Family Reunion

Alaskan tour gets bumpy A MEMORABLE PLACE Judy Koetitz SPECIAL TO THE SUN It was a beautiful morning as we drove along Turn-again Arm on our way to Seward. We were in Alaska on a family reunion / vacation. This day, we were taking our son, daughter-in-law and two granddaughters on a Kenai Fjords boat tour into the Gulf of Alaska. We had heard about the rough seas, but Resurrection Bay was flat as a pancake. To us seasoned boaters of the Chesapeake Bay, it was amazing; even the crew of the tour boat commented.

Don't offer Tyler Perry a penny for his thoughts. Though there was a time when he might have jumped at that bid, his going rate is much higher these days. Perry is a writer and performer of stage plays, movies, a book - and, starting today in Baltimore, of a television show. His stories, which typically center upon African-American characters and use humor to grapple with painful issues such as drug abuse and unfaithful spouses, have struck a chord with members of his ever-widening audience.

They first met in college - where he played halfback for the football team and she was homecoming queen. Donald and Jennye worked together on civil rights issues and remained friends after he graduated from what was then Morgan State College in 1956. After his first wife died of cancer in 1987, he was principal at Greenspring Junior High School and she was the assistant principal. They married, and Donald E.L. Patterson Sr. and Jennye Patterson lived in his house in Northwest Baltimore.

Maryland junior Alyssa Thomas could not have been more pleased when her younger brother, Devin, scored a career-high 25 points last week for Wake Forest in an upset of then-No. 18 North Carolina State. What's more, Devin went on to be named ACC Rookie of the Week, an award Alyssa won a program record seven times on the way to winning conference Rookie of the Year in 2010-11. Alyssa even sent a text message to Devin congratulating the 6-foot-9 forward on his performance against the Wolfpack, which also featured team highs of 14 rebounds, four assists, four blocks and three steals.

Like many family reunions, yesterday's Mattingly family gathering in Solomons in Calvert County was a time for distant relatives to catch up with one another, to eat, drink and gab.But they also took out time for neurological exams and blood tests.For more than 300 years, the Mattinglys have been passing a debilitating muscular disorder from generation to generation, and a team of doctors took advantage of the reunion to try to learn more about their ailment and possibly to locate the gene that causes it.The rare disease has no formal name, although its symptoms and effects sometimes resemble those of other muscle diseases.

The Maryland Senior Olympics have always been a family affair for Frances Flatau.Even before the 56-year-old Joppa woman was eligibleto compete, she acted as chauffeur, coach and manager for her motherand step-father, Harriet and Holden Rogers.Last weekend, four generations of the family turned out at the 12th annual Maryland Senior Olympics to root for all three. Flatau's daughter, Lisa Mathis and her husband, John, and children, Olivia, 3, and Sam, 1, cheered on the family's competitors at the Towson State University track.

After bringing a performance out of Charlotte Rampling in Under the Sand that even she might not have realized she had in her, the French writer-director Francoise Ozon has taken a handful of his country's biggest female stars and stuffed them into a candy box. 8 Women is meant to be a sampler with the likes of Deneuve, Darrieux, Huppert, Ardant and Beart as its treats. But the confectioner has arrived at pretty poison. Oh, if you've seen Cukor's The Women umpteen times and adore the most chi-chi soap operas and musicals of the 1940s and 1950s, 8 Women might be just the right cup of cafe au lait.

When backup center Gino Gradkowski walks into M&T Bank Stadium for his first regular-season game as a member of the Ravens, he will have about 20 family members in the stadium. His big brother will be there, too, but he will be standing across the field on the Cincinnati Bengals' sideline. Bruce Gradkowski is the lone backup quarterback for the Bengals and a six-year NFL veteran. “We talk all the time,” said Gino Gradkowski, a fourth-round pick in April's draft. “He's a big shoulder for me to lean on. It helps me out a lot to have him. He's always helping me out and telling me what to expect and how to handle myself on and off the field.

CHICAGO -- Neal Anderson, in essence, has two families.His immediate family in Grace-ville, Fla., will always come first. But his second family -- the Chicago Bears -- is the one with whom he spends most of his time these days.The Bears' stellar running back will be especially mindful of both today when the Bears play the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Tampa Stadium. For the past five years, a Bears game in Tampa meant a joyful reunion. The entire Anderson family -- two older sisters, nephews, nieces, cousins and parents -- would make the trek from Graceville, on the northern border of the state.

Baltimore television was so innocent back in the 1950s an '60s that nobody thought it odd that a puppet gave the weather forecast on a local news broadcast. "I was like the baby sitter for a lot of kids back then. People think back to those years of television with more fondness than they have for TV now," recalls Rhea Feiken of her "J.P. & Rhea" collaboration with puppeteer Cal Schumann on WBAL-TV.A puppet still affixed to his hand as if by surgical procedure, Mr. Schumann blushes as Ms. Feiken mentions one of their more nerve-wracking moments on live TV. "Cal had been out a bit too late the night before and, looking beneath the puppet stage, I could see him down there saying to me, 'I gotta go.' He simply left the set and so I was stuck out there with no puppet and I had to completely improvise to get through the show."