Bucky

THE HAMPSTEAD landmark known as Bob's Variety reawakened Saturday, the storefront windows alive with antiques and unique old items. Father and son co-owners Bucky and Ryan Harmon have named their new store Hampstead Movie House Mall, harking to its original heyday, more than 30 years ago, as the town movie theater. Ten of the mall's expected 14 antiques dealers have set up their wares: furniture, children's books, porcelain figurines, antique kitchen items, blue willow and delftware, and assorted intriguing bric-a-brac.

Brian Robinson throws his skateboard over the four-foot-high metal fence behind his Bero Street house in Lansdowne. His hands now free, the 10-year-old, clad in a sleeveless, black T-shirt with the likeness of pro wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin on the front, jean shorts and black sandals, climbs over the fence and lands softly in the grass on the other side. Brian, like most of the 16 other boys at the Lansdowne skate park, knows about Bucky Lasek, the best skateboarder to come out of Baltimore -- and one of the best in the world.

If you're into dramatic rescues, George Sullivan's "Trapped" ($4, Scholastic) is for you. It tells the true stories of people who have been trapped in caves, elevators, abandoned wells, mines, on mountains, submarines and planes. The author digs up some juicy tidbits linked to headline-making rescues.In one chapter, Sullivan recounts a class-trip nightmare: During the World Trade Center bombing, 72 kindergartners and their teachers got caught in an elevator. What was supposed to be a 90-second ride turned into a five-hour ordeal.

The elusive 'Bucky'IT'S the cutest freeloader in Pasadena, and doesn't even have a cardboard sign.Well, maybe "cute" is pushing it a little, describing the scrawny squirrel with the swollen jaw that's been panhandling in recent weeks outside the Southdale Starbucks Coffee shop.Manager Nancy Boswell says they call it "Bucky," and that the creature has eluded attempts to capture and send it off for dental work and nutritional therapy. It's stepped into a little cage trap -- and stepped out before anyone could shut the hatch and pack it away to an animal rehab center.

Maybe Bucky Lasek should thank whoever stole his bike 12 years ago. If not for the theft, Lasek wouldn't have gotten a different set of wheels -- a skateboard -- for Christmas.And then he never would have ridden those wheels around the world.His skateboard will take him to San Diego this weekend for the third X Games, but it all started when at the age of 12, Lasek began using his Christmas present in Baltimore.He learned a trick here, another there. He hit the street. He hit the ramp. He hit the air, and he never came down.

ATLANTA -- Bucky Gunts probably has the best view of these Olympics.As coordinating director of NBC's Olympic coverage, though, his is an all-seeing but entirely remote vantage point, coming from a windowless warren of temporary studios and offices in a downtown convention center here that serves as the network's base of Olympic operations.Gunts, a Baltimore native, is used to seeing the games on screen rather than in person -- which, if you think about it, is how most of us experience the spectacle.

A roundup of new products and servicesHugs for tiny headsBilled as "the hug that keeps on hugging," the Baby Bucky pillow prevents babies' and toddlers' heads from flopping while the child is sitting in a car seat, stroller, airplane or train seat. The horseshoe-shaped pillow is filled with buckwheat hulls, a popular pillow filling in Japan but relatively unknown in the United States. The Baby Bucky comes in blue, pink and jade and is available for $21 at Passenger Stop -- Your Travel Store in Towson, (410)

Dear Ann Landers:I am dating a terrific man. So what's the problem? "Bob" won't tell me anything about himself, even his last name. I don't know where he lives or works.Every night, we meet at my apartment, where I fix him dinner and we have sex. Then he goes home. When he calls me, he's always whispering. Sometimes you hear children playing in the background.Then there's this: He wears a small gold band on his left ring finger. He says the ring was given to him by a fraternal order. When I ask him the name of the organization, he says he "can't remember."

You don't hear much about the Bucky Lees of the world. But they're out there.Mr. Lee volunteers as a coach and mentor to youngsters. For 25 years, he has coached basketball teams and organized leagues at recreation centers, including Oliver in East Baltimore, where this day he orchestrates drills for boys 11 and 12 years old."The goals here are very simple," Mr. Lee says, "to be a child first, a student second, and an athlete third."He is 49, tall and lean, and his long, distinguished face resembles that of Julius Erving, or Dr. J., the retired basketball star.

They were so pitiful, they were even difficult to despise.The New York Yankees, the most storied franchise in sports, sank into near-oblivion last season, and the most devout of Yankee-haters had to feel a little sorry for them.Matters turned so bad at Yankee Stadium last season, the front office did something drastic: It turned to a youth movement.The Yankees called up 13 players from the Class AAA Columbus Clippers and finally discarded the wild-spending, patchwork-trade approach that had long ceased being successful.