Family Car

As you watch Ryan Conrad zip around the lacrosse field, dodging defenders and pounding the net with an endless variety of shots, it's easy to forget his age. Talk to him on the phone, however, and the Loyola High sophomore sounds like, well, a high school sophomore. A great many things in his life are summed up by the catchall adjective "amazing!" Young players such as Conrad - equal parts precocious and normal teenager - stand at the center of a debate raging across the lacrosse landscape.

"B.J., what are you doing?" Polly Surhoff calls from a seat in the shade by their backyard swimming pool. It's not a question. What Polly is really saying is, "B.J., please don't do anything that might require a trip to the emergency room." The Orioles' elder-statesman outfielder has been standing on the diving board, letting daughters Kendall and Jordan -- ages 10 and 8, respectively -- jump off his shoulders, the ones he uses to make a living by batting and throwing a baseball. Now he has 12-year-old Mason by the arm, trying to coax him into the water.

Here's something that should make feminists smile -- a real, like-mother-like-daughter story. The scene: Light Street, outside a bank, downtown Baltimore. Take Our Daughters To Work Day. Cigarette break. A group of smartly dressed women are smoking. One of the women has her daughter with her. The daughter smokes, too. Here's what we hear of the conversation:Mom: "I let her have one [cigarette] last year [on Take Our Daughters To Work Day], and on the way home she asked if she could smoke, too. I told her to think on it awhile.

Dizzy with the thrill of a Super Bowl victory - and late-night revelry - Ravens fans spent Monday stocking up on purple gear and planning to close offices and pull children out of school for Tuesday's victory parade. Women heaped on purple rings and bracelets, couples slapped purple paint onto the family car and parents dragged children into school a few hours late, explaining they had stayed up late for the Super Bowl . From time to time, Marylanders marveled at the news that, for many, felt like a dream come true: After 12 years, the Ravens were again world champions.

Going from zero to 60 mph in one second will make people stop and stare, but Rod Saboury need not drive his 2,400-horsepower, twin-turbo-charged Corvette that fast to grab attention. Sometimes, the Millers resident and National Hot Rod Association driver cruises along Carroll County's streets or pulls up into a McDonald's drive-through, and then heads turn - fixated on the Corvette's dragster-engine sound, fire-red exterior and hot-rod designs. "It's like driving a UFO on the highway," says Saboury, 58, whose 1963-model Corvette is widely regarded as the fastest street-legal car on the planet.

MUCH has been said and written recently about unnecessary and outrageous college tuition increases, about the greed of professors and about waste and inefficiency in higher education.Some are calling for the privatization of campuses, for the tight-fisted control of dispassionate business people, for wresting control from bungling academics and placing it with those who know better how to run cost-efficient operations.It might be appropriate to examine those charges within the context of that bellwether of American pride and production, the automobile industry.

College kids are notorious for packing too much for college. The rug. The futon. The mini fridge/microwave. I remember stuffing a shoe rack and 10 pairs of shoes into the trunk of the family car. By the time I went home for Thanksgiving freshman year, I was wearing only fringed moccasins. OK. You had to be there. But a garden? Packing a garden to take to college? That's what Matt Lehman had stuffed in the back of the family car for the 14-hour drive from his home in Ohio to college in Kansas.

The parents of a 23-month-old Howard County girl who died of heat stroke after being left in the family car for several hours on June 25 will not be prosecuted, Howard County State's Attorney Dario Broccolino said Wednesday. Broccolino said that his office had recommended that the parents be charged with involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment, but that the grand jury declined to indict the Ellicott City couple, whose names have not been made public. According to police, "a change in routine" led to some miscommunication between the parents about who was taking the toddler to day care.

A 17-month-old Westminster boy was killed Sunday when his father lost control of the family car and it crashed into a mailbox, state police said.Robert A. Toms, 20, of the 600 block of Johahn Drive was eastbound on Bloom Road in Westminster about 3 p.m. when his Geo Metro swerved off the road, hit a metal mailbox, skidded through a fence and came to rest in a field, police said. The mailbox smashed through a window and struck the head of Toms' son, Bryan A. Toms.The baby, who was strapped into his car seat, was pronounced dead at Carroll County General Hospital.

Another Senior Week at Ocean City has passed, where tens of thousands of high school graduates vacation in the deluxe comfort of seasonal rental units, partake in only the finest of nonalcoholic carbonated drinks and adhere to all traffic laws. Seriously, did your child come home from Senior Week with a purple mohawk? Shaved head? Tattoo? Piercing? Did the public buses unwittingly become clothing-optional? Did your family car come back with new markings usually associated with hitting a pole?