Essay

Lately, it seems everything is free. Free pancakes at IHOP. Free subs at Quiznos. Free nights at hotels. Free days at Walt Disney World. Free tickets to Universal Studios. The problem is most of it is stuff you don't really want or need. (When is BGE gonna give me a month's supply of heat for free? In Neverary.) The other problem is you have to spend money to get to the free part. But here's a free offer that could have a happy ending and end up costing you absolutely nothing except a few words.

On the weekend after Thanksgiving, I went home to Brooklyn, N.Y., to visit my father - the man whose height and stature always felt like a wall of protection between me and the world. As I sat beside his hospital bed in these last few months of his life, I had watched the body of this once robust, 6-foot-2, 240-pound man slowly transform into a wilted flower. Now he was down to about 130 pounds. I whispered in his ear, "Daddy, do you remember me telling you that I'm going to the Congo"?

I see where a growing number of companies are suspending or reducing contributions to their employees' 401(k)s and, of course, that makes millions of Americans worried about whether they'll have enough dollars in their retirement funds to allow them to retire instead of ending up 72 years old and punching up lottery tickets from behind the counter at the Royal Farms store. Several educated and intelligent people tell me they are no longer reading the newspapers or watching the networks because they can't stand the constant drumbeat of bleak economic news like this.

Unity Gardens holds essay contest Unity Gardens, a nonprofit organization that promotes neighborhood greening projects to enhance the quality of life throughout Anne Arundel County, is sponsoring an essay contest for two free tickets for the Chanticleer Gardens bus tour on Sept. 18. Participants must write an essay of no more than 800 words on the topic, "How can community gardens build community unity and future leaders?" by Aug. 28. Submissions should be sent to Unity Gardens, P.O. Box 385 Crownsville, 21032 or unitygardensaa@aol.

I AM PLURAL. My husband and I are expecting a baby boy in mid-June, but because it took us so long to get to this point, for a while it didn't seem real. Several bloggers I read frequently have noted that when you get pregnant after a struggle with infertility, at first it can feel like you're just playing the role of a mother-to-be. It was like that for me, after two years of trying. Eight home pregnancy tests, properly doubling beta blood-test results and two early ultrasounds be damned: For weeks, I felt like I was starring in some elaborate masquerade.

Cailey Aburn, a senior at the John Carroll School, has been named one of 10 winners in the second "Reconnecting the Circle" National High School Essay Contest. Reconnecting the Circle's mission is to encourage people to learn about Native American cultures. The essay topic was, "Why is reconnecting the circle with Native Americans important today?" Cailey was the only winner east of the Mississippi River in the national contest. She is the daughter of Tad and Joanie Aburn of Jarrettsville.

Maryland baseball fans headed to Florida over the next couple of weeks to see the Orioles in action might want to check out the other birds in the area. No, not the St. Louis Cardinals. About 20 miles north of Fort Lauderdale Stadium, where the Orioles roost for spring training, visitors can find purple gallinules, pied-billed grebes and more than 100 other species of birds at two somewhat unlikely tourist destinations. Every day, Palm Beach County Water Utilities Department pumps millions of gallons of reclaimed wastewater into two man-made ecosystems: Wakodahatchee Wetlands in suburban Delray Beach and Green Cay Wetlands in suburban Boynton Beach.

`Roots of Howard County' on Feb. 10 The villages of Columbia, the Columbia Association, the African Art Museum of Maryland and the Howard County Center of African-American Culture will present "Roots of Howard County: In Celebration of African-American History" from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Feb. 10 at Historic Oakland, 5430 Vantage Point Road, Columbia. The Ambassadors of Jazz, an accomplished youth jazz group, will perform. Images of Freedom poster contest entries will be on display, and light refreshments will be served.

You're never too young to set your sights on college, the folks at Baltimore's CollegeBound Foundation say, so the organization's "What College Means to Me" annual contest starts with kids in kindergarten. At 6 years old, MaKayla Westry knows a thing or two about the subject: She sometimes tags along to her mom's forensic accounting classes at Morgan State University. The Leith Walk Elementary first-grader's views on college ("it's fun!") won her a prize in the contest's poetry division.