Janitor

Two youths tried to come up with their own Blue Light Special in the shotgun department at an East Baltimore Kmart last night.The two 15-year-olds hid inside the Kmart store in the Parkside Shopping Center in the 5100 block of Sinclair Lane when it closed at 8 p.m., according to city police spokesman Sam Ringgold. The youths loaded shotguns and ammunition into a shopping cart. The plot fell apart when the burglars were discovered by a janitor at 9:15 p.m. The janitor had a brief discussion with the two youths, fled and hid in the store's cafeteria, where he called police.

In Umar Farooq's recent letter concerning Occupy Baltimore ("Occupy Baltimore: The Sun doesn't get it," Oct. 10), he states that The Sun's reporters wouldn't understand the concerns of the protesters. On the contrary, I believe that a reporter for the Sun would understand them all too well. The lament that the janitor who sweeps the stands after a football game makes too little money is nothing new. There's a mechanism by which the wages of that janitor can be raised, and that would be to raise the minimum wage.

BERLIN -- An 18-year-old loner wearing an explosives belt and firing guns stormed his old junior high school yesterday in western Germany, shooting four students and a janitor before killing himself as police surrounded the building. The man, identified only as Sebastian B., rushed the Geschwister-Scholl school in Emsdetten about 9:30 a.m. with pistols, rifles and smoke canisters. Police said he slightly wounded four students and critically injured a janitor. A teacher, five pupils and 16 police officers were treated for smoke inhalation.

IN SCENE One of "Golden Years" -- oops, make that "Stephen King's Golden Years" -- an actor obviously made up to look much older than he is comes to work as a janitor at some sort of agricultural research facility that has the security of a nuclear silo.Though he is clearly a bright, alert fellow, there is much talk of his advanced age -- nearly 71. And, a few scenes down the line, he is even forced into retirement by a bad guy military boss citing a close failure on an eye exam, as if eagle eyesight is important for the clean-up crew.

The Flying Tongues, Baltimore's homegrown comedy improv troupe, has taken a stab at a more predictable format, creating its first fully scripted production.The result, "Punch the Clock" -- currently at the Theatre Project -- suggests that though the Tongues may have licked improvisation, these wacky guys have a ways to go when it comes to more traditional scripted comedy.Written by the Tongues -- Joe Brady, Jimi Kinstle, Larry Malkus and Bruce Nelson -- who also perform, along with a trio of guest actors, "Punch the Clock" is about a typical day in an office building in a town called Orderville.

THOUGH THE CONCEPT is borrowed, Fox's debut in the television movie business has something unusual in a made-for-TV comedy film: laughs. Not chuckles or warm smiles or wry grins, but actual out-and-out laughs.It also has George Carlin, which accounts for a great deal in the guffaw department."Working Trash," which will be on Channel 45 (WBFF) at 8 o'clock tonight, is a twist on the theme of Mike Nichols' "Working Girl." Then again, that was a twist on the theme of Cinderella, so who's keeping score, anyway?

We've all heard that art imitates life, but what if it imitates trash? Or a table? Or a bathtub? A janitor at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland recently offered a critique, albeit inadvertently, of a contemporary work on view in the school's Gormley Gallery: He threw out part of the art. It was an accident. The portion of the artwork that was thrown away was, after all, a used paper cup that had been placed on the floor. Roland Thomas, a seven-year veteran of the college's custodial staff, explains it like this: "It's, um ... I didn't think it was art."

When Donzella Curtis accepted her associate's degree in counseling at Merriweather Post Pavilion yesterday, she was the first Howard Community College alumna to graduate without having read a textbook, homework assignment or exam.Diagnosed with dyslexia so severe that she has to ask strangers in stores to read greeting cards to her, Curtis once dismissed her dreams of college and went to work as a janitor. Even then, her inability to read stymied her career.But thanks to a new computer that converts books, mail -- anything written -- into speech, the 33-year-old Columbia resident has accumulated a 3.52 grade point average, without a C, and graduated with honors with 365 fellow graduates.

Some people crave variety, others of us are satisfied with sameness. Some people are forever searching for a new way, a way they've never gone before; others of us are happy doing it the way we've always done it. It takes, I am glad to say, all kinds.Walking with my little dog, I have a fixed routine. It pleases me, and I think it pleases him. His manner as we walk together -- his steady stride, the proud way he holds his shaggy head and tail -- seems confident, happy. As for me, I believe I could find the way with my eyes shut, as if my feet all these years had been carving ruts in the road.

An article in the April 12, 1913, edition of The Argus reported on the surprising culprit after a church's interior was found damaged. What was at first supposed to be the work of vandals, bent on spite-work, at the Catonsville Presbyterian Church last week, when some of the carpet was ripped up and torn, the wires of a stereopticon machine cut and the doors badly mutilated, proved to be the work of a stray dog which was imprisoned in...