Fort Mchenry

Free circulator bus service will be extended to Fort McHenry in Locust Point, city officials said Monday. Called the Banner Route, the new service will provide a free bus link to the historic site beginning in June, in time for bicentennial celebrations of the War of 1812. U.S. Rep. John P. Sarbanes joined Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and his father, former Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes, in announcing the Charm City Circulator service to Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine on Fort Avenue.

Judy and Ernie Jenkins leaned back in their folding chairs in a shady spot by the harbor's edge at Fort McHenry on Monday, catching the breezes that kept an otherwise blazing Memorial Day comfortable. They had plenty to drink and lots of ice, and couldn't have been happier. "This is my Ocean City," Judy Jenkins said. "It's fine. " Maybe it doesn't have the Atlantic at its doorstep, but Baltimore turned out to be an agreeable place for many city residents and visitors to enjoy the outdoors on a day when summer served notice that it would be taking over for the next several months.

A few minutes after 10 a.m. yesterday, the yellow-and-black truck with the tree-moving equipment lifted the 11-year-old English elm out of the Fort McHenry soil. This was history, so Dale Brukiewa snapped pictures and began to get sentimental."It makes me kind of proud to watch this," said Mr. Brukiewa, the fort's grounds foreman. "It's like watching one of your kids grow up and then go out into the world."Everything that happens from this point on is up to Mother Nature and that tree," he added.

In 1814, Francis Scott Key had a better view of Fort McHenry from a boat than some motorists have from the street these days -- at least judging by two recent incidents.Twice this year, motorists -- one of them subsequently charged with having been intoxicated -- have crashed through the wrought iron gates to the entrance of the federal facility despite a red flashing light and two large stop signs, authorities report.The latest incident occurred yesterday morning when a 1991 Ford Escort crossed over the bridge leading to the fort and slammed into the gates, knocking them off their hinges and leaving them twisted like "pretzels," said Charle P. Ives, a U.S. park ranger.

A 10-year odyssey to become an American came to a ceremonial end last night for Matthew Ward at the Flag Day celebrations at Fort McHenry. The Jarrettsville youth, who was born in Lithuania, entered the United States at the age of 3 months. But before he could be declared an American, he and his adoptive mother had to get through what she called a "quagmire of paperwork." With assistance from a congresswoman, he took the oath March 10. "I just felt that Flag Day was a patriotic way to celebrate the event," said the mother, Bernadette Ward, wearing an American-flag T-shirt and arranging food platters at the celebration.

As the crowd gathered for the rally yesterday at Fort McHenry, Ronald Jones and his wife, Suzanne, planted their small sign into the lawn."Never again can we allow our troops to be denigrated," it said.In a nutshell, that was the theme of the two-hour, flag-waving rally, hosted by the American Freedom Coalition of Maryland. Mindful of the antipathy many Americans felt toward the military as the war in Vietnam soured, yesterday's crowd was intent on making sure history won't repeat itself as the United States prosecutes the Persian Gulf war."

Time has done what British rockets and cannon shells couldn't do, breached the ramparts at Fort McHenry.In the visitors center yesterday, the film about the American resistance to the bombardment in 1814 ended with "The Star-Spangled Banner" as the curtains retracted to reveal the 17-by-25-foot, 15-star-15-stripe battle flag streaming above the red-brick walls.Closer inspection, however, reveals where bricks have cracked and fallen out, and walls have buckled. Water leaks have weakened the curved brick ceilings of underground Civil War-era powder magazines.

A project to repair decades of water damage at Fort McHenry is partly done, but $1.8 million needed to complete the restoration is in congressional limbo.A Senate Appropriations subcommittee approved the money in the budget bill that is making its way through Congress, and aides to Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, a Maryland Democrat, say they expect full Senate approval in a few weeks.The House of Representatives did not include the $1.8 million in its version of the budget bill, butthe Maryland delegation is cautiously optimistic that after a House-Senate conference committee meets to hammer out differences in the bills, the money will be included in the final version.

If the winds are gentle Sunday, Nov. 17, the historic warship Constellation will be nudged gingerly from its Inner Harbor wharf for the first time in 16 years, and tugged to a Fort McHenry dry dock for 2 1/2 years of repairs and reconstruction.Corsetted in rubber sheets and trussed by cables, the leaking Civil War relic will leave at high tide, about 11: 30 a.m. The cautious, 1.5-mile sail should take three to four hours if it doesn't end on the harbor's bottom.The Constellation will get a new, watertight hull and spar deck, new masts and rigging, and an appearance more faithful to the ship's 1854 origins.

Summer shorts and baseball caps were the favored attire, and at least in people's hearts the colors were red, white and blue. Flag Day was celebrated last night at Fort McHenry.More than 3,000 people sang the national anthem, then joined in the 14th annual "Pause for the Pledge" by reciting the 31-word oath as four flag-toting parachutists dropped from a helicopter.With the crowd singing, the 50-star flag was lowered and replaced by a 15-star replica of the giant banner that survived the British bombardment of the fort in 1814, inspiring Francis Scott Key's poem, "The Star-Spangled Banner."