Guilford

Police say an 18-year-old woman fought off a man who tried to rape her Thursday night in a Guilford park near Johns Hopkins University. The woman and another 18-year-old female were in a park in the 3600 block of Greenway at about 6:30 p.m. when a man tried to strike up a conversation, said police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi. A short time later, the man exposed himself and threatened the victims, police said. They started to run away, but the suspect tackled one of the victims and attempted to sexually assault her, Guglielmi said.

After several months recuperating from a bad fall, which in turn generated other health problems, it is a pleasure to once again report on our neighborhood events. While still not out of the woods, I am so very grateful for all the beautiful, compassionate, cards, messages, flowers and delicious treats from kind-hearted friends and neighbors. Guilford is a truly amazing community! Following the beautiful days of October, November has arrived with more sunny skies, albeit a touch cooler temperatures.

A member of Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's security detail and a motorist were injured Monday evening in an accident on the Jones Falls Expressway, according to a statement from Det. Jeremy Silbert, a police spokesman. The officer was southbound in an unmarked SUV about 8:30, returning to City Hall, when the vehicle was struck at the Guilford Avenue exit by another vehicle, the statement said. The mayor was not in the SUV. Both drivers were taken to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center for treatment of injuries police called non-life threatening.

When I reached for one of this season's final tomatoes, I got a surprise. It had bruised and was emitting white foam. In another time and place, that tomato, as injured as it was, would have gone into the stewing caldron. Bruised, soft, mushy, reject tomatoes found a welcome at our Guilford Avenue home. September was our ketchup-making month. This was a house where my grandmother and her sister made so much from scratch, from their own clothes to their laundry and kitchen soap.

With an award-winning play in hand, the Colonial Players turned a reading into much more — delivering a compelling study of a female artist that touched on issues such as women's independence and the nature of madness. The Aug. 21 read-through of Evan Guilford-Blake's "An Uncommon Language" offered a look at the winning play in the players' biennial Promising Playwright Contest. Artistic director Beverly van Joolen said there were 102 applicants whose works were read before narrowing the list "to five extraordinary finalists, and the committee was unanimous in its choice of Guilford-Blake's play that really glowed.

Wyatt Cameron "Cammy" Slack, a retired Maryland National Bank executive and Korean War veteran, died July 1 of respiratory failure at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson. The Blakehurst retirement community resident was 83. The son of a physician and a homemaker, Mr. Slack, who never used his first name, was born in Baltimore and raised in Guilford. He was a 1946 graduate of Gilman School and earned a bachelor's degree in 1950 from Princeton University. Mr. Slack joined the Marine Corps after college, rising to captain as an artillery specialist while serving at Quantico, Va., Fort Sill, Okla., and Camp Lejeune, N.C. He remained a Marine reservist until his discharge in 1958.

As I write, the sun is shining and it's a beautiful day in Guilford. Schools are recessed, the summer solstice has passed, and vacations are on the horizon. We look forward to the delights that the season provides. Held on a Sunday afternoon in June, the Baltimore Symphony Associates "Wine Event" at the home of Ellen and Geoff Lord was well-attended by about 50 partygoers — music lovers all — assembled to benefit Baltimore's acclaimed symphony orchestra. Ellen and Geoff prepared a beautiful setting , with floral arrangements and a beautiful centerpiece on the dining room table.

In his poem “Mending Wall,” Robert Frost said, “Good fences make good neighbors.” I say: sometimes. Take three, relatively new fences spotted nearby in the city. One is at Greenmount Avenue and 39 th Street. It is a heavy, gray rock wall that looks as if might well belong at a fortress. I understand why someone would build it at that busy corner, where speeding cars are likely to end up in the front yard or, worse, hit the house. Still, it is massive and looks more fitting for a medieval property than a 21 st century urban home.

A man whose suspended sentence in an armed holdup in Guilford three years ago became emblematic of problems with the city's criminal justice system pleaded guilty Thursday to two more violent attacks in the North Baltimore neighborhood and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. "You are a menace to the community," Circuit Judge Lawrence P. Fletcher-Hill told 21-year-old John Couplin. "The only thing that I can do is isolate you from the community. … There's a possibility you will rehabilitate.