Echo

Summer's almost over, your money's almost gone, and yet it feels like there's still so much left undone. What's a person to do? We can't help you with the money part. And much as we'd like to, there's no way to expand the calendar. But we can point out what you may not realize: There's plenty to do in and around Charm City in the waning days of summer, even with nary a penny in your pocket. Herewith, an itinerary for the thrifty, offering 50 no-cost activities to keep body and soul engaged over the next month or so. There's a lot to do, so get busy.

When you take a step back and think about it, this football season has been one of the most bizarre in Derrick Mason's 13-year career. Watching it has been like watching someone fling a yo-yo while hopped up on caffeine. It began in July, when Mason announced, out of the blue, that he was "retiring." Even though he swore he was sincere, no one believed it. People speculated it was either a contract ploy or had something to do with good friend Steve McNair's death in the off-season.

So, an elderly man, well-known in his community, heads a charitable organization to serve young boys. Through that organization, he picks out certain boys to serve his sexual interests. His modus operandi is to give special attention to the boys he has chosen, get them alone and contrive a way to get them in a shower. A few people know of his disgraceful activities but don't have the moral backbone to speak up. Sounds exactly like a certain local judge and the Lancers boys club here in Baltimore about a decade ago. In that case, apparently, the elderly man satisfied himself just looking at the naked little boys.

Summertime, and the living is easy - and it's generously colored: bright, like a Gerbera daisy; pastel, like sorbets; or shaded in hues as cool as a lake or pool.Summer entertaining - indoors or out - is less formal than in years past. Still, the season inspires us to create romantic moods with picnic-like spreads that evoke images of Tuscany or Provence. Some floral and fruit themes are so luscious that you won't be able to resist using them year-round.This year, there's a bumper crop of new designs, many of them on melamine, a rugged plastic hybrid.

Maryland's leading jockey, Edgar Prado, is expected to pick up his third Breeders' Cup mount next week, on Harry and Tom Meyerhoff's 2-year-old colt, Western Echo, in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile at Louisville's Churchill Downs on Nov. 5.Prado rode in two Breeders' Cup races in 1992 at Gulfstream Park. Although he finished off the board in the Classic with Jolie's Halo and in the Juvenile Fillies with Booly, he won a $100,000 stakes on the undercard aboard the John Salzman-trained Departing Cloud.

Maryland's leading jockey, Edgar Prado, is expected to pick up his third Breeders' Cup mount next week, on Harry and Tom Meyerhoff's 2-year-old colt, Western Echo, in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile at Louisville's Churchill Downs on Nov. 5.Prado rode in two Breeders' Cup races in 1992 at Gulfstream Park. Although he finished off the board in the Classic with Jolie's Halo and in the Juvenile Fillies with Booly, he won a $100,000 stakes on the undercard aboard the John Salzman-trained Departing Cloud.

In the last months of World War II, Lt. Theodore Q. Balides navigated a squadron of American bombers over a city he believed was Freiburg, Germany. The planes dropped 24 tons of explosives, killing five people and destroying a cluster of homes.But the town was not Freiburg, and it was not in Nazi Germany. The Americans, 50 miles from their presumed target, had bombed Zurich in neutral Switzerland.An errant bombing was far from unusual during World War II. But what then happened to Lieutenant Balides and his pilot, Lt. William Sincock, may have been unprecedented.

WASHINGTON - For all the historians' and politicians' insistence that Iraq is not Vietnam, the same dynamic that eventually stirred a sluggish American public to question the U.S. presence in Southeast Asia may now be emerging regarding Iraq. The political price President Bush is finally paying for his Iraq adventure is seen in the latest Gallup Poll. His approval rating has fallen to 46 percent, his lowest standing in that survey since becoming president, with a majority, 51 percent, disapproving for the first time.

And, just like that, Doug Duncan supporters -- or at least all open-minded voters who were willing to consider Duncan for governor instead of just giving his younger, prettier Democratic primary opponent a free pass -- are supposed to forget everything he had to say and slap a Martin O'Malley bumper sticker over their Duncan one. Is that it? I know: That's politics. But, in this case, easier deigned than done. Those who had their eye on Duncan, and who considered him a man of substance and accomplishment, are supposed to -- what?

Oddsmakers didn't give the black candidate much of a chance. Yet in a three-way race, the black Chicago lawmaker scored a historic victory. With eloquent oratory, charm and determination, he grabbed the spotlight and the Democratic nomination from the female front-runner in a three-way race. No, I'm not talking about Sen. Barack Obama's victory in the Iowa caucuses last week. I'm referring to Harold S. Washington's 1983 primary victory on his way to becoming Chicago's first black mayor.