Father S Death

Boxing had just one champion per division when Emile Griffith won six titles across three weight classes. His career spanned nearly two decades. He retired in 1977 at 39 with the most championship rounds of any fighter in history. "One of the greatest welterweights of all time," boxing historian Michael Katz called Griffith, who fought 112 times from 147 to 160 pounds - nearly three times more than Sugar Ray Leonard fought. Blessed with a 26-inch waist and a 44-inch chest, Griffith (85-24-2, 23 knockouts)

STUDS TERKEL, 96 Pulitzer Prize-winning author, activist Pulitzer Prize-winning author and activist Studs Terkel has died at age 96. Colleague and close friend Thom Clark said Mr. Terkel's son, Dan Terkell, confirmed his death yesterday. He died at home at 2:40 p.m., Mr. Clark said. Mr. Terkel is best known for his street-wise portrayals of the working class. He contrasted rich and poor along the same Chicago street in the 1966 novel Division Street: America, explored the Depression in 1970's Hard Times and chronicled how people felt about their jobs in 1974's Working.

His last words came over the control tower radio at Dundalk's Harbor Field on Sept. 20, 1956: "75-Hotel. I'm going into the water." The voice belonged to Tom Gastall, a 24-year-old reserve catcher for the Orioles. Married with a young son, he had been taking flying lessons on the sly, hoping to obtain his pilot's license in time to fly his plane to Venezuela for winter ball. But 50 years ago Wednesday, he crashed into the Chesapeake Bay while on a day-off solo flight on a windy afternoon.

We hate talking about it. We fear saying something awkward or intrusive. We think we'll only make it worse by acknowledging it, so we fall silent. "I think, in large part," Kathleen Kennedy Townsend says, "we don't have a culture that knows how to deal with death." Townsend, a former Maryland lieutenant governor, is, of course, sadly expert on the subject of death. When she was 12, her uncle was killed; when she was 16, her father. That these intimates were President John F. Kennedy and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy is something that is a well-known part of her biography, if not necessarily something that she speaks extensively about in public.

Boston -- The lawmakers of Louisiana never planned for the parentage of Judith Hart. When they wrote the laws of legitimacy, any child born to a widow a year after her husband's death would have been cause for scandal, not for celebration.But technology has raced ahead of their law. Today when men can deposit their sperm for safekeeping in a bank before they go off to war or to do battle against illness, Judith Hart's origins do not seem so strange.In 1990, when Ed Hart was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus, he had every wish to live.

A month after graduating summa cum laude from the University of Maryland and giving a commencement speech, Howard County's Beth Lowenthal is ready for her next challenge.The 21-year-old former Atholton High School student is preparing for a trip to Europe and applying to graduate school.After leaving high school a year early, Lowenthal graduated from the University of Maryland College Park with a perfect 4.0 grade point average.She earned a bachelor of arts degree in French with a business concentration and minors in pre-pharmacy, German and Spanish, graduating in 4 1/2 years while working 38 hours a week as a pharmacy technician at the Giant Food store in Hickory Ridge.

While not as fevered as the coverage of Anna Nicole Smith's passing, the claim this week by Keith Richards that he snorted some of his father's ashes "with a little bit of blow" stirred up a storm of news coverage, very little of it skeptical. Major media organizations -- including The Sun, the BBC, Forbes.com and The Washington Post -- ran the story and quoted its source, the British weekly New Musical Express. Representatives for the 63-year-old Rolling Stones guitarist rushed to douse the controversy by saying Richards had been joking.

OAKMONT, Pa.-- --Earl Woods wasn't with his son at Pebble Beach in 2000. By then, Tiger Woods' father already had significantly scaled back his travel schedule. "It's Father's Day, and I can't tell you enough about what my dad meant to my golf," Tiger Woods said on the day he won his first U.S. Open, after posting one of the most impressive performances anyone had ever seen in a major. "I can't thank him enough. ... And to have my dad still alive while I won this championship on Father's Day, it's very important to me."

Members of the Maryland Association of Certified Public Accountants are answering readers' tax questions through April 15.Q: I have inherited an IRA from my father. Could you tell me what options I have with this IRA and what the tax consequences will be on each option? How do I show or prove the nondeductible portion of my father's IRA and can I get tax credit with that?A: The answer is technical. Here are your options: If your father's death preceded his required start date to begin withdrawing funds (April following the year he was 70 1/2 )

Quote: "I was shocked. I was hurt. I don't have all the results of what happened, but I can feel for what he's going through right now. I've been there." -- Indians' Dwight Gooden, after hearing of Darryl Strawberry's arrest.It's a fact: The Mariners were swept at the Kingdome by the Rangers for the first time in more than seven years.Who's hot: The White Sox's Frank Thomas went 2-for-4 against the Red Sox, and is 15-for-26 for the season, a .577 average.Who's not: Texas' Juan Gonzalez has not homered in the first 10 games, and in 15 games dating to Sept.

