project of the fledgling Savage Historical Society, a group that first met in April.

IT WASN'T just the summer-like weather that made Saturday's tree lighting in Savage seem a bit like a Fourth of July celebration. This year, the community decided to forgo the traditional red-and-green Yuletide color palette in favor of a more patriotic motif. "The red, white and blue theme is because of Sept. 11th," said Charla Long, one of the organizers of the tree lighting. The 12-foot blue spruce, planted about two years ago on the grounds beside historic Carroll Baldwin Hall, is usually bedecked in colored lights and red bows at Christmastime.

A FREE ICE cream social is scheduled from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. today at Carroll Baldwin Hall in Savage. Thanks to a bit of hard work, some generous contributors and lots of volunteers, it promises to be a wonderful time. Organizer Jennifer Weaver thought a social might be a nice event for the Savage Community Association to hold. When she requested funds from the group, "they said `go ahead,'" she said. To stretch the funds, Weaver and Corrinne Arnold solicited donations and volunteers. Area ice cream purveyors donated lots of goodies: Jim Humprey of Hershey's donated Moose Tracks ice cream (vanilla ice cream with fudge and peanut butter cups)

IT'S JUST one day to the Savage Spring Celebration. Organizer Jennifer Weaver and her crew have spent the past week getting everything ready for this fun-filled afternoon event. Because the celebration includes an egg hunt, bonnet-making and other crafts, a parade led by the Easter Bunny and light refreshments served during the party, there is a lot to prepare. At the Weavers' house, she and her family have spent days assembling plastic eggs for the hunt. They've filled the colored ovoids with candy and small prizes.

IN THE quiet moments between rain and wind squalls, it's apparent that last winter was a bit rough. Our gardens are scruffy with downed branches and paint peeling off porches. Here is a way to help with spring cleanup. Members of Savage United Methodist Church are offering area seniors a helping hand to repair winter's damage. Rhonda Smith is organizing "Helping Our Neighbors," a volunteer cleanup crew. Smith has experience organizing repair and cleanup crews. For many years, she organized a local group for the Christmas in April program.

FOR THE second year in a row, Chuck Dick brought Charles Dickens' story "A Christmas Carol" to life in Savage this month. The fund-raiser for Carroll Baldwin Hall almost didn't happen this year. Dick, who was raised in Savage, conceived the idea of annual holiday performances. He remembers when Carroll Baldwin Hall was used more frequently as a community center and he liked the idea of combining a fund-raiser with a cultural experience for the community. For the past few years, the hall has been undergoing restoration to repair a slate roof and upgrade the interior.

If you have a news tip in southern Howard, call Jason Song at 410-715-2836 during the day or leave a message after hours. If you have information on community events in southern Howard, call Fay Lande at 410-715-2811. Bethel Assembly of God is sponsoring a blood drive tomorrow in conjunction with Savage Fest. An Red Cross bloodmobile will be parked near Carroll Baldwin Hall, 9035 Baltimore St., from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Appointments are preferred, but walk-in donors are welcome. Information or to schedule an appointment: 301-498-3344 The church will also sponsor a health fair at Savage Fest from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. tomorrow in Carroll Baldwin Hall.

The Pasadena Theatre Company will hold auditions for its October production of "Oklahoma" from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday and 7:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. Monday at Baldwin Hall in Millersville.Don't let the company's name fool you. Although it started in Pasadena 15 years ago, performing wherever the company could find a stage, the company has been based in Millersville for seven years. When Baldwin Hall became the company's permanent home, members discussed changing the name but decided it was more fun to continue being confused with the world-famous Pasadena (Calif.

CARROLL BALDWIN Hall will soon reopen. Savage's stone and slate community center, built in the 1920s, has undergone renovation over the past few years. This week, final touches on the wheelchair ramp and the bathroom should be finished, making the hall available again for community events. Just in time, too. According to Corrinne Arnold, president of the group that maintains the hall - the Carroll Baldwin Hall Memorial Association - no one was sure exactly when the renovations would be finished.

IT'S HALFWAY into September already - where has the year gone? The Bollman Truss Bridge is the last of its kind in the world. This red, iron railroad bridge was designed to be sturdy , easy to erect and easy to remove. Perhaps that's why ours is the last one. At 9 a.m. tomorrow, a brief ceremony will be held to unveil a plaque designating the bridge as a National Historic Landmark. The event is part of the county's sesquicentennial celebration. The bridge carries the distinction of being the first National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, an honor conferred by the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1966.