Drum

It wasn't the average traffic stop on the Baltimore Beltway Tuesday morning. Maryland state troopers noticed a man playing a drum kit on the shoulder of the Interstate 695 inner loop, between Windsor Mill Road and Security Boulevard, around 10:30 a.m., a spokeswoman said. He told state police he had run out of gas and decided to set up and practice until assistance arrived. A State Highway Administration truck stopped and helped him refill his tank The drummer was not cited and continued on his way, she said.

The steel drum sounds that filled the room at Catonsville High School were so infectious that students playing the instruments couldn't help but dance. Music teacher Jim Wharton, the cavorting leader of the impromptu jam session, was steadily beating a cowbell when he stared out a nearby window and spotted a truck driver looking in while reversing the vehicle. "Come on," Wharton beckoned, motioning the driver to pull over and join the troupe. Even though his calls went unheeded, the 62-year-old child at heart resumed getting his groove on, savoring the Caribbean flavor he helped introduce to Baltimore County schools more than 20 years ago. After teaching music in the county for nearly 40 years, Wharton is retiring.

On December 8, 2004 GAYNELL D., beloved wife of the late Jacob C. "Joe" Drum, devoted mother of Judy Nelson, loving grandmother of Lee and Chris Nelson, dear great grandmother of Zachary Jacob Nelson. Friends may call CONNELLY FUNERAL HOME OF DUNDALK, P.A., 7110 Sollers Point Road on Thursday and Friday 3 to 5 and 7 to 9 P.M. Funeral services will be held on Saturday 10 A.M. Interment Holly Hill Memorial Garden.

It wasn't the average traffic stop on the Baltimore Beltway Tuesday morning. Maryland state troopers noticed a man playing a drum kit on the shoulder of the Interstate 695 inner loop, between Windsor Mill Road and Security Boulevard, around 10:30 a.m., a spokeswoman said. He told state police he had run out of gas and decided to set up and practice until assistance arrived. A State Highway Administration truck stopped and helped him refill his tank The drummer was not cited and continued on his way, she said.

The beat goes on all day Saturday at St. John's United Methodist Church in Charles Village, where the Baltimore International Rhythm and Drumming Society (BIRDS) presents its fourth annual shindig.A parade - bring your own rattle or shaker and join in! - from the "beach" at Johns Hopkins leads off the festival. It's followed by performances on the outdoor stage by Aurora Dance Company; Anansegromma, with music and storytelling from Ghana; and Xaala Mainama, an African cultural arts ensemble.

The Youth Education in the Arts and the Westminster High School marching band sponsored the Music in Motion Drum and Bugle Competition on Thursday night at the school. At top, the sun sets on tuba players of the Jersey Surf, who performed in the opening act of the competition in Westminster. Above, John Moore, a drummer with the Magic of Orlando, Fla., shows his flair and skill as he strikes the gong and bass drum simultaneously during his group's performance. At left, Chelsie Fravel (forefront)

Workers from a hazardous-materials team spent four hours Sunday searching for a leaking drum filled with chemicals that posed an inhalation hazard at a Jessup truck stop.No injuries were reported in the incident, which drew 30 workers from the Howard County Fire and Rescue Services hazardous material team to the Truckers Inn Truckstop in the 7400 block of Assateague Drive.The team received a call about a chemical spill at around 1:30 p.m., said Lt. Ken Byerly, a fire spokesman. When the team arrived, members saw liquid leaking from a trailer in the parking lot.Inside the trailer, they found 108 drums filled with fluorboric acid and stannous fluorborate acid -- corrosives that pose inhalation hazards, Lieutenant Byerly said.

Nelson Neuman, who owned a metal drum company, died of heart failure Sunday at Levindale Hebrew Geriatric Center & Hospital. The Pikesville resident was 86. Born in Baltimore and raised on East Fayette Street, Mr. Neuman was a 1935 graduate of Polytechnic Institute. As a young man, he was an engineering technician at Aberdeen Proving Ground, checking on the rifling and performance of 14-inch and 16-inch naval guns. Mr. Nelson founded the Abbey Drum Co. in 1948. Family members said his containers were used to ship products as diverse as orange juice and motor oil. In 1995, he supervised the relocation of his business from Curtis Bay to an Empowerment Zone in Fairfield in the former Victory Elementary School, where the children of Liberty ship workers were educated during World War II. "My father regularly hired people who had just been released from jail," said son Ian H. Neuman of Baltimore.

Students crowd around music teacher Nellie Hill and hold out their hands, telling her that their fingers still are vibrating after spending 45 minutes pounding on drums. That's one of the sensations students experience as part of Lime Kiln Middle School's World Music Drumming group. "I feel more like I'm playing when I'm using my hands, not sticks," said eighth-grader Paul Del Riego, who is participating in the group for the first time. "I feel like I'm more in the music. The sound that it makes is just really cool."

