Hamlin

Except for an occasional floating plastic soda bottle and some suspicious-looking white foam, yesterday's canoe and kayak race down the Jones Falls was remarkably un-city like. The water wasn't sparkling blue. But the lush green watershed's river along the expressway, among Baltimore's best-kept secrets, made for a pleasant ride, competitors said. A few even went swimming. Maybe the swimming wasn't intentional. The 10-foot drop at Round Falls near Wyman Park was harder to negotiate than a few people expected.

On June 17, 2003, MELANIE FAITH(nee Parrish) beloved daughter of Gerald Leon Parrish Sr., and Suzanne Irey Parrish, devoted wife of Kenley Allen Hamlin II, mother of Courtney Faith Hamlin, sister of Gerald L. Parrish Jr., and David P. Parrish. Services from the ELINE FUNERAL HOME, 11824 Reisterstown Road (at Franklin Boulevard) Thursday 1 P.M. Interment Evergreen Memorial Gardens. Friends may call Wednesday 3 to 5 and 7 to 9 P.M. If desired, donations may be made to the American Cancer Society, 8219 Town Centre Drive, POB 43025, Baltimore, MD, 21236-0025.

Two men were found shot to death in a West Baltimore apartment Sunday night, bringing the city's homicide total to within striking distance of last year's 11-year low of 261. Police said that Kiari Cromwell, 23, and Derek Hamlin, 24, died of multiple gunshot wounds inside Cromwell's apartment in the 800 block of W. Lexington St. Police were summoned to the apartment at 11:20 p.m., and medics pronounced the men dead at the scene. Detectives said yesterday afternoon that they were searching for suspects.

The Penguin Classic Baby Name Book: 2,000 Names from the World's Great Literature, by Grace Hamlin (Penguin, 496 pages, $14). In an American era in which -- it seems to me -- one out of three males is named Michael and almost all young women are called Tiffany, the challenge to name newborns with anything like dignity is acute. Any parent who has not enlisted in the Cult of Coinage will do well to turn to the sources of history and culture -- great literature. Grace Hamlin has done an ecstatic job of mining the canon -- from the Old Testament (Elizabeth: "promised to God" from Hebrew)

Baltimore police recovered four weapons Friday and arrested two men wanted in connection with a shooting Thursday that wounded a homicide suspect and a 12-year-old girl. Darnell Wade, 25, and Dartaniyan Barnes, 20, were charged with weapons possession and attempted first-degree murder Friday after the double shooting at noon Thursday in the 1200 block of Poplar Grove St. The 12-year-old girl was grazed by a bullet and taken to St. Agnes HealthCare, where she was treated and released. Police said the girl was accidentally hit when two gunman fired at Dennis Hamlin, 19. Hamlin, of the 3700 block of Bell Ave., was transported to an area hospital, where he underwent surgery to remove a bullet just above the knee, police said yesterday.

The recent visit of the tall ships may have stirred memories in older Baltimoreans of the days when wooden-hulled ships with tall masts and white sails could still be seen riding at anchor or docked at harbor piers. By the late 1930s, the fleet of four-masted Baltimore-registered schooners, which numbered 100 before World War I, was represented by two floating anachronisms, the Doris Hamlin and Albert F. Paul, windjammers that continued sailing well into the age of steam. "The vessels could always be seen discharging lumber or logwood, loading fertilizer materials or bricks, anchored off Riverview, moored in Jones Falls at Pratt Street, or tied up at the Redman-Vane or old Woodall shipyards," wrote noted Chesapeake Bay ship historian Robert H. Burgess in a Sunday Sun Magazine article in 1966.

BLOOMFIELD, N.Y. - A Vietnam veteran and gulf war fighter pilot, downed by what he sees as reverse sex discrimination, is locked in a new battle, one to salvage his career and reputation.Col. David Hamlin Jr., 52, was stripped of command of the Syracuse-based 174th Fighter Wing of the New York Air National Guard in November. A board of inquiry found that he had allowed the training of Maj. Jacquelyn S. Parker to be dragged out so long that she resigned in frustration.He was also denied promotion to brigadier general and stricken from the Guard rolls for fostering "an atmosphere permitting acts of gender-based discrimination and harassment."

Shakespeare's "Henry V" is a politically malleable play. It can be staged as a pro-war paean to patriotism -- the 1944 Laurence Olivier film is the most famous example -- or as an anti-war testament, as was often the case with productions during the Vietnam War era.Director Michael Kahn staged one of the better known anti-war interpretations in 1969. But his current production at Washington's Shakespeare Theatre occupies more neutral ground, focusing more on the nature of the king than on the philosophical and political issues of war.Pulling this off demands a subtle, accomplished performer in the title role.

Archie Wannamaker, a standout running back at Mount St. Joseph, has been charged with burglarizing a Baltimore County home, police said.Wannamaker, 18, a record-setting running back and a potential All-Metro Player of the Year, was arrested Nov. 5 by Baltimore County police, who allege he broke into a home in the Randallstown area. He was charged with first-degree burglary and malicious destruction of property, according to court records.Mount St. Joseph football coach Mike Working would not comment.

SOMERS POINT, N.J. -- To the approval of the playing partners she had just defeated and almost everyone else on the grounds of the Greater Bay Resort & Country Club, Shelley Hamlin won the ShopRite LPGA Classic yesterday in record style.Hamlin rolled birdie putts in on the 15th and 17th holes to grab a two-shot victory over three players, her second win in the nearly two years since she had breast cancer diagnosed and underwent a modified radical mastectomy.After Hamlin hustled to her ball and tapped in the final stroke of her 1-under-par 70 to complete her wire-to-wire win, the gallery applause swelled.