Dad

I just bought a little red car, and the other day, at a stoplight, I looked down at my hand on the stick shift, and suddenly I was seven years old, sitting in the back of our little red Ford Escort, and Dad was taking us fishing. My dad had a black mustache. He liked jeans and T-shirts, and he wore them until they fell apart. He kept a handkerchief in his pocket, for his nose, for our noses. He wore a heavy belt buckle he'd gotten from the Outdoor Writers Association of America.

As the television networks announced their fall schedules during this week's upfronts, news was pretty mixed for TV's LGBT characters. The good news first: Former "Will & Grace" star Sean Hayes is returning to NBC with a new sitcom bound to touch on gay issues. In "Sean Saves the World," the openly gay Hayes stars as a divorced gay dad raising a teenage daughter (Sami Isler) with the aid of his overbearing mother (Linda Lavin). Judging by the trailer , the show will tread on conventional multi-camera sitcom ground, especially with that pushy laugh track.

In this week's Lunch for $10 or Less review, John Lindner visits the Southeast Anchor Library in Highlandtown WHAT?? A library?!!? I thought this was a lunch review?! It's true. You could look it up. The 1,164 square-foot cafe sells coffee, specialty drinks, pastries, sandwiches, salads, and food prepared off premises by David and  Dad's and more. How is it?  Here's that review of David and Dad's at the Southeast Anchor Library .

Some dads play peek-a-boo with their kids. Some play catch. Dave Engledow stages photo shoots. Engledow, a Texas native now living in the Maryland suburbs of D.C., is the creative force behind a series of " World's Best Father " photos. The images depict Engledow with his daughter, 2-year-old Alice Bee, in a variety of hilarious - and unlikely - circumstances. In one New Year's-themed shot, Alice Bee and her dad pour champagne into side-by-side towers (Dave pours into champagne coupes; Alice Bee into plastic baby bottles)

You hear a lot about mothers in the kitchen, but for Father's Day, we want to know what dads have been cooking. We're looking for Maryland fathers - and their families - to talk to about a father's place in the kitchen, favorite recipes and memories of time spent cooking with the family. E-mail joseph.burris@baltsun.com with your name, phone number and a brief description of what the father likes to cook. Recipes are welcome. Please put "Dad in the kitchen" in the subject line.

Dad wanted me to tell you this: He does not need any new ties for Father's Day. And stay away from golf balls and socks, too -- he's got more than enough of those, thanks. So, what to get the old man? Well, we have some ideas for a half-dozen gifts that will make Dad smile. And you'll smile too, because when Dad is happy, isn't everyone happy? Give the shirt on his back What: Relaxed-fit sun-washed shirt Why: Dad works hard. He ought to relax. And this soft cotton shirt in colorful solids or stripes is just the thing to make the head honcho sit back and watch the clouds float on by. Where: Available for $39.50 at The Gap or www.gap.

Actor and Maryland native Edward Norton could be ready to take on the role of father. According to US Weekly, Norton's fiancee Shauna Robertson is expecting, due "any day now. " Norton's publicist told Insider Tuesday that she couldn't comment one way or the other about the star's personal life. Robertson is a film producer who has worked on a number of Judd Apatow movies including "Knocked up" and "The 40-Year-Old Virgin. " The couple, along with others, co-founded Crowdrise, a website that helps people raise money for causes.

MY FATHER VISITS every year about this time.Arriving a few weeks before Christmas, he stays until a week or so after the New Year.He's his old self, a meticulous record keeper and list maker, protector and preserver of family traditions.Preparing the house for the holidays, I go upstairs to the hall closet, next to the children's empty bedrooms, and carefully take out the old cardboard box marked ''Lionel Electric Trains, No. 267 W. Streamliner with Remote Control Railroad Whistle.''It's tied with the heavy string he probably used when he first put away the box after Christmas in 1939.

WILMINGTON, Del. — Close your eyes and you can hear the father's voice as the son speaks. Open your eyes and look beneath the son's spikes and you can recall the days when the father left a trail of tobacco juice on the outfield turf at Veterans Stadium. There is no mistaking this is Lenny Dykstra's son, and he's more than happy to admit it. Three years ago, when the Milwaukee Brewers selected Cutter Dykstra in the second round of the baseball draft, it was a feel-good story about the son trying to follow in the father's footsteps.

