Grandfather

MANY MEN measure their worth largely by their ability to produce -- for a nation, a company, a family, or for their own sustenance. My grandfather was one such man.When dementia forced him to give up his home and live with his daughter for whom he once provided, his pride was deeply wounded. Slipping in and out of the house from time to time for quick visits to my parents and grandfather, I was spellbound by the large man who attempted to make himself invisible in this house -- a house he had not built, bought by mortgage or maintained.

With just six days left in the General Assembly session, a House of Delegates committee is expected to vote Wednesday on a bill that would increase oversight of speed camera programs in Maryland, tighten rules on camera placement and more clearly bar government contracts that pay vendors on a per-ticket basis. But the legislation, drafted after The Baltimore Sun documented a range of problems in the city's program, would not require governments to put precise time stamps on their citation photos - a necessity for motorists to be able to verify their tickets, according to experts.

Outfielder L.J. Hoes is expected to be announced Tuesday as this year's winner of the Brooks Robinson Award for the best season by an Orioles minor league hitter. He won't be winning it alone, though, not in his mind anyway. "I really played this whole season for my grandfather. He has been sick this whole season," said the 22-year-old Hoes, who was the Orioles' third-round pick out of Mitchellville, Md., in 2008. "He passed away in August, and I played the whole season for him. " Charles E. Hoes , a retired bio-lab technician born in Germantown, died Aug. 16 at age 78 from ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

With under three minutes to play in the third quarter and his team managing a slim lead against No. 1 Mount St. Joseph, Archbishop Spalding boys basketball coach Derrick Lewis saw something he didn't like and promptly called timeout. In the huddle, he challenged his players with a simple question: "Are you guys scared to win this game?" he asked. The No. 8 Cavaliers' response was an impressive one. Along with diving for loose balls and grabbing tough rebounds — the little things Lewis wanted to see — Spalding got an inspiring second-half shooting performance from guard Jourdan Grant to pull off a stunning 81-71 home win Tuesday night in Severn.

JUDGE THOMAS, a former assistant has said that you subjected her to sexual harassment. Would you please respond to these allegations.""Senator, I recall my grandfather once saying to me, 'Clarence,' -- you see he always called me Clarence, since that was my name -- he said, 'Clarence, why did you pull that girl's pigtails?' ""Excuse me, Judge, but I'm not sure I understand what you're talking about.""I was talking about my grandfather, a poor but proud man, of little formal education but great wisdom and insight into the human condition.

WHEN LOUIS LOUIS Vaughan, age 72, experienced kidney failure about four years ago, his son and daughter looked upon modern medicine, and lined up to be potential donors of a lifesaving kidney.But the configuration of their kidneys meant neither offspring could donate.Four years later, with her grandfather's health degrading while he depended upon dialysis, his granddaughter Diana Vaughan turned 18 -- the earliest age one can be a donor -- and tested ready and able to give. On Sept. 25, she gave a kidney to her grandfather.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Orioles second baseman Jerry Hairston knows the history and a lot of stories about the old Negro leagues. ...... And then there was the time when New York Yankees slugger Joe DiMaggio had already struck out twice against black pitcher Satchel Paige and upon entering the batter's box for the third time, he told Hairston's grandfather, Sam, a catcher with the Indianapolis Clowns and Birmingham Barons, that Paige was the best he...

A 28-year-old Washington County man beat his 78-year-old grandfather to death early yesterday before being killed with a shotgun blast by his uncle, authorities said.Daniel Addison Ingram Jr. -- who authorities said had a history of mental illness -- went on a rampage in his relatives' Colonial Park neighborhood outside Hagerstown about 2:30 a.m.Mr. Ingram arrived "screaming and yelling" at his grandparents' home on Harvard Road about 2:30 a.m. and, once inside, began tearing up the house and threatening his grandfather, Elbert Barron, said Dr. Edward W. Ditto III, deputy county medical examiner.

HAVANA -- The grandfather was a hunter who used an old Browning shotgun because he said it felt fine in his strong, steady hands. His name was Bert Thompson and he was a guide, a member of the Sauk Indian tribe who took the big-city bankers and the lawyers into the country he loved along the Omaha River bottom in central Illinois. He hunted ducks and ran trap lines and fished the Illinois River. He was the last of a dying breed.The grandfather passed this love of the outdoors and this ability to handle a gun to the grandson.

The incident seems right off of today's headlines: An American president decides to land troops in the Middle East in part because an adviser warns that Iraq has designs on "reclaiming" land considered its own, Kuwait.The year, however, was 1958 and the president was Dwight D. Eisenhower.His bold and prescient move, which sought to prevent what Iraq finally got around to doing last month, may seem surprising to those whose image of him is as the president who golfed his way through the politically pale 1950s.

