Odessa

"Myth of the Welfare Queen," by David Zucchino, Scribner, 368 pages. $25.The story of women on welfare is not narrative friendly. To borrow a famous phrase, life on public assistance is not one thing after another, it's the same damn thing over and over again. Sometimes, just getting through the day can be a triumph, especially late in the month.Yet despite the built-in limitation, this book is a page-turner, a tour de force in reporting on the real women (and men) who rely on the patchwork of federal programs - Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income, USDA food stamps - that most of us know as simply as welfare.

On March 6, 2003 OLIVIA, Douglas High School Class of '36; mother of Delaphine Watts and Odessa B. Taylor; grandmother of Kevin Butler, Emmitt Taylor Jr., Samuel Taylor and Richardo Watts. Also survived by five great-grandchildren, one great-great-grandson, one sister Lucy Legion, one sister-in-law Eva Bowling Waters and other relatives. Friends may call at PHILLIPS FUNERAL HOME P.A. 1721-27 N. Monroe St. (Westwood Ave.) Monday after 11 A.M. Family will receive friends Tuesday at Ames United Methodist Church Carey and Baker Streets Tuesday 10:30 to 11 A.M. with funeral to follow.

Baltimore's Constellation Energy Group has agreed to sell a natural gas plant in west Texas to a municipal utility company in the state, contingent on the purchaser obtaining financing through the sale of municipal bonds, the company announced late Thursday. High Plains Diversified Energy Corporation, the utility of the West Texas Municipal Power Agency, would pay $185.3 million for the 550-megawatt Quail Run plant near Odessa if the sale goes through. The Quail Run plant was one of two Texas plants acquired by Constellation in May but the facility's location is far from the company's retail and wholesale customers and growth opportunities, said Kathleen W. Hyle, the company's senior vice president.

Over the course of four decades in journalism, I have seen perhaps a dozen news stories that I covered turned into what are called "docudramas" -- re-enacted film versions of actual events. Since these undertakings represent an odd blend of journalism, history and creative writing, I always await the result with much trepidation. I have found some of the "docudramas" to be factually faithful; others can only be called a deliberate distortion of history. But none has ever more skillfully captured the essence and ambience of the story than a film which has just opened at movie theaters across the country, called "The Long Walk Home."

'The Long Walk Home'Starring Whoopi Goldberg and Sissy Spacek.Directed by Richard Pearce.Released by Miramax.Rated PG.*** 1/2 Richard Pearce's magnificent "Long Walk Home" knows the most important thing about being politically correct: that it doesn't matter.What's so wonderful about the movie is the way in which, while moral, decent, on the right side, doing the right thing, blah blah, yawn and ZZZZZZ-zzzzzzzz, it doesn't forget to be a good movie.Set in Montgomery, Ala., in 1955, during the bus boycott that was the crucible of the Civil Rights movement, it tracks the play of this crisis across the lives of two families, one white, one black, united by a domestic utility.

Service to celebrate end of Cold WarThe Central Maryland Ecumenical Council is sponsoring a worship service to celebrate the end of the Cold War. The inspiration for the service is the strategic role of religious institutions in the fall of communism throughout Eastern and Central Europe.Representatives from each of those countries will participate in the service. They are executives from a small, burgeoning non-profit sector in their home countries who are visiting the United States to study non-profit management techniques at the Institute for Public Policy at Johns Hopkins University.

Chicago. -- Some Americans find it hard to accept the fact that we are not entirely in charge of the world's destiny. We are still the only superpower, but we have a new awareness of our own limited resources, and so do other nations. The ''leader of the free world'' may have to follow, on occasion, as well as lead.If that is true of us, imagine what psychic adjustment is going on in the former Soviet Union, and especially at its core, in Russia. That proud country has slipped from being the hub of a superpower, the adjudicator of the fates of others, into a beggar role on the world scene.

On July 3, 2003, ODESSA R. CAMPBELL On Tuesday friends may call at the Vaughn C. Greene Funeral Service, 5151 Baltimore National Pike (Rt. 40), from 4 to 8 P.M. On Wednesday the family will receive friends from 11 to 11:30 P.M., with services to follow. Inquiries to (410)233-2400.

You guys here in the States take your cars for granted, right? Big Chevys, cheap gas, drive-through pizza -- things like that. Now, let's see how you manage it the other way. What if you took a wrong exit and found yourself in Odessa, Ukraine. How do I know about it, you ask? Oh, believe me, I know -- I live there. So, got it started? Here we go.Well, a nice street, isn't it? Make a right here and then straight on. What do you mean the cars look old? You didn't see real old ones, like the one I have.

Wanda Feagen pulled on her blue United States Postal Service coat and a pair of thick black gloves shortly after 10 a.m. Saturday, blinking against a hard wind and waiting for her mail delivery truck to fill up on gas. "Hoo hoo!" she said of the cold weather. Feagen had just set out from the Gwynn Oak post office after cataloging mail since the start of her day at 7:30 a.m., and was on her way to the rolling residential hills nearby to begin her regular weekend delivery route.