Glass

Driving along Joppa Road on the east side of Towson, it's hard not to notice the building that looks something like a huge box with mirrors for sides. To someone old enough to remember a certain type of point-and-shoot camera, the county's police headquarters might resemble an overgrown flash cube. The look comes from the building's 2,200 windows - and, as the County Council was reminded yesterday, glass sometimes breaks. But how much is too much to fix it? The council is being asked to approve up to $1.6 million to repair the exterior glass panels on an as-needed basis over the next five years.

A renaissance festival seems a singularly appropriate place to find R. Foster Holcombe. Not only does Mr. Holcombe seem perfectly at home in the boots, leather breeches and jerkin of a 16th century artisan, but he is involved in an ancient art form undergoing its own renaissance."

Dr. D. Stratton Woodruff often spends his lunch hour nourishing his healthy appetite for cantaloupe-shaped vases and other Clevenger glass delicacies at four thrift shops near his office in Bryn Mawr, Pa. Despite having assembled a smorgasbord of nearly 450 pieces, Dr. Woodruff still hasn't had his fill. A pioneering collector in a little-known field, his heart burns for a piece in each form and color made by Clevenger Bros. Glass Co., of Clayton, N.J., from around 1930 to the 1960s. Bargains remain to be had.While he thrives on a steady diet of antique reproduction glass blown and molded by Clevenger, Dr. Woodruff readily acknowledges that collectors with a taste for rare 18th- and early 19th-century American glass might view his cache "like a collection of second-hand bubble gum."

They've been playing with the angels for weeks now in Bobbie Burnett's basement.Dozens of volunteers -- engineers, retired women, teen-agers from a local church -- have been cutting bits of colored glass, fitting translucent wings and silvery halos on stained-glass angels, washing off the acid used before soldering, then fitting their fragile artwork into white boxes.Profits from the $30 cherubs go for cancer research at the Johns Hopkins Oncology Center in Baltimore and the Anne Arundel Medical Center.

Erika Lynn Glass, a computer software consultant, died Saturday when her sport utility vehicle ran off Baltimore-Washington Parkway and struck a tree. The Owings Mills resident was 25. The Westminster native graduated in 1996 from Westminster High School. She earned her bachelor's degree in finance in 2000 from Towson University. Since then, she was employed as a software consultant for SSI Consulting of Baltimore. A dog lover, she was especially fond of her two yellow Labrador retrievers.

With this year's holiday season coinciding with increasing worries by consumers about the state of the economy, many people are beginning to get a bit more creative with their gift-giving habits. They are forgoing high-priced gadgets in favor of something more heartfelt. But even though it's the thought that counts when it comes to gift-giving, coming up with a good gift idea still can be difficult. A couple of local glass blowers offer some ideas. Corradetti Glass Studio and Gallery and McFadden Art Glass say art fans of every skill level can make their own tree ornaments and holiday decorations for giving (or keeping)

Dr. Frederic A. Glass, a pioneering industrial dermatologist who lectured widely on the subject, died May 27 of cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The Pikesville resident was 89.He was born and reared in Milwaukee, the son of Russian immigrant parents who operated a dry goods store. It was while living in Milwaukee that he developed a love of the performing arts and planned to become a professional drama critic until becoming ill with influenza, which permanently affected his hearing.After abandoning his plans of being a critic, he earned a degree in philosophy in 1932 from Marquette University and enrolled in medical school.

Anthony Corradetti lives in a glass house.Number 1109 Hollins Street is the place where the potash, silica sand, soda ash, lime and barium emerge from a furnace and a kiln as works of glass art.One day last week, the Southwest Baltimore glass blower got an invitation from the White House. One of his vases had been selected for its permanent collection as part of a celebration of American crafts."I got to shake the President and Mrs. Clinton's hand and have my picture taken. I was nervous thinking about it. Then I saw my peers there and I calmed down.

Charles A. Glass, a former Baltimore police detective and an avid pool player, died June 28 at Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Lebanon, Pa., after a long illness. He was 58. Mr. Glass was born in Baltimore and grew up in the Govans area. After graduating from City College, he joined the Navy at age 17 and served aboard the destroyer-submarine USS Hunter during the Cuban missile crisis. He later served aboard the USS Camp and the USS Enterprise. Mr. Glass attended the police academy shortly after his tour of duty.

AIKEN, S.C. -- In a milestone on the road to cleaning up after 40 years of making atomic bombs, the Department of Energy dedicated a $1.3 billion plant yesterday to deal with its most hazardous wastes: millions of gallons of highly radioactive sludges and liquids in decaying steel tanks.The department said the plant, the largest of its kind in the nation, would be tested for two years with non-radioactive wastes and would begin operating in 1992.More than half the radioactivity from the nation's military waste is held in 51 underground tanks at the Savannah River Site here, each with 750,000 to 1.3 million gallons of waste.