Mountains

I say leave our mountains alone ( "Controversy over 'Negro Mountain' reveals urban-rural divide," Feb. 20)! A simple solution could be to add an explanation of the history of the name. It is really silly to change the names of Polish and Big Savage mountains also. In this time of Maryland's money problems, people without jobs, homeless folks, hungry children, firemen, policemen and teachers losing their jobs, it seems that using much needed money on this is a terrible waste. Joan Lease, Cumberland

Denver's Jill Remenapp had no idea she was on her way to a Mountain Pacific Sports Federation record when she handed out nine assists in the No. 15 Pioneers' 20-9 win over St. Mary's (Cal.) on Sunday afternoon. “I didn't realize I was on such a roll,” the Century graduate said. “At halftime, Josie Owen, our grad assistant coach, said, 'Jill, you have six assists.' I was like, 'What?' because when I'm in the game I'm not thinking, 'Oh I had another assist.' Plus, you don't know whether you're going to get recorded for it. But [the St. Mary's defenders]

Sergei Bodrov has said that he wants his "Prisoner of the Mountains," which opens today at the Charles, to be a universal story, not a Chechen story. It is universal, too, except possibly in a way that Bodrov never realized: It's universal in its evocation of the power of the star to illuminate material to an extraordinary degree.This is particularly interesting here because the star is pure: He's got his charisma, and that's it. No covers of Premiere, no Cowan & Rogers flacking for him, nobody flogging phoners with the taco-circuit dailies.

You don't need to be a scratch golfer to enjoy Mountain Branch Grille & Pub. Though the restaurant is located on the grounds of Mountain Branch Golf Club in Joppa, it is open to golfers and non-golfers alike (the course is open to the public, too, and golf memberships are also available). It's no surprise that Mountain Branch is a popular spot for weddings: The space - with exposed rafters, stone accents and enormous windows overlooking the course - is jaw-dropping. Fortunately, the food and service are just as impressive.

The eternal summer dilemma -- the mountains or the shore -- occurs for presidents as well as lesser mortals. Bill Clinton settled it in what is becoming his trademark way. He went to both. In the gusher of criticism being leveled at him for spending last week at that very symbol of Eastern Establishment privilege and leisure, Martha's Vineyard, it is being overlooked that he began his vacation the week before in modest digs at Beaver Lake on the Ozarks Plateau in his home state."Modest" is a relative term.

The pitcher's mother was on the phone. "There's this sports bar with a satellite dish here," Ellie Mussina was saying yesterday, "and the man who owns it went to school with my husband, and he opened up early Sunday so we could see the game. There were, oh, maybe a hundred people there. Just about anyone who'd had anything to do with Mike."A hundred people crammed into a sports bar in a little town in the middle of Pennsylvania, near Williamsport, in Joe Paterno country, watching an epochal event in their lives: one of their own blood pitching in the major leagues for the first time, for the Orioles, against the White Sox. And the pitcher's mother sidled over to one of his high school coaches.

TEPOZTLAN, Mexico -- Unless you have Aztecs in your family tree, you might find this city's name hard to pronounce. But so much else about the city is easy, or irresistible. The Aztec echoes, the steam baths, the ice cream, the pyramid, even the corn smut. Tepoztlan -- pronounced teh-pose-LAWN -- is a smallish city that sits in a lush valley rimmed by mountains that appear to have been smuggled out of a Chinese landscape painting. At its center, a 16th-century convent and church rise above a marketplace full of residents making tortillas, nibbling on fried grasshoppers and licking locally concocted sherbets.

On his only day off during the 23 days of the Tour de France, Greg LeMond took a hard two-hour bicycle ride in the foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains."

CRAWFORD NOTCH, N.H. - At one end of the building, a mass of rambunctious sixth-graders is learning about geology. At the other, a group from Elderhostel, which runs programs for people 55 and over, readies for its first overnight backpacking trip into the White Mountains. And in between, a hand-lettered sign on the otherwise-bare bulletin board issues this disclaimer: "When it came down to the last minute, we could either make the beds or finish the signs ... " All 122 beds at the Appalachian Mountain Club's new Highland Center are in proper order, I'm pleased to say. The AMC is known for maintaining the hut system in the mountains and for its hiker-friendly Joe Dodge Lodge at the base of 6,288-foot Mount Washington.

"East of the Mountains," by David Guterson. Harcourt Brace. 288 pages. $25.One of the great lines in contemporary literature graces the final page of the first-novel phenomenon, "Snow Falling on Cedars." "(Ishmael) understood this, too": David Guterson wrote at the close of his mystery, "that accident ruled every corner of the universe except the chambers of the human heart."It was Guterson's achievement, with "Snow," to explore matters of law and landscape, passion and history, within a whodunit framework that kept its readers hungrily turning its pages.