Outfielder L.J. Hoes is expected to be announced Tuesday as this year's winner of the Brooks Robinson Award for the best season by an Orioles minor league hitter. He won't be winning it alone, though, not in his mind anyway. "I really played this whole season for my grandfather. He has been sick this whole season," said the 22-year-old Hoes, who was the Orioles' third-round pick out of Mitchellville, Md., in 2008. "He passed away in August, and I played the whole season for him. " Charles E. Hoes , a retired bio-lab technician born in Germantown, died Aug. 16 at age 78 from ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

John D. Danko stops in mid-conversation to note the sound ringing through the house. The small brass bell chimes from behind the face of the grandfather clock in the foyer, perhaps the same sound people would have heard in their homes while waiting for word from the battlegrounds of the War of 1812. "Back in those days, this is what they heard," says Danko, after the clock has chimed nine times on the hour. Then there's only the tick-tick-tick of the seconds as two weights and a pendulum wrought in cast iron keep the time using technology that dates to the days of the Battle of North Point and Fort McHenry's defense of Baltimore harbor.

“Wolfenstein 3D” is the “Seven Samurai” of first-person shooters. Without the proper context, it seems like something sparse and ancient. In its simplicity, though, rests a mechanical genius that lead to two decades of shooters that continue to flourish today. To celebrate 20 years since its release, Bethesda Softworks' website is hosting a browser-based version of the game for free . In addition there is an extensive director's commentary available from John Carmack, co-founder of id Software, the game's original developer.

For the second time in 40 years, a member of the "Flying Wallenda" family will wow Inner Harbor crowds Wednesday with nothing between him and the murky harbor waters but a wire cable. Self-proclaimed "King of the High Wire" Nik Wallenda will follow in the footsteps of his great-grandfather, Karl, "The Great Wallenda. " While Karl Wallenda crossed the harbor over 600 feet of wire 60 feet in the air in 1973, Nik Wallenda will ascend a wire stretched 300 feet from the Light Street pavilion to a barge in the harbor, up to a height of about 90 feet.

Each week, The Baltimore Sun will publish a Q&A with an area college lacrosse player to get you more acquainted with the player and his/her team. Today's guest is Mount St. Mary's senior goalie Brigid McTavish , whose grandfather was a Mountaineers basketball legend. Jack Sullivan, who passed away in 2010, set the men's career scoring record of 2,672 points that still stands along with 10 of his other records. McTavish, 22, is a South Carroll graduate in her fourth season in the cage for the Mountaineers, who made it to the Northeast Conference title game last season.

Completing its February run of three weekends at Bowie Playhouse, Prince George's Little Theatre offers fresh insight into Beth Henley's dark comedy "Crimes of the Heart" — winner of the 1981 Pulitzer Prize and New York Drama Critics Circle Award. Three decades after its premiere, Henley's folksy tale continues to provide a showcase for a strong ensemble of actors. It tells the story of three sisters who grew up in Hazlehurst, Miss., and return there at a difficult time for the youngest, as well as for the grandfather who raised them.

GAMBER -- A taller, tanned and seemingly more mature D. Gregory Putman is finishing another full summer before preparing to enter his fifth-grade year at Mechanicsville Elementary school next month.Sporting a bronze medal he won swimming in the Central Maryland Division III meet earlier this summer, the 10-year-old Gamber resident is quick to talk about the highlight of his vacation from school.Greg, who swims for the Freedom Swim Club said, "When I got this medal, I was real happy. I won this medal for the 50-meter freestyle relay.

If it hadn't been for his grandfather, a young 19-year-old who served in the 1st Battery Massachusetts Field Artillery and fought in both battles of Bull Run and at Antietam, and a mother who talked of her father's Civil War exploits, young George Kenney might never have developed an interest in the war that became a lifelong passion."

Dione "Big Man" Fauntleroy Sr., a 48-year-old Baltimore man, who conspired to sell crack cocaine in the Gilmor Homes public housing complex with his son, his son's grandfather and 19 others, was sentenced to 160 months in prison Thursday, according to the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office. His son, Dione "Dummy" Fauntleroy Jr., 28, was sentenced to 156 months in prison last week. And the younger man's maternal grandfather, William Herring, 67, is set to be sentenced early next month.

Pe'Shon Howard extends his wrists to display tattoos of stars — the sort you might see on the door to a Hollywood actor's dressing room. They are appropriate symbols for a point guard who grew up immersed in celebrity culture as the grandson of a Los Angeles hair stylist who worked on movie sets with Eddie Murphy and other A-list actors. His teammates sometimes call Howard — who is naturally theatrical — "Hollywood P. " But then the Maryland sophomore — whose Terps (10-3)