Nursery School

EVEN THOUGH the weather has been more than a little soggy this spring, the local baseball season is in full swing. More than 150 youngsters are planning to march in the Fort Smallwood Optimists' annual Little League Parade at 9 a.m. tomorrow.Marchers will assemble at Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2462, 1720 Bayside Beach Road, and march to Corey Park, adjacent to Fort Smallwood Elementary School on Poplar Ridge Road.Joining the T-ball, softball and hardball players and coaches will be , , Majorette and Drum Corps and .Members of the K-9 Corps will give a demonstration at 10 a.m. on the field.

Dr. Gloria Lea Bledsoe, a retired Baltimore County guidance counselor who established an Oldfields School early-childhood education program, died of cancer May 30 at Glen Meadows Assisted Living. She was 85 and lived in Towson for many years. Born Gloria Lea Whittle in Baltimore and raised on LaPaix Lane, she was a 1945 graduate of Notre Dame Preparatory School. After raising her family, she began teaching at Oldfields School in 1979. She established a nursery school along with an early-childhood education program, family members said.

BOSTON -- At first I dismissed this story as too New York. Only in New York do limos line up outside preschools that cost $14,400 a year and are harder to get into than Harvard. Only in New York is it plausible that a $20 million-a-year Wall Street analyst would goose up the rating of a stock so the boss would help get his 2-year-old twins into the right nursery school. Only in New York would there be a "right" nursery school, for that matter, the 92nd Street Y, a place where Woody Allen's kid was accepted and Madonna's kid was rejected.

Edna A. RedmondRan nursery schoolEdna A. Redmond, a retired nursery school director who was active in church work, died Friday of congestive heart failure at the Cherrywood Manor Nursing Home in Reisterstown. She was 97.A resident of Northwest Baltimore, she retired as director of the Interdenominational Nursery School in 1977, the year the school, which was located at Union Memorial United Methodist Church, closed.She joined the faculty of the school when it was started in 1943 at the old Orchard Street United Methodist Church.

John Cook got the warning flier from his foreman at work. Nancy Winter's child brought it home from nursery school. It crops up in pediatricians' waiting rooms and on computer bulletin boards.It's known as the Blue Star Letter.Warning that persons unknown are selling a temporary tattoo in the shape of a blue star that's soaked in the hallucinogen LSD, it's targeted primarily at families of preschool and elementary school children.It causes outbreaks of fear and concern among parents. It also causes headaches for police and drug abuse officials in Maryland and across the country.

I think September is good for us. It's a kind of linchpin on the calendar, holding us together while we slide from summer's heat to winter's cold.September is a nice transitional month, marking the end of summer agendas and the start of new beginnings, new goals.The colors of our clothes start to change just as the colors of the leaves change. September is one of those months where we switch gears in our daily routines. It's a time of renewal, adventure and promise -- the first day of school.

A private Annapolis-area elementary school is the first beneficiary of an area TV station's scaled-down version of the network show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, winning $150,000 in repairs, if not a visit from spiky-haired host Ty Pennington. This summer, Naval Academy Primary School is getting much-needed repairs of roof leaks, toilet backups and other problems, said Belinda Lee, project manager for Washington ABC affiliate WJLA. She is an alumna of the school. Built Upon a Dream, which will bring makeovers to nonprofit organizations in the D.C. metropolitan area - in the spirit of the successful TV series - will not be its own series.

LIKE SOMEONE daydreaming about how to spend a lottery jackpot, I know just what I would buy with the $254 million Baltimore schools may win during this legislative session.First, I would be disappointed that I wasn't getting all the money at once, but over five years, as is the case with this proposed remedy for schools considered to be almost criminally inadequate.But I would quickly adjust my attitude because $50 million a year is better than nothing and it is better than spending months and millions of dollars in court trying to defend a school system whose failings are so quantifiable.

Rabbi Kenneth Cohen recently presented Jewish National Girl Scout Committee Recognition Pin awards to Columbia Scouts who worked to complete the requirements for the recognition. Brownie Scouts Heather Kersey and Elise Minsky each received the Lehavah (Flame) award while Rachel and Shayna Freedman, Jennifer Kersey and Ilyse Reid each received the Bat Award for Junior Scouts.*Kings Contrivance residents are reminded that Aug. 12 is the date of the Village Pool Party, from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m., at Dickinson Pool, 7425 Weatherworn Way.Tickets are limited for the evening of free food, beverages and games and can be obtained at Amherst House with resident identification.

David Caropresi, who is 3, sits on a raised stenographer's chair in his family's upstairs office, using the computer to play with dinosaur software, clicking the computer's mouse to make things happen.He has used the program since he was 26 months old, and "by the time he was 2 1/2 , he could name six or seven dinosaurs -- before he could count to 10," said his mother, Christine Caropresi, a corporate relocation specialist in Wexford, Pa.He has some difficulty moving the mouse where he wants it, she said, but no problems exploring the software at his own speed.