I Heard

A Baltimore County police officer shot and seriously wounded a man who is accused of lunging at the officer with the pointed end of a broken broom handle yesterday morning. The incident began just before 6 a.m. when police received several calls from the Kingsley Park Apartments in Middle River about a man possibly assaulting residents and breaking windows. One screaming woman said a man was trying to break into her apartment, police said. Officers were sent to the 1600 block of Dartford Road, where they found Eugene William Rucker, 32, of no fixed address carrying two broom handles, one of which had been sharpened.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - I was riding the elevator the other day in my hotel when a Saudi gentleman got in on the floor below me. He was wearing a traditional Saudi robe and red headdress, and I was in a suit and tie. He looked me up and down for a second, before asking, "American?" Yes, I nodded. Then, reaching out his huge hand to me and smiling warmly, he said, "Saudi." It was a kind gesture, meant to say, "We still like you - we hope you still like us." Over eight days of discussions here I've had many memorable encounters, not all so friendly.

Editor's note: In the late 1800s, one courageous woman claims her share of the Oklahoma Territory, where free land offers new opportunities for African-Americans. I have heard of a land Where the earth is red with promises Where the redbud trees catch the light And throw it in a game of sunbeams and shadow Back and forth to the cottonwood trees I have heard of a land Where a pioneer only has to lift up her feet To cast her eyes on the rocks That fertile earth, the laughing creek Lift up her feet running for the land As though running for her life And in the running claim it The stake is life and the work that goes into it I have head of a land Where the cottonwood trees are innocent Where the coyote's call is a lullaby at night And the land runs on forever And a woman can plant her crop and walk all day and never come to the end of it. I have heard of a land Where the imagination has no fences Where what is dreamed one night Is accomplished the next day I have heard of a land where the flapjacks Spread out big as wagon wheels Where the butter is the color of melted sun And the syrup is honey Stirred thick by a thousand honey bees I have heard of a land Where winter brings storm warnings And pioneers wonder whether The scissortail in spring will ever sing I have heard of a land where the children Swing in homemade swings strung from The strong limbs of trees I have heard of a land Where the crickets skirl in harmony And babies wrapped to their mother's backs in the...

"You seem much better this week." "Better, doctor, yes ..." "Can you talk about why?" "In a word, in one wonderful word, doctor: Schadenfreude." "A good word -""- excellent word, only the Germans - ah, but that's always so hard to say, isn't it? I mean, who else would think to couple Schaden, "to harm," with freude, "joy," and come up with exactly why it is that the more the NASDAQ falls the better I feel. Schadenfreude: glee at another's misfortune." "The dot-coms' demise, you mean ... " "Yes, yes, yes. I can breathe again.

THE LAST Sunday in February, a man was shot down in front of my rowhouse in Park Heights, about four blocks south of the world-famous Pimlico Race Course. The victim, Gregory Saunders, was not world-famous. From Edmondson Village, Saunders made his way over to the corner of Sumter Avenue and Pimlico Road late Saturday night. That corner, and another a block away, at Wylie Avenue and Pimlico Road, are notorious drug-trafficking corners. I heard loud voices coming from the street in front of my house, followed by five shots.

As folks who have been off work tend to do, I spent the first few days back on the job swapping vacation stories. What interested me were stories of vacation disasters, the low points rather than the highlights of leave. As I quizzed colleagues about their troubles in leisure land, I heard a few tales of woe. I heard about a dad who temporarily lost a daughter in the London subway system when they accidentally took different trains. They were reunited a few trains later. I heard about a dad who stuffed his family into a van and headed across America only to be sidelined for several days in Oklahoma City while a mechanic rebuilt the transmission.

SEVEN YEARS AGO, after a lifetime of watching guns in the movies and on TV, I met the real thing. It was past midnight. I was unloading my car in Durham, N.C., after returning from a Memorial Day weekend away. I worked quickly, moving from the unlocked car through a propped open screen door and into my apartment. One other car was parked behind the old house where I rented. I was rounding the front of the car at a trot when I saw him - a man walking up the side of the parking lot across the alley.

Errict Rhett likes to play chess with Priest Holmes, "five hours a day, five hours a night." He never imagined that his younger teammate would checkmate him last season, both on and off the field.Former coach Ted Marchibroda held all the pieces, making Holmes his knight and Rhett his pawn. Rhett started the Ravens' first two games, then was unable to make a move.Standing shirtless in the end zone at Western Maryland College after yesterday's morning practice, the six-year veteran recalled his failure to connect with Marchibroda, and spoke of a new beginning under Brian Billick.

A friend of two women slain in 1993 in a Severn home gave prosecutors yesterday the most damning words against Darris A. Ware, the man accused in the killing: The friend told an Anne Arundel County Circuit Court jury that while on the telephone with one of the victims, he learned that Ware was at the house, then heard screams and gunfire before being disconnected.Edward Love Anderson's testimony is critical: Only it puts Ware, 28, at the scene, linking him to the fatal gunshots. No physical evidence, such as fingerprints, places Ware there.

FOR SEVERAL agonizing months now, I have been agonizing over the agonizing question of whether or not I should run for president. If I had to describe this agonizing process in one word, that word would be: "hard." I have wrestled with many agonizing questions, such as: Do I have any views? If so, what are they? Can I stand harsh media scrutiny? What if Bob Woodward of the Washington Post starts poking around in my past and finds out about certain incidents that I would rather not see rehashed, such as the 1961 explosion, never fully explained, of a boy's-room toilet at Harold C. Crittenden Junior High School?