Beeper

The former manager of a financially troubled Columbia telecommunications company is suing the firm for $10 million, claiming it maliciously charged him with taking equipment and records.Jeffrey Cunningham of Finksburg filed the suit against American Beeper Associates on Oct. 30 in Howard County Circuit Court.Also named in the suit are four officers of the firm, which does business as Page Plus Corp., and the company's general partner, Pager Communication Corp. of Crofton.American Beeper, which is owned by U.S. Rep. Tom McMillen and 27 others, and Pager Communication filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy papers Sept.

A first-grade teacher in East Baltimore catches a 6-year-old child with an electronic beeper. What's a 6-year-old doing with a beeper? The kid's live-in uncle is a drug trafficker. The beeper's his way of avoiding the cops. Nobody's sure if the 6-year-old took the beeper as a toy or if he's been employed as a sort of unwitting narcotics middleman.A second-grade teacher in West Baltimore discovers an amazing fact about her students' parents. They're under 25. Almost all of them, she says, had their babies while still in their middle teens and dropped out of school.

How many times now have we seen two television characters interrupted in the throes of passion by one or both of their beepers going off? Think it's happened enough that we can safely call it a cliche for illustrating tension between personal and professional lives?The shopworn beeper scene is right there smack dab in the middle of "Almost Perfect," a new CBS sitcom about two young professionals, which premieres at 8:30 tomorrow night (WJZ, Channel 13). But I found myself smiling anyway at a small, original punch line delivered between the beeps.

At the Countryside Mall in Clearwater, Fla., parents cruise the stores as their children nap or play games at the Jabbawokki child-care center. What happens if one child bites another, complains of a stomach ache or begins to sob inconsolably?Scott Kaufman, who heads the center (yes, its name differs from the "Jabberwocky" of Lewis Carroll), can instantly dial the number of the hand-held pager that the parents are given as part of the child-care service. Hearing the beep, mom or dad knows to scurry back.

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL news that touches the most sensitive nerve these days has nothing to do with instruction. It has to do with rules about Advil, penknives and childish kisses.Every week, it seems, a different child becomes a celebrity because he or she unwittingly stepped into the "zero-tolerance" disciplinary trap. The story is always the same: a nice kid gets punished who either forgot about, didn't understand or ignored a rule against weapons, drugs or inappropriate behavior.Locally, we've had The Pepper Spray Girl (Dundalk High)

Maybe it was the graphic-novel clarity of the images, the perfect geometry of the World Trade Center towers against the flat blue sky, the orange fireballs that blossomed from the puncture wounds. Or perhaps it was the cascading of horrors, a plane striking the seemingly impenetrable Pentagon, another one falling out of the sky into a Pennsylvania field. Even as it unfolded in real time, 9/11 felt mythic. It had the feeling of an era-divider, a Berlin Wall, a where-were-you moment, separating everything pre- from everything post-.

One of America's last two church bell makers wears high-top Reeboks,earrings and a beeper. And he worries about the future of the American church bell industry.In acid-washed jeans and gelled hair, William R. Parker III works with his father, William R. Parker Jr., at adying craft in a dusty foundry that is the McShane Bell Foundry Company Inc. in Glen Burnie. They are the only church bell makers left inthe United States."I don't know if there's going to be much demand for this in a couple of years," said Bill, the 22-year-old.

Parents use them like "electronic leashes" to keep tabs on their children and rein them in.Corporate executives rely on them to escape interminable meetings. Some farmers are even using them to call their cows.In this impulsive, seconds-count, can't-wait world, there's a beeper for nearly every cause, as more and more people opt to be on call virtually all the time.According to surveys by the Personal Communications Industry Association, the number of beeper users has been growing by more than 20 percent per year for the past five years.

Members of an East Baltimore citizen patrol group got some weapons yesterday to fight crime in their community -- a portable cellular telephone and a pager.The equipment will allow Citizen Action Now-Drugs Out (CanDo), which patrols the South Clifton Park neighborhood, to call police in emergencies and when suspicious activity is observed. Residents at home who observe suspicious activity will be able to call the patrol."We now have a lifeline. We really needed this," said Officer Deborah Ramsey, a member of the Eastern District community policing unit who coordinates the evening patrols.

Forget the pesky dinner bell and the blaring loudspeaker. More and more restaurants are discovering a new way to summon diners to the table: beepers.One of the newest eateries to go techno-friendly is Tomato Palace, 10221 Wincopin Circle, in Columbia.Since opening several months ago, the family-style Italian spot has given pagers to patrons who face a wait of 10 minutes or more. As long as the hungry masses stay within a half-mile radius, they get beeped when their table is ready."This seems more convenient for guests than if we yelled, 'Jones, party of two,' " says James Brown, a manager at Tomato Palace.