Costa Rica

With the release of Ron Howard's movie "Apollo 13," our memories have been jogged back 20 years, and we recall a more idealistic and "can do" spirit of recent American history.A few days ago, I walked down a personal memory lane with Wilbur and Sandy Wright of Jasontown Road. The Wrights have a long history of pursuing their ideals with a "can do" spirit, starting with a stint in the Peace Corps in 1966.The Wrights were recent college graduates when a Peace Corps poster in a school cafeteria advertising "The Hardest Job You'll Ever Love" captured Mrs. Wright's imagination, and a Peace Corps recruiter persuaded Mr. Wright that the corps was the place for him.The couple wanted to do something positive with their lives; they married, and became the second and third Peace Corps volunteers from Carroll County.

Men's soccer U.S. could play in Gold Cup here M&T Bank Stadium will host CONCACAF Gold Cup quarterfinals July 21 at 4 p.m. and 7 p.m., and one of them could include the United States. The U.S. team will play Belize, Costa Rica and Cuba in the group stage, the Confederation of North, Central America and the Caribbean Association Football announced Wednesday. If it finishes first or second, the U.S. would play in the doubleheader here. The other quarterfinals are set for Atlanta.

LATE ONE AFTERNOON in July 1987, the front door to our house in San Jose, Costa Rica, suddenly burst open. A half-dozen local narcotics agents, wearing blue jeans and gold chains, charged in, dragging in tow our hysterical secretary, Carmen Araya.The agents ransacked file drawers in our ground-floor office and then tore through the rest of the house, looking for drugs. They found none. No matter, they said, they already had the "smoking gun." They produced a brown paper package addressed to us, with a return address from the Interior Ministry in Nicaragua.

Tara Beth Downing of West Chester, Pa., and Stephen Sams of Bel Air, were united in marriage on March 3 at the Mendenhall Inn with the Rev. John V. Carlson officiating. The bride is the daughter of John and Linda Downing of West Chester. The bridegroom is the son of Doss and Marilyn Sams of Street. A reception hosted by the bride's parents was held at the Mendenhall Inn in Chadd's Ford, Pa. After a honeymoon trip to Costa Rica, the couple resides in Bel Air.

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica -- In an unusual and controversial move, the United States has been using its economic muscle to pressure this tiny Central American democracy into settling several land disputes. The likely beneficiaries include some U.S. businessmen whose property here figured in the Iran-contra affair.State Department officials denied that the U.S. government's primary motive was to reward the owners of land that was used for a secret military airstrip. Some of the condemnation disputes go back to the 1970s, and U.S. officials contend they would never be settled without some pressure on the Costa Ricans.

HAVANA -- Indianapolis in 1987 belonged to Sylvia Poll. She was this 17-year-old who came from nowhere and everywhere to win eight swimming medals at the Pan American Games.She looked like a basketball player and swam like a submarine out on maneuvers. And she had this exotic life story to tell, of bumping around Latin American with her German-born parents.The story and the swimmer are a little older, yet no less enchanting. Poll is now 21 and even more self-assured. But to be honest, these Pan Am Games are merely a training exercise for her.Last night, she appeared in her first and only race at the sweltering pool complex, taking the women's 100-meter backstroke gold medal in 1 minute, 3.15 seconds.

We're looking for a cruise that includes Costa Rica, which I'm told is a good way to see that country. Any suggestions?Wind Song is the only ship of a major passenger line (Windstar Cruises) that offers Costa Rica on a regular basis. But this ship is a goody, a small, 148-passenger schooner whose six sails are computer-operated and deploy at the touch of a button. An auxiliary motor kicks in if the wind dies.It operates one-week cruises that call at several ports on Costa Rica's Pacific Coast during the winter season.

OSCAR ARIAS SANCHEZ is an uncommon man from an uncommon country.The country is Costa Rica, a small republic of 2.5 million people in Central America whose many admirers tend to overload it with lavish compliments. They call it "the Switzerland of Latin America" or "the Denmark of the Isthmus of Panama." They make other benign comparisons.These parallels hold, but not for long. Costa Rica is small, like those two European countries. It is also passionately democratic, and manifestly independent and individualistic, as they are. All three have been progressive welfare states for a long time.

Ticos top the World Cup qualifying menu for the U.S. national men's soccer team tomorrow afternoon in Portland, Ore., for a game that was sold out three months ago.But will the Ticos, as Costa Rica's team is known, be hot and spicy, or, as in their past two games, cold and flavorless?For the U.S. team, inching through five regional qualifying games toward next summer's World Cup finals in France, here are a couple of other questions:Will home cooking perk up a club that sometimes seems soft in confidence?

