Fables

When I was a kid, the library in my family's 200-year-old farmhouse in the Appalacian foothills of northwest New Jersey seemed an infinite frontier. By grownup standards, it was modest, a few hundred books. But to me, it was mysterious, daunting, inviting, unconquerable. The contents were beyond the limits of my imagination. I don't remember learning to read, but I have few if any memories that predate devouring more or less every book I could reach. My most regular expeditions were in the Encyclopedia Brittanica.

Amid hip-high weeds and scraps of torn turf, nearly 100 sports-connected folks convened yesterday at Memorial Stadium to share tales and a curtain-call farewell to Baltimore's venerable field of past dreams. As VIP guests of the Maryland Stadium Authority and the Babe Ruth Museum, they toured the 46-year-old stadium for a final assessment of what should be saved or sold before the facility is razed to make way for a planned senior citizen housing community and a YMCA aquatics and gymnastics center.

ROME -- In his Holocaust movie fable "Life is Beautiful," actor-film director Roberto Benigni plays an Italian Jew trying to shield his young son from the horrible reality of a Nazi concentration camp.The caring, sometimes kooky father convinces the little boy that the German soldiers who had come to their house were part of an elaborate, childlike game. Benigni works the tragic premise for laughs, earning the Italian filmmaker controversy both in the United States and here in Italy -- as well as Academy Award consideration for best foreign film.

Paul Kropp, author of "Raising a Reader," lists these 15 must-have books for your young child's book shelf. Suggest them to friends and family as birthday and holiday gifts.* "Each Peach Pear Plum," by Janet and Allan Ahlberg* "Goodnight Moon," by Margarret Wise Brown* "Franklin in the Dark," by Paulette Bourgeois* "Are You My Mother?" by P.D. Eastman* "Something from Nothing," by Phoebe Gilman* "The Snowy Day," by Ezra Jack Keats* "Whose Mouse Are You?" by Robert Kraus* "Frederick," by Leo Lionni* "Fables," by Arnold Lobel* "A Boy, a Dog and a Frog," by Mercer Mayer* "Thomas' Snowsuit," by Robert Munsch* "The Best Word Book Ever," by Richard Scarry* "Where the Wild Things Are," by Maurice Sendak* "The Cat in the Hat," by Dr. Seuss* "The Polar Express," by Chris Van AllsburgPub Date: 11/04/98

Memories of the Pennsylvania Railroad's old Parkton Local and Ruxton Rocket were revived last Sunday afternoon. Members of the National Capital Trolley Museum and other rail buffs traveled to the Wilmington and Western Railroad in Delaware to ride one of the last two Pennsy gas-electric cars in operation.For 30 years, until the demise of commuter service on the Pennsylvania Railroad's 28.8-mile Northern Central Division in 1959, the gas-electrics trundled back and forth daily, connecting the city with commuters and residents from Woodberry and Mount Washington to Bare Hills, Lake Roland, Ruxton, Riderwood and Lutherville.

AT SUNDAY'S annual Taste of Little Italy spaghetti-eating contest, there gathered the finest collection of competitive eaters ever to assemble in one place, with the possible exception of when Fat Earle Magid dined alone."

The Camel DancesThe camel had her heart set on becoming a ballet dancer."To make every movement a thing of grace and beauty," said the Camel. "That is my one and only desire."Again and again she practiced her pirouettes, her releves, and her arabesques. She repeated the five basic positions a hundred times each day. She worked for long months under the hot desert sun. Her feet were blistered, and her body ached with fatigue, but not once did she think of stopping.At last the Camel said, "Now I am a dancer."

Views of pond and port; Art: Suzan Rouse's works in many 0) media capture the nuances of nature.At different hours and in different seasons, artist Suzan Rouse returned to the placid fish pond with the water lilies and slender nymph sculpture on the Johns Hopkins University campus in North Baltimore. Each time she went, in rain, snow, blazing sun and twilight, the light, the air, the mood was different.Rouse's sketches led to a series of monoprints gloriously saturated with the pond's nuances, in which she abstracted "the spirituality of nature."

To stand in the gardens of the Topkapi Palace, beyond the Gates of Happiness, where turtles with lighted candles on their backs once wandered among tulips for the amusement of sultans, is to know that Istanbul is not just another tour stop.All around, defying history, is an extravagance for the senses. Palaces, mosques, bazaars, castles, tombs, gardens and ruins sing with centuries of romance, folly, intrigue, adventure and excess.Turkey has just gotten the kind of tourism boost that money can't buy: It's where John F. Kennedy Jr. and bride Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy spent the first three days of their honeymoon.

HONG KONG -- From the battles for India in the 19th century to the recovery of the Falklands in the 1980s, Gurkhas have been synonymous with Britain's glory days. So it is little wonder that many Gurkhas -- the fierce soldiers of Nepal -- are finding it tough to leave Hong Kong, preferring to stay on even as Britain leaves its last Asian colony."This is the second home for the Gurkhas," says Man Bahadur Gurung, a retired British army major. "Although we've been to Malaysia, Singapore -- so many places -- well.