Dream

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- For all that inflation has affected, one price has remained unchanged: the cost of dreaming."You can still do that for free," John Chaney was reminded."

There's a lot more wisdom and knowledge behind the eyes of teenagers than most people give them credit for, a fact that Jim Morris is doubly aware of. Years ago, when he was a teenager, someone who should have known better wrote Morris off as, shall we say, less than bright, with a limited future. And years later, a group of teenagers prodded Morris to give big league baseball another try after 10 years away. So, it should come as no surprise that Morris, the subject of the 2002 film The Rookie, and the featured guest speaker at tomorrow night's McCormick's Unsung Heroes Banquet at the Hunt Valley Inn, is a big believer in listening to what kids have to say. "As far as kids around the country, kids want to know that you respect them for who they are," Morris said recently in a phone interview.

Here is the classic American dream: Work hard, raise a family, and then find the resources to retire young and enjoy it.Thanks to a booming economy and record stock market gains, a growing number of men and women have elected to drop out of the Rat Race in favor of the Good Life.But the trend begs some questions: What is it like to retire in your 40s or 50s? How does that affect family relationships? How do you cope with an unstructured life? Is retirement as much fun as the dream?If you are a recent young retiree and would like to share your experience for a newspaper article, please call Sundial at 410-783-1800 and enter code 6150 and leave a message.

The Rev. Benjamin L. Hooks, a senior statesman of the civil rights movement who worked in concert with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. during King's last days in 1968, told a dinner assembly honoring King last night that "they killed the dreamer but not the dream" of racial equality. In advance of the King holiday Monday, Hooks, executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People from 1977 to 1993, told the crowd of about 1,000 in Glen Burnie that he was disappointed that the day seemed to have lost some meaning, and the movement as a whole a measure of urgency.

After a two-season hiatus, the Maryland Stage Company - the professional company in residence at the University of Maryland Baltimore County - is back performing for its home audience. Director Xerxes Mehta's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare's comedy about the amorous adventures of humans and fairies, begins performances at Center Stage's Pearlstone Theater Tuesday. The cast is headed by Wendy Salkind in the double roles of Hippolyta and Titania, Scott Sedar as Oberon and Theseus, Bill Largess as Egeus and Peter Quince, and Dan Manning as Bottom.

Who says dreams can't come true?At Georgia Tech, they already have. The Yellow Jackets finished 11-0-1 last season and won a share of the mythical national championship.Just as All-America safety Ken Swilling dreamed they would.When Swilling told reporters about his dream last summer, most of them laughed. Georgia Tech never had won a national championship. Five times in the '80s, the Yellow Jackets couldn't even top three wins. But Swilling clung to his vision."I got a lot of grief for that," Swilling said during a break in preparations for last night's game with Penn State in the Kickoff Classic at Giants Stadium.

"History," writes William T. Vollmann, "is nothing more than a long list of regrettable actions."In 1990, Mr. Vollmann, then 31, embarked on a series of seven novels, which bear the collective title, "Seven Dreams: A Book of North American Landscapes." These books will be a survey of the "regrettable actions" that resulted from the first encounters between various Indian populations and those who came to explore, colonize and "bring them into the present."The first dream, "The Ice Shirt," centers on the encounter between the Norse and the natives of Greenland in the 10th century; the second dream, "Fathers and Crows," is about the clash between the Black Robes and the Huron in Canada 400 years ago. And now, skipping ahead, is the sixth dream, "The Rifles," which is mostly about the Inuit of the Arctic Circle.

WASHINGTON -- For six weeks, it was enough that the Washington Redskins were either very good or very lucky, or a combination of both.Yesterday, though, their unbeaten season took on a different glow. Not the Redskins are living out their fantasies.When they pummeled the Cleveland Browns, 42-17, at RFK Stadium, the season turned dream-like for All-Pro receiver Art Monk, for cagey coach Joe Gibbs and for raw rookie Ricky Ervins.For Monk, a diving, 14-yard touchdown catch made him the NFL's No. 2 all-time receiver behind Steve Largent, a milestone that apparently left the 12-year veteran speechless since he departed the locker room before reporters could enter.

MANY PEOPLE dream by the beach during the summer, but few run with those musings months later. That's what Westminster resident Melissa Shaffer did when she opened the Pottery Loft on Main Street. On Nov. 15, with hot cider and shortbread, and soothing music playing, Shaffer opened what she and others describe as a "stress-free place to have fun and explore your creativity." The Pottery Loft provides more than 100 pieces of unfinished pottery for customers to paint, sponge or stencil at their whim.

Two years ago, Anita Dunham and Grace Blackstone were single mothers with a dream that looked like it had come true.That dream -- helping their community by creating jobs -- had taken shape when their fledgling black-owned company, A & G Cleaning, won a contract to pick up trash after Orioles games at Camden Yards.The deal gave them a six-figure working budget, and the company employed at various times as many as 300 people during the course of the 1992 baseball season -- most of them desperately in need of employment.