OAKMONT, Pa.-- --Earl Woods wasn't with his son at Pebble Beach in 2000. By then, Tiger Woods' father already had significantly scaled back his travel schedule. "It's Father's Day, and I can't tell you enough about what my dad meant to my golf," Tiger Woods said on the day he won his first U.S. Open, after posting one of the most impressive performances anyone had ever seen in a major. "I can't thank him enough. ... And to have my dad still alive while I won this championship on Father's Day, it's very important to me."

While not as fevered as the coverage of Anna Nicole Smith's passing, the claim this week by Keith Richards that he snorted some of his father's ashes "with a little bit of blow" stirred up a storm of news coverage, very little of it skeptical. Major media organizations -- including The Sun, the BBC, Forbes.com and The Washington Post -- ran the story and quoted its source, the British weekly New Musical Express. Representatives for the 63-year-old Rolling Stones guitarist rushed to douse the controversy by saying Richards had been joking.

An Ellicott City man pleaded guilty yesterday in Howard County Circuit Court to second-degree murder in the stabbing death of his father during an argument at their home in December. Jason Chen, standing before Judge Louis A. Becker, waived his right to a jury trial. He had been charged with first-degree murder and assault. He could face up to 30 years in prison when sentenced Dec. 8. According to court documents, Chen, then 20, stabbed his father, Yun Sen Chen, 14 times with a steak knife during an argument at their townhouse in the 4900 block of Webbed Foot Way on Dec. 26. Chen had told police that he killed his father to stop him from assaulting his mother, Lili Chen, charging documents state.

His last words came over the control tower radio at Dundalk's Harbor Field on Sept. 20, 1956: "75-Hotel. I'm going into the water." The voice belonged to Tom Gastall, a 24-year-old reserve catcher for the Orioles. Married with a young son, he had been taking flying lessons on the sly, hoping to obtain his pilot's license in time to fly his plane to Venezuela for winter ball. But 50 years ago Wednesday, he crashed into the Chesapeake Bay while on a day-off solo flight on a windy afternoon.

I don't believe in tea leaves. Don't trust palm readers. Never been to a seance. But lately, I find I've been channeling my father. Watching some closing footage of the Olympics in Turin was the first that I noticed it. Speed skater Apolo Ohno had just crossed the finish line, his arm rocketing into a self-congratulatory fist, his face exploding in celebration, when the tears started down my cheeks. The athlete's humility in the face of winning gold, his genuine surprise at finally skating "that perfect race" would have resonated with Vinnie LoLordo.

Boxing had just one champion per division when Emile Griffith won six titles across three weight classes. His career spanned nearly two decades. He retired in 1977 at 39 with the most championship rounds of any fighter in history. "One of the greatest welterweights of all time," boxing historian Michael Katz called Griffith, who fought 112 times from 147 to 160 pounds - nearly three times more than Sugar Ray Leonard fought. Blessed with a 26-inch waist and a 44-inch chest, Griffith (85-24-2, 23 knockouts)

Q. You recently printed a letter from a widow who was concerned about her daughters' means of coping with their father's death. Since they were so young when he died, they have few memories of him.Why doesn't the mother ask friends, neighbors and family members to write letters telling stories about the things they did with him and describing the kind of man he was? These letters could be put into a scrapbook for the girls, along with pictures and other mementos.A. What a wonderful suggestion!

I don't believe in tea leaves. Don't trust palm readers. Never been to a seance. But lately, I find I've been channeling my father. Watching some closing footage of the Olympics in Turin was the first that I noticed it. Speed skater Apolo Ohno had just crossed the finish line, his arm rocketing into a self-congratulatory fist, his face exploding in celebration, when the tears started down my cheeks. The athlete's humility in the face of winning gold, his genuine surprise at finally skating "that perfect race" would have resonated with Vinnie LoLordo.

Filmmaker Tom Brandau was 20 when his father committed suicide in Ocean City. More than two decades later, that terrible event has been transformed into the dramatic center of Brandau's first feature-length film, Cold Harbor. Even while struggling to make sense of his father's death, Brandau realized that his loss might also have the potential to inspire. "It would have been different if I wasn't a filmmaker to begin with, but I was a filmmaker," says Brandau, who teaches film classes at Towson University.

When 18-year-old Josh Keogh suddenly lost his father to liver cancer three years ago, nothing could get him to talk about it. "Josh really sort of hid," said his mother, Debra Wertheimer. "He didn't want to share his feelings with anybody. It was scary to me. I didn't know what to do with him." But some friends, Oscar-winning Baltimore filmmakers Susan Hadary and William Whiteford, had an intriguing idea of how to help: make a film. "[They] suggested doing a documentary on [Josh's] feelings and what was going on," Wertheimer said.