Garfield

Leon "Lee" Garfield, whose nickname was synonymous in Baltimore with Oreeeo, Halvah, Reese's, Sir Fig Newton and Tequila Sunrise ice cream, died Tuesday of a heart attack at his Owings Mills residence. He was 67.Mr. Garfield worked for many years in the insurance industry, but ice cream was the great love of his life.He founded Lee's Ice Cream. in 1979, fulfilling a lifelong dream with the opening of his first store on York Road in Towson.Exotic flavors and a 17 percent butterfat content were keys to Lee's success.

Q: I have a clear pressed-glass plate with a picture of President Garfield in the center. I think it is called a bread plate. It also has "Memorial" across the top rim.2 Cast-iron bread and muffin pans -- $25 to $35.Letters with picture(s) are welcome and may be answered in the column. We cannot reply personally or return pictures. Address your letters to James G. McCollam, P.O. Box 1087, Notre Dame, Ind. 46556.

ON AND OFF THE AIR:* With its fifth annual airing, can you now call "A Garfield Christmas" a holiday tradition? It's on CBS at 8 tonight (Channel 11). Cartoonist Jim Davis' cartoon creation dreads a boring visit to the home of Jon's grandmother, but he discovers a fine feline friend after all.Following Garfield on CBS at 8:30 is another well-liked special of equal vintage, "A Claymation Christmas Celebra-tion."* In a sly holiday scheduling, cable's MTV network is screening at 9 a.m. tomorrow "Pee-wee's Christmas Playhouse."

John Garfield could turn the act of cadging a smoke and savoring it into a romantic invitation. He epitomized the virile working-class antihero of the 1930s and '40s - an urban Joe with a well-worn chip on his shoulder, alternately resisting and giving into temptation and sometimes staging a scam or two himself. He was at his best in the 1946 movie version of Baltimorean James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice. As a cheerful hitchhiker who ambles into a Southern California roadside luncheonette and immediately falls in love with the proprietor's voluptuous wife (Lana Turner)

The creator of the "Garfield" comic strip will lend his expertise to a Columbia-based Internet company that aims to simplify licensing for celebrity, cartoon, entertainment and sports products. FastTrends.com, a Web site to help guide licensed products from concept to retail store, was launched yesterday by Tom Andrews and Eric Henry, co-founders of Logotel Inc., a Columbia-based licensee manufacturer of T-shirts that owns the rights to many television show logos. One investor is Jim Davis, Garfield's creator and owner of worldwide licensor, Paws Inc., who will sit on the company's board.

His mug has been plastered on earrings, underwear and oven mitts. He has his own brand of flan. Fifteen years ago, you couldn't drive down the street without seeing him suction-cupped to the window of a passing car. He appears in more than 2,600 newspapers worldwide, boasts a readership of a quarter billion people and, at one time, had his own television series and a string of TV specials. What he hasn't had -- until now -- is his own movie. That will change tomorrow with -- what else?

Stewart Anthony Garfield left his family's Pioneer City townhouse Friday morning, assuring his mother that he would be back by 1 p.m. to look after his children. It was the last time she saw her son alive. By Saturday, family members were worried. By Sunday, they were frantic. And when police detectives came to the door Sunday afternoon, they were devastated, told that Garfield's body had been found in Provinces Park, less than 100 yards from a playground and soccer fields. Garfield, 36, an unemployed construction worker, had lived with his fiancee and their five children in his parents' townhouse, about two miles from the park.

On August 1, 2005 THELMA wife of the late Dr. Leon Steinberg; mother of Zelda (Lollie) Adler; loving grandmother of Michael Garfield, Lyndy and David Caplan; loving great-grandmother of Leanna Garfield. Services and interment will be held at Baltimore Hebrew Congregation Cemetery, 2100 Belair Road on Tuesday, August 2 at 1 p.m. Please omit flowers. Arrangements by SOL LEVINSON & BROS. INC.

A RECENT COLUMN inspired a number of telephone calls and letters of which the following are representative:Letter from Michael T. Shatterly of Ellicott City: "After pointing out that the Democratic candidate, Grover Cleveland, carried the South in the 1884 election, you refuted the theory that Cleveland owed his success to the fact that his Republican opponent, James Garfield, had been a Union general during the Civil War, while Cleveland, a draft dodger,...

The older brother of one of New Jersey's largest cranberry growers has gone to court seeking to stop the sale of nearly 10,000 acres of family farms and pristine woodlands in South Jersey to a preservationist group. In a lawsuit that outlined a long and bitter financial feud, the brother, Mark A. DeMarco, 72, accused the grower, J. Garfield DeMarco, 64, of mismanaging the family cranberry business, spending corporate funds on himself and improperly trying to sell the family property to the New Jersey Conservation Foundation for about 30 percent of its market value.