Hagen

COLLEGE PARK -- Despite sitting out a couple of practices last week because of it, Maryland center Joe Smith doesn't seem to be bothered too much by the jammed big toe on his right foot.Smith, a consensus preseason All-American going into his sophomore year, dominated the team's intrasquad scrimmage yesterday. Though he didn't put up 40 points on 16-for-17 shooting as he did two weeks ago, the rest of the Terrapins couldn't stop him.Playing against Smith might help prepare junior Mario Lucas or freshman Rodney Elliott, but does it help get Smith ready for the season?

He's a gem so farCaught with their finances down, the Toronto Argonauts asked veteran quarterback John Congemi to take a significant pay cut a year ago. Rather than accept less than he made as a rookie, Congemi asked for his release, then sat out the 1993 season.Now he's in Baltimore trying to win the backup job to another ex-Argo, Tracy Ham. Congemi hasn't lost his touch. He's thrown exceptionally well through four days of camp.Because of an injury and his size (5 feet 11, 190), Congemi went to the Canadian Football League from Pitt in 1987.

LOCAL FILMMAKER John Waters, rumored to be working on his hush-hush new film project, is slated to host the first Hair Ball, a hair-raising event for Baltimore's art community, on April 27 at the Maryland Art Place at 218 W. Saratoga St.Tickets are $10 for MAP members and $15 for the public, which should guarantee a sellout. Make checks payable to MAP and send by April 12; a guest list will be held at the door.Meanwhile, Waters fans might want to mark April 4 on their calendars, when the filmmaker and noted raconteur returns to the Comedy Factory Outlet to reveal more of his "obsessions."

On August 22, 2003, EDWARD A. HAGENS, beloved husband of the late Frances Hagens (nee Mugowski), devoted father of Fran Smither and the late Edward Hagens, Jr., loving brother-in-law of Helen Jolley and Sister Mary Catherine, dear grandfather of Dawn Abell and Eddie Hagens and great-grandfather of Amanda and Jacob Abell, loving uncle of Daniel Jolley. Relatives and friends are invited to call at the Schimunek Funeral Home, Inc., 3331 Brehms Lane, (at Mannasota and Erdman Avenues), on Sunday and Monday from 2 til 4 and 7 til 9 P.M. A Funeral Mass will be held on Tuesday at the Shrine of the Little Flower at 10 A.M. Interment Holy Rosary Cemetery.

Edward A. Hagens Sr., who worked 40 years at the now-defunct Armco Steel Corp. in East Baltimore, died Friday of complications from Alzheimer's disease at the Perring Parkway Center. He was 88. Born on Exeter Street in Baltimore's Oldtown section, he attended Mount St. Joseph High School, where he played varsity baseball and basketball. Mr. Hagens was drafted into the Army near the end of World War II. He served on Okinawa, where he located unexploded mines and destroyed them. For 40 years, he worked at the Armco plant on Edison Highway near Monument Street.

Called to action by the blast of a horn, more than 30 yapping spotted hounds spill down a hill, bound across a country road, leap a fence and rush a faded winter field. On the hound's heels are about two dozen hunters on horseback, men and women in britches and tweed and velvet hats. Motorists, what few there are this deep in the country on a hushed winter morning, a weekday, are slow to take it in. Some stop altogether. For it's something to behold, this pageant of beasts and man -- a scene from another time, another place.

As the title character in Nicholas Wright's "Mrs. Klein," the famed Uta Hagen is, in a sense, portraying two women.As Melanie Klein, the pioneering Viennese-born child psychoanalyst, Hagen speaks in authoritarian tones, gestures forcefully and sits ramrod straight. In contrast, as Melanie Klein, a mother about to attend her son's funeral, she frequently lapses into sniveling tears and slumps in a chair as if fighting a losing battle against both gravity and her emotions.Granted, both sides of Klein's egotistical personality are present in Nicholas Wright's disturbing psychological drama, at Washington's Kennedy Center as part of a limited, post-New York tour.

It's easy to tell that actress Uta Hagen is an excellent teacher.She fervently imparts information and opinions on subjects ranging from theater as a religious vocation to blacklisting in the McCarthy era to psychoanalysis.Described in People magazine earlier this year as "arguably America's greatest living stage actress" and listed in a recent issue of Theater Week as one of the top 10 female stars of the year, Hagen, 77, has never become a household name, probably because she has shunned movies and favored the stage.

Nowadays, it is a rare treat to see the word coddies on a menu, but not so long ago this uniquely Baltimore food was as close as your corner store, malt shop or confectionery. Coddies are not to be confused with cod cakes. While recipes for coddies vary, a coddie can be best described as a hand-formed, gently seasoned mashed-potato-and-cracker mixture that is always deep-fried and traditionally served between two saltine crackers topped with yellow mustard. It contains little or no cod. Served at room temperature, today's coddies are made slightly larger than in the past, hanging over the sides of the saltines by one-half inch all around.

In July 1974, I went to the small town of Pekin, Ill., with a group of Chinese-Americans from Chicago who were offended by the name of Pekin's high school football team.Pekin, named for the Chinese city of Peking, called its team the "Chinks."The students at Pekin High told the visitors that they loved their Chinks and that to them it was a name of honor and respect and no harm was intended.The Chinese-Americans argued that regardless of how it was intended, the name was degrading and racist and should be changed.