Kevin Campbell beat on the wooden drum, called out, and listened for a response.The reply was tepid. "Ye bally o."He stopped.A musician opens his spirit, he told the audience. "The last thing you would ever do is not respond to the call."In a few minutes, the seven children sitting in a circle at the Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts, were responding enthusiastically."A la wa kinte bally o," they concluded triumphantly."That's great," Mr. Campbell told them. "You've just learned your first African song."

With primary battles settled, the conventions over and the general election less than two months away, Democrats and Republicans now turn to the end game: reaching out to persuade the few remaining undecided voters that their nominee is the one to solve the nation's problems. For campaign volunteers in deep-blue Maryland, that often means traveling elsewhere. With the state expected to give its 10 electoral votes in November to President Barack Obama — Maryland has backed the Democrat in each of the past five presidential elections, and went for Obama by a 25-point margin in 2008 — activists from both parties are fanning out to Pennsylvania, Virginia and battlegrounds beyond.

As the giant silver bell of a bugle reflected City Dock, the man who suggested The World Championships of Drum Corps move to Annapolis considered the impact beyond an estimated $10 million and 13,000 visitors. "How big a deal is it? It's important enough to bring a corps back from the grave," said Jeff Weir, director of the Naval Academy's Drum & Bugle Corps. "If the World Championships are in your backyard," Weir said, "Well, it's almost like having the Super Bowl in Baltimore.

The drumbeat for war only helps Iran by driving up oil prices, undermining the effect of sanctions on its economy and stifling domestic opponents of the regime. President Barack Obama conveyed that message clearly and emphatically to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee over the weekend. He repeated it to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when the two met at the White House on Monday. And he aimed it at his prospective Republican rivals Tuesday when he reminded them of what happened the last time we let the politics of warmongering get ahead of diplomacy.

With 600 students, including a significant percentage of immigrants, music teacher Diane Schaming wanted to try something new to interest the children in the music of different cultures. So last summer she went to Africa and brought back music to Baltimore County's Shady Spring Elementary School that now vibrates through every molecule of her classroom trailer. Her fourth-grade students beat on drums, shake axatses or rattles, and hit cowbells and a double bell called a gankogin.

Fall menus are arriving. Bluegrass Tavern executive chef Ray Kumm rolled out his fall menu on Sept. 9. Debuting at Bluegrass -- elk tartare, with violet mustard dressing, marinated corn and fried quail egg. Foie gras is back, with crispy pork belly, nectarines and cherry bourbon pudding. Cockles are on the light fare menu, steamed with four kinds of onions. Rabbit is on the menu, and butter poached sturgeon, but what caught my eye was this entree. Pan seared red drum -- tasso ham tortelli, cockles, chayote, tomato broth.

Fifty trips to New York to honor some of the 343 firefighters who died in the aftermath of 9/11 helped ignite an idea in the mind of Howard County Assistant Fire Chief J. Mark Richards, resulting in a mission he is carrying out today. Standing at attention several dozen different times while listening to bagpipers play as pallbearers carried the caskets of those New York firefighters, he knew what he wanted to do: Help form a pipe band back in Maryland. Richards made those trips a decade ago with other county firefighters during off-duty hours to Staten Island and Manhattan to attend funeral and memorial services held in the vicinity of the World Trade Center's twin towers.

A worker at a city laboratory was injured yesterday morning when a pressurized 55-gallon drum containing smallpox vaccine ruptured, and its lid struck him in the head, fire officials said. The worker, whose name was not released, was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center for treatment. Authorities said no smallpox vaccine escaped during the incident. Even if it had, experts said, it would not have posed a health threat. Fire officials said the worker attempted to open the drum about 9 a.m. at Chesapeake Biological Laboratories Inc. at 1111 S. Paca St. Due to built-up pressure inside the drum, the lid popped off and hit him in the head, officials said.

Go ahead and bang a drum, hang from the curtains and spin that hula hoop. Area gym instructors say it's good for you, even if you don't realize it. The unconventional workouts are part of a movement to keep the masses focused on their fitness by disguising exercise as playtime, like spinach in brownies. And while more conventional spin, yoga and Latin dance-inspired Zumba aerobics classes remain gym staples, the quirky and even slightly juvenile additions have been attracting regulars.

For all the Orioles fans who have been pining for Davey Johnson since he walked away from their last playoff team, the prospect of him taking over the surging Washington Nationals will probably evoke some mixed emotions. The mere mention of Johnson's name has been an emotional lightning rod in Baltimore throughout the Orioles' 13½ years in the wilderness, and now - according to most media accounts - he is about to move into the dugout next door. If you're looking for a strange baseball dynamic, you don't have to look much further than Davey returning to manage the other team on the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network after Jim Riggleman told the Nats to take that job and shove it. Of course, everything about this situation is strange.