Federal officials are investigating whether hundreds of thousands of unreported dollars have been siphoned from two prominent Annapolis restaurants and the Maryland Wine Festival and funneled into real estate investments in Costa Rica, say sources familiar with the investigation.Internal Revenue Service agents are looking at records of daily food and beverage sales at Middleton Tavern and O'Brien's Oyster Bar and Restaurant -- both owned by Annapolis businessman Jerome Hardesty -- say the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Chesapeake Math and IT Academy Public Charter School , located at 6100 Frost Place, in West Laurel, will hold a silent auction on Nov. 12, from 1 to 4 p.m., at the school. Items up for bid include 15 themed baskets, hotel stays, one week at a villa in Costa Rica, gift certificates and electronics. Light refreshments will also be served. Proceeds from the event will go to the purchase of a large oven for the cafeteria to warm up food, which range from $9,000 to $12,000, and for the purchase of a school bus, which can cost between $10,000 to $50,000.

Shelley B. Meyer, who had been the friendly and welcoming receptionist at St. Paul's School in Brooklandville, died Friday from a stroke at Gilchrist Hospice Care. The Reisterstown resident was 40. Shelley Boggess, the daughter of a pediatrician and a homemaker, was born in Durham, N.C., and raised in Roanoke, Va. She was a 1988 graduate of St. Margaret's School in Tappahannock, Va., and earned a bachelor's degree in art history in 1992 from Salem College. Mrs. Meyer moved to New York City in 1994 where she was a receptionist at Julius Lowy, an antique frame dealer and restorer.

Nancy R. Baskerville, a retired city payroll manager who enjoyed African drumming, died Monday of cancer at Northwest Hospital Center. She was 61. Nancy Ross was born in Baltimore and raised on North Monroe Street. She was a 1965 graduate of Edmondson High School and earned a degree in psychology from Morgan State University in 1990. Mrs. Baskerville went to work for the city's Central Payroll Department as a file clerk in 1967 and rose to be payroll manger. She retired in 2007. The former Northwest Baltimore resident who had lived in Woodlawn since 1990, was an accomplished African drummer and for the past seven years regularly performed with Bumbada, a local group of female drummers.

Soccer Costa Rica beats U.S., 3-1, in World Cup qualifier Alvaro Saborio scored 79 seconds in, the second-fastest goal against the United States in a World Cup qualifier, and host Costa Rica coasted to a 3-1 victory Wednesday night in San Jose. Celso Borges added a goal in the 13th minute, and Pablo Herrera sealed the victory for 41st-ranked Costa Rica when he made it 3-0 in the 69th. Landon Donovan scored the U.S. goal when he converted a penalty kick in the second minute of second-half stoppage time.

"Celebrity: The state or condition of being celebrated; fame; renown." "Notoriety: The quality or condition of being notorious; the state of being generally or publicly known - commonly used in an unfavorable sense." - Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary I define the words because, apparently, some of us don't understand the difference. By which I mean the National Broadcasting Company, which recently sought to hire former Illinois Gov. Milorad "Rod" Blagojevich to appear on its "reality" game show I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here!

As we drove up, down and around Costa Rica's twisty mountain roads, edging bicyclists and pedestrians on the path to the small town of La Fortuna, I realized the sun was going to set much sooner than I had thought. After a full day of travel, we were still miles from our destination. Driving unfamiliar terrain in a foreign country that seems to eschew street signs had put us behind in our goal of reaching our lodging near the base of an active volcano before nightfall.

Last month, Alexander Frank Skutch, the noted Baltimore born and raised ornithologist, died eight days short of his 100th birthday at Finca Los Cusingos, his 178-acre home in the tropical rain forest of Costa Rica, where he had happily spent the last 63 years observing and writing about the avian life that swooped, swirled and nested around him. An obituary in the Los Angeles Times said his legacy in the field of ornithology was only "paralleled by...

Fourteen more teams qualified for next year's World Cup, with England, Italy and the Netherlands leading the way in Europe. Three other European teams also made it yesterday - Portugal, Croatia and Poland - while Ukraine and host Germany had already advanced. All five African spots were also filled, with Togo, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Angola qualifying for the first time. Tunisia claimed the final spot from the region. Also, Paraguay and Ecuador joined already-qualified Brazil and Argentina from South America, while host Costa Rica beat the United States, 3-0, to earn the third berth out of CONCACAF.

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica -- Pity the poor Costa Rican postman. Sure, he doesn't have to deal with sleet or snow. But consider what passes for an address here: From the Tibas cemetery, 200 meters south, 300 meters west, cross the train tracks, white two-story house. That's actually an easy one. Making his rounds on the outskirts of this capital city one recent morning, carrier Roberto Montero Reyes pulled from his canvas sack envelopes whose addresses read like treasure-hunt clues or lines of haiku.

My daughter and I are interested in a volunteer vacation to Mexico or Central America for less than $2,000 a week. Any suggestions? Here are some projects that might fit your budget: Global Volunteers (globalvolunteers.org) has work and tutoring programs around the world. You might be asked to teach English to adult students in any of several cities in Mexico, for instance, starting at $1,795 a week. A cheaper U.S. option: You could help paint or repair homes or mentor preschool students in the Mississippi Delta.