Poor dad. Father's Day is coming up, and he usually has a pretty good idea of the surprises in store for him. OK, you may have come up with some Orioles tickets or new sports equipment, but on the sartorial side, chances are he's getting some new ties.Just as well, you say, because dad doesn't really know how to pull it together. He wears the same predictable stuff in a nice dad sort of way.We know better. Underneath that fatherly exterior may beat the heart of a fashion plate. He just needs some encouragement.

The new Jackie Robinson movie “42” starring Chadwick Boseman, Nicole Beharie and Harrison Ford is getting mixed reviews for its depiction of the man who broke baseball's color barrier. But at least one local person is incensed that the Warner Bros. film fails to mention the role played by Sam Lacy, the long-time sports editor and columnist of the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper, in Robinson's ascension to the major leagues with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. “I think it's a travesty,”Tim Lacy, Sam Lacy's son, said of his father's exclusion in “42.” “Because if you know the story, [Sam Lacy]

Madeline L. Healey, a homemaker who was an executive secretary to two Maryland first ladies, died of an intestinal blockage April 5 at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson. The former Annapolis resident lived in Cockeysville and was 92. The daughter of Alva and Nannie Duvall, she was born in Baltimore and raised on Poplar Grove Street in Walbrook. A 1939 graduate of Forest Park High School, she met her husband, William H. Healey Jr., when both were teens living in the same neighborhood.

This is cracking me up. A father has started a Tumblr collection of photos of his toddler crying with captions that explain why he's crying. My two favorites so far: "He asked me to put butter on his rice. I put butter on his rice," and "I wouldn't let him drown in this pond. " Check out more here: http://reasonsmysoniscrying.tumblr.com/

Actor and Maryland native Edward Norton could be ready to take on the role of father. According to US Weekly, Norton's fiancee Shauna Robertson is expecting, due "any day now. " Norton's publicist told Insider Tuesday that she couldn't comment one way or the other about the star's personal life. Robertson is a film producer who has worked on a number of Judd Apatow movies including "Knocked up" and "The 40-Year-Old Virgin. " The couple, along with others, co-founded Crowdrise, a website that helps people raise money for causes.

Sitting in a living room in Queens, New York, I like so many others held my breath during the final seconds of Super Bowl XLVII between the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers ("Staying power," Feb. 4). I, too anxiously watched the final kick and simultaneously glanced at the diminishing seconds and the final play, and I sighed with relief as the seated Ravens jumped up and ran onto the field with raised arms. Earlier in the evening, I had yelled at my dad, mostly in jest, when he started rooting for the 49ers - not because he was any kind of die-hard 49ers fan, but because the Ravens were crushing them and my dad pitied the team.

I grew up in a Democratic home. My Dad was always very aware of what was happening in government. We have copies of letters Dad wrote to the politicians of his day and the responses he received. Dad kept a chart on the fridge of all the local, state and national politicians for whom he could cast a ballot. When the specified politician did something Dad agreed with, said politician earned a check. If he or she did something Dad deemed offensive that person earned a zero. When it was time to vote, Dad did his research for every candidate and took his chart to the polls.

MY DAD DIED two weeks ago.He had his first stroke in November 1993. It was followed by others, and the final event was more a liberation than a loss.Except for one thing. I never got to take my dad to a baseball game.Oh, he took me often enough. I well remember the April day in 1954 when the Baltimore Orioles -- formerly the St. Louis Browns -- paraded down Charles Street while sitting on the back decks of convertibles and tossing out plastic balls; My mom threw them away.And I remember a night game, probably that very year, when we watched Ted Williams with his perfect swing plant one in the right-field seats.

Imagine this: You're a single man in your 20s, in Baltimore, with an eighth-grade education and two young children. You've just served three years in jail for a nonviolent crime, such as selling marijuana. While you were in jail - earning no income - your child-support obligations continued to accrue, leaving you $22,000 in arrears upon your release. This number (the average total amount owed by a noncustodial parent who is currently or formerly incarcerated, according to the Family Welfare Research and Training Group at the University of Maryland School of Social Work)

A new 30-second television commercial opposing same-sex marriage makes a claim that children "do best" when reared in a traditional, heterosexual marriage - or, as the ad says, by "their married mom and dad. " What the ad says: The ad is narrated by a woman while images of young married couples and babies flash across the screen. The ad, funded by the Maryland Marriage Alliance, says that the institution of marriage has a long history in society and is "more than what adults want for themselves - it is about the next generation.