When Mount St. Mary's secured a 10-9 upset of Northeast Conference leader Bryant last Saturday, coach Tom Gravante was gratified to see the team play with the kind of intensity, concentration and decision making he thought would be absent after the players learned that they were eliminated from contention for a spot in the four-team conference tournament. But the Mountaineers' effort left Gravante wondering what might have been if they had played that well in conference losses to Sacred Heart (14-5 on March 30)

Mountain Road (MD 177) in Pasadena was closed in both directions on Tuesday morning as Anne Arundel County Fire Department officials investigated what it deemed was a suspicious item near a dumpster, but about an hour later county police said the state highway had been reopened after the item was deemed safe. The state Department of Transportation reported at 9:11 a.m., that MD 177 was closed in both directions. Anne Arundel County Fire Department Division Chief Keith Swindle said that MD 177 between Postal Court and Magothy Beach Road was closed as state and local fire officials investigated the scene.

Last Sunday's 12-11 loss to Robert Morris saddled Mount St. Mary's with a winless record in the Northeast Conference and a spring without a berth in the league tournament. The Mountaineers (4-9 overall and 0-3 in the conference) could end the regular season with victories over Bryant (5-8, 3-0) this Saturday and Wagner (1-10, 0-3) on April 27, but they would be unable to vault over the Colonials (6-5, 2-1), Quinnipiac (5-6, 2-1) and Sacred Heart (2-9, 2-1) as all three of those teams own the head-to-head tiebreaker over Mount St. Mary's.

When Secret Mountains released its long-awaited first album, "Rainer," in February, the band seemed poised to make a leap to higher prominince in the indie music world. The shoegazed-inspired Baltimore sextet had already garnered positive write-ups from online tastemakers Stereogum and Pitchfork. Even the New York Times joined in the praise with a concert review in 2011. The band achieved all of this without a full-length album to its name. But lately, things have been relatively quiet with the band, and last week, singer Kelly Laughlin announced to The Baltimore Sun why: She had left Secret Mountains right before "Rainer" was released.

The Mount St. Mary's team that pulled off impressive victories over Bucknell and Delaware in February seems like a distant memory now. That's because the Mountaineers have dropped their last four contests, including opening play in the Northeast Conference with back-to-back losses to Sacred Heart and Quinnipiac. The team's numbers have precipitously declined since diving into the conference schedule. The offense is averaging more than three goals fewer (6.5 goals from 10.7), the defense is just as porous (13 goals from 13.3)

Mount St. Mary's offense has enjoyed better days. After averaging 11 goals in the first nine contests, the unit is averaging just 6.5 goals in befuddling losses to UMBC and Sacred Heart in back-to-back Saturdays. Fifth-year senior attackman Brett Schmidt has scored two goals each in the setbacks, but senior attackman Andrew Scalley has scored just once while assisting on four goals. Fifth-year senior attackman Cody Lehrer has scored a goal in each game, but has zero assists. “I just think they've lost their chemistry a little bit,” coach Tom Gravante said Friday morning as the Mountaineers traveled to their next game against Quinnipiac.

The Walters Art Gallery has had a great collection of Chinese porcelain going back to when William Walters omnivorously bought in this field 100 years ago. What it hasn't had is a great Chinese handscroll to complement all that porcelain. Now it does.A recently acquired Ch'ing dynasty handscroll by Wang Yuan-ch'i, "Free Spirits Among Streams and Mountains," has been -unrolled as the centerpiece for a focus exhibit. Besides this celebrated 1684 handscroll, the exhibit features works by others, including the artist's great-grandson, Wang Ch'en.

The trip was jinxed from the start.For two years, in point of fact. Ever since our small band of would-be mountain climbers planned to scale Pikes Peak on the Fourth of July 1997.What could be more patriotic? Climbing the well-worn trail up the mountain that inspired "America the Beautiful," we'd be doing that particularly American thing -- hard stuff (climbing 12 miles and 7,000 feet up) the relatively easy way.That was before Candy's dad died and Ernie's back went out and other events cropped up to delay the trip -- in July 1997 and again in July 1998.

Typically, a singer is excited to discuss the ins and outs of her band's debut album, especially a well-received, highly anticipated one like Secret Mountains' "Rainer. " But today, singer Kelly Laughlin announced she left the Baltimore sextet earlier this year, right before "Rainer" was released in late February. The 21-year-old Laughlin, who graduates from the Maryland Institute College of Art with a degree in printmaking next month, says there were many factors that led to her decision (including the possibility of enrolling in graduate school and the fact that two band members live in New York)

After finishing the last two years without advancing to the NCAA tournament, Mount St. Mary's finally has an opportunity to play in the coveted postseason. For the first time in its three-year existence, the Northeast Conference (NEC) has an automatic qualifier that goes to the champion of the league tournament. And as the Mountaineers (4-6) prepare to dive into conference play with a home contest against Sacred Heart (0-8) this Saturday, the carrot of an automatic qualifier has added a little spice to the team's next five games.