Ernie

On May 2, 2006, Retired Lt. ERNIE DAVID MEADOWS; Baltimoe City Police Department; beloved son of the late Evelyn and David Meadows; devoted brother of Beverly A. Brider and her husband Edwin, III; loving uncle of Kelly M. Blosser, Christian M. and Kyle D. Rider; dear great-uncle of Ryan and Katlyn Blosser. Friends may call at the family owned David J. Weber Funeral Homes, P.A., 401 S. Chester St., on friday from 3 to 5 and 7 to 9 P.M. Serives will be held at the Funeral HOme on Saturday, 11 A.M. Intemrnet following in Cedar Hill Cemetery.

On January 27, 2008, EDRA devoted partner of Elizabeth Phillips. She leaves to mourn one sister, Leilah Duncan; three brothers, and a host of other relatives and friends. Family will receive friends 6 to 8 P.M., on Thursday. Services 7 P.M. Interment private. Arrangements by Chavis Funeral Home, 2007 Eastern Avenue.

Entrants touting names like "Big Daddy," "Congo" and "Air Jordan" from Monkton to Glen Burnie rallied at Broadway Market Square in Fells Point yesterday for the 25th annual Maryland Preakness Celebration Frog Hop.But it was an amphibian named "Ernie" that leaped to first place among a field of 39 frogs.The prized possession of 15-year-old Tim Thate of Parkville, Ernie jumped 9 feet, 1 inch, outdistancing his nearest contender by only two inches. As the Frog Hop winner, Ernie will fly on to Calaveras County, Calif.

On November 30, 2003, MARY JANE, beloved daughter of the late Alice A. andCyril V., Erni, Sr.; dear sister of Cyril V. Erni, Jr.; and cousin of Paul Gross and the Meyers, Burgins, and Gough families. Relatives and friends may gather at MILLER-DIPPEL FUNERAL HOME INC., 6415 Belair Road, on Tuesday, 5 to 9 p.m. Funeral service will be held on Wednesday at 9 a.m. Interment Baltimore National Cemetery.

Ernestine R. "Ernie" Uncles, who as social services liaison for the mayor's office worked tirelessly for more than 40 years helping to improve the lives of the forgotten, homeless and impoverished, died Saturday of cancer at her Bolton Hill home. She was 69. "She was a legend in Baltimore. When anyone had been evicted, had no food, was in poverty or had some other emergency, you called Ernestine," Tom Saunders, who retired from the Baltimore Community Relations Commission, said Thursday.

In NFL circles, Marvin Demoff is the power broker you never see and only occasionally hear about, often after the fact, like some sort of twister that levels the local trailer park.Oh, you mean he was the attorney who backed Bob Irsay into a dark corner in 1983 and forced the Baltimore Colts' infamous trade of No. 1 draft pick John Elway to the Denver Broncos?Yes, he is that attorney -- a man so esteemed in those NFL circles he sometimes is referred to as the "Monsignor"; a man so trustworthy it is said he is a confidant of Al Davis, the inscrutable owner of the Oakland Raiders; a man so powerful he is the contractual voice for Dan Marino and Jeff Hostetler, Rick Mirer and Jim Everett, Rod Woodson and Leslie O'Neal, to name a few of the league's elite.

BERT, ERNIE'S roommate on "Sesame Street," is not dead. He isn't even ill.Bert is healthy and he is going to stay healthy. Got that?Because after you are done reading this, all you are likely to remember is that you read in the newspaper something about Bert dying, and that's what you will say to a friend, and the kids will overhear you and go to school and tell their friends that "Sesame Street" is going to kill off Bert, and, hang on, because we will...

NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C. -- Nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains is the track where it all began for NASCAR and Winston Cup stock car racing.Here, behind the red clapboard walls that make up the old-fashioned face of North Wilkesboro Speedway is the oldest track on the NASCAR circuit.Tomorrow, at age 50, the .625-mile track will run its last Winston Cup race, the Tyson Holly Farms 400, ending a long, colorful history and, perhaps more than anything else, signifying the end of an era.The little track that ran its first race in 1947, where the legendary Junior Johnson left the plowing of a cornfield to drive a race among moonshiners' cars in 1948 and that ran its first NASCAR race in a division called Strictly Stock, has reached the end of its road.

Entrants touting names like "Big Daddy," "Congo" and "Air Jordan" from Monkton to Glen Burnie rallied at Broadway Market Square in Fells Point yesterday for the 25th annual Maryland Preakness Celebration Frog Hop.But it was an amphibian named "Ernie" that leaped to first place among a field of 39 frogs.The prized possession of 15-year-old Tim Thate of Parkville, Ernie jumped 9 feet, 1 inch, outdistancing his nearest contender by only two inches. As the Frog Hop winner, Ernie will fly on to Calaveras County, Calif.

I could not help but think when watching President Clinton the other day at the Punchbowl, the vast military cemetery in Hawaii, of a man who was not there.The last time I was there, I looked for him. I saw instead only a broken red flower.And, in my mind's eye, an aging vet standing above the grave for a silent moment and dropping the flower with an embarrassed shrug.People do not flock to the Punchbowl, called that because it is a scooped-out and extinct volcano.But the tourists do come, and some people do remember.