Lake Erie

Thomas C. Gillmer, a noted naval architect and ship historian who designed both Prides of Baltimore, the schooner Lady Maryland and other period replica vessels, died of complications from dementia Dec. 16 at the Hospice of the Chesapeake's Mandarin House in Harwood. He was 98. Mr. Gillmer was born and raised in Warren, Ohio, not far from Lake Erie, where as a youngster he fell in love with boats and the water. "I first made model boats when I was a kid. I had a friend, an older fellow, who was from Down East, somewhere in Nova Scotia.

SCHENECTADY, N.Y. -- When the Erie Canal opened in 1825, it was a triumph of human invention, heralded from Buffalo to New York City. Cannons saluted passing boats. Fireworks and bonfires lighted the sky. And drinking, dancing and merrymaking overflowed its banks. But in this trading city along the Mohawk River, there were no cannon salutes or fireworks. Schenectady officials feared the canal would allow barges to float by their city and take away their prosperous riverfront business, so it was left to the students from Union College to fire off their muskets in welcome.

TILLSONBURG, Ontario -- Joe Strobel dreams marijuana dreams.It's not what you think.In Mr. Strobel's dream, the tobacco fields sloping up from the north shore of Lake Erie -- his fields and those of his neighbors -- are patched with dense stands of cannabis sativa ruffling in the wind. And it's all legal.The Canadian government is poised to make Mr. Strobel's dream come true, perhaps as early as this summer.For Mr. Strobel's marijuana -- or hemp, as he prefers to call it -- would be so low in tetrahydrocanna binol, or THC, the active ingredient in pot, that no one could get high smoking it. Instead, Mr. Strobel and the 11 other Ontario farmers in his consortium plan to sell their hemp fiber for processing into paper, rope, building materials and maybe even shirts and caps.

Dear Baltimore,Having a wonderful time. Wish you were here.Oh, wait, you are here. Thought we'd get away from it all by taking one of those $19 flights out here, but great minds apparently think alike -- the streets are overrun with people wearing the orange-and-black, you know, that hometown stuff that you only wear away from home.The natives are making us feel right at home. They've pointed us in the direction of their new ballpark -- which will open next year -- and told us it was patterned after Camden Yards.

BUFFALO, N.Y. - There probably is no other person who has had a greater impact on the city of Buffalo than Robert G. Wilmers. He's helped turn around a poorly performing urban elementary school, saved the philharmonic from bankruptcy, preserved a house built by Frank Lloyd Wright, worked to shave millions from the city's budget and pledged millions from his own pocket to improve the local zoo. Yet, most people in Buffalo don't know who he is. "Robert...

No one calls the War of 1812 America's finest hour. But it had its moments. Resentful over treatment by the British and determined to enhance national sovereignty, Henry Clay and a small group of "War Hawks" in the Twelfth Congress pushed an unprepared country into war. There was reason for resentment. For years, Britain, desperate for sailors in its mortal battle with Napoleon, had stopped American ships and impressed their seamen. Though in theory only British subjects were to be seized, an estimated 6,000 Americans were taken between 1803 and 1812.

There's a plan to chill Toronto with Lake Erie bottom water. Sounds fishy.

It started as the kind of delivery Pat Schoenberger, an Annapolis sea captain, had made many times: Pick up a client's motor sailboat, ferry it to Florida and return home in a few weeks' time. A brilliant morning sky beckoned as Schoenberger and Jim Southward, his friend and first mate, left Severn, Va., for Pensacola, Fla. Thirty-eight hours later, a Coast Guard helicopter rescued them off Cape Lookout, N.C., amid pounding rain, 55-knot winds, 30-foot waves and the sensation, Southward said, that the ocean was tossing their 15-ton craft, Andante II, "like a cork in a hot tub. " What happened in between was a story of how, even in an era of high-tech sea mapping and navigation, the wisdom of seasoned mariners still can be no match for an angry sea. Schoenberger, 38, and Southward, 40, seemed dazed and relieved in an interview as they sifted the choices they'd made along the way, including the one no sailor wants to make: to declare Mayday, call for rescue and abandon ship.

EC weighs retaliatory sanctionsThe European Community is considering returning fire in a possible trade war with the United States.The EC might retaliate against the U.S. for its decision Thursday to bar the awarding of $19 million in government contracts to European companies, officials said yesterday. The 12-nation trading bloc was considering slapping its own sanctions, worth roughly $15 million, on American firms doing business in Europe, the officials said.Allstate readies biggest U.S. IPOAllstate Corp.

Muriel F. "Mert" Bauer, a former aerospace industry mathematical engineer, died Saturdayfrom complications of a stroke at Ruxton Health and Rehabilitation of Pikesville. The longtime Randallstown resident was 85. Muriel Frances Switzer was born and raised in Niagara Falls, N.Y. After graduating from LaSalle High School in Niagara Falls in 1942, she earned a bachelor's degree in 1946 in mathematics from Lake Erie College in Painesville, Ohio. She began her career in the 1940s with Bell Aircraft Corp.