Ontario

NEW LONDON, Prince Edward Island - The portrait, dated 1603, shows a man on the cusp of middle age, blue-green eyes sharp with intelligence, lips bent in faint smile, bushy auburn hair just starting to recede from a forehead that somehow seems so familiar. What may be the only existing portrait of William Shakespeare painted during the playwright's life has surfaced in Ontario, the property of a family that emigrated from England to Canada in the early 20th century carrying a pigment-on-wood miniature they say has been passed from father to son for 12 generations.

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.

I am sick and tired of waiting for our so-called "leaders" to stop nattering about the federal budget deficit, and instead roll up their sleeves and do something about the worsening Canadian-earthworm crisis.In case you are not aware of this crisis (which was brought to my attention by alert readers Nadine Lindst and Carla Hagstrom), let me bring you up to speed:In early May, the Canadian Press Service sent out a report that began: "Georgetown, Ontario -- More than 50 worm pickers beat each other with steel pipes and pieces of wood in a battle over territory."

O CanadaI had to laugh when I read Peter Jay's recent characterization (Aug. 4) of well-educated, liberal, hard-core nationalist Canadians, simply because it was so accurate.However, contrary to his belief in a free and open Canada, the government of our northern neighbors is actually quite repressive.To minimize press coverage of a trial in a western province, a Canadian court essentially forced cable companies to drop some services of U.S. origin, and customs officers tried to confiscate Buffalo newspapers from Canadians returning from the U.S. That is control of what they read.

HAMILTON, Ontario -- The cause of freedom, democracy and alley-oops for all was advanced with predictable ease last night, as Dream Team II opened its full bag of NBA tricks to wallop China by 55 points at the 1994 World Championship of Basketball.The gaudy 132-77 final score helped assuage the malaise felt after the U.S. team's lackluster opening-game victory against Spain.Among themselves, however, the players predicted a bigger blowout, because they know that margin of victory is how they will be judged against Dream Team I, which rolled to the 1992 Olympic gold medal by an average of 43.8 points a game.

HAMILTON, Ontario -- It's not that Elfrid Payton doesn't have a quiet side, but when Payton is wearing his Baltimore Stallions uniform, he has little use for containing his thoughts or emotions.Sometimes he'll burst into song during practice, and often breaks up his teammates and coaches with a joke. Team meetings occasionally run a bit long because of Payton's goofiness. Before games, even between plays, his wisecracks keep the team loose. His chatter is a fixture on the line of scrimmage.

Aberdeen Matthew Ashford, 25, of the first block of Liberty Street, was charged Friday with possessing marijuana, drug paraphernalia and a drug other than marijuana. Justin Michael Goins, 22, of the 700 block of Cronin Drive, was charged Monday with failing to appear in court for a case in which he was charged with driving on a suspended license and possessing a suspended license. Izell Eugene Osborne, 23, of the 400 block of Ruby Drive, was charged Monday with failing to appear in court for a case in which he was charged with theft below $100.

Toy CaldwellMarshall Tucker BandSPARTANBURG, S.C. -- Toy T. Caldwell Jr., former lead guitar player and singer for the Marshall Tucker Band, died yesterday, and the cause was under investigation, a coroner said.Mr. Caldwell's body was found by his wife, Abbie Good Caldwell, at their home in Moore, about 80 miles northwest of Columbia, said Bill Doble, vice president of music for Cabin Fever Entertainment, for whom Mr. Caldwell recorded. Mr. Doble said Mr. Caldwell, 45, had been ill with influenza and bronchitis.

The long white van veered out of control before buckling, shattering its windows, flipping four times and ejecting nine of its 11 passengers along a grass-lined interstate in Illinois on Monday morning — leaving five Baltimore men dead and several others badly injured. The men in the vehicle were traveling toward the East Coast from California, having been in Ontario, Canada, before that for a church convention, said Bruce Bowen, the Fayette County coroner, who pronounced the five Baltimore men dead at the scene along Interstate 70 in Vandalia, Ill. The Baltimore men who were killed in the crash, which garnered national media attention, were identified as Emerson Baldwin, 54; Andrew Canada, 53; Antonie Mitchell, 42; Mark William, 52; and Thomas Coleman, 29. The crash occurred just before 9:45 a.m. Monday.

The Rawlings-Blake administration and Baltimore's fire unions are battling over the city's proposal to require firefighters to work longer hours — 24 hours straight, every three days. The mayor says the move — which mirrors staffing trends in other large U.S. cities — will save millions for cash-strapped Baltimore while giving its 1,300 firefighters a huge pay raise by creating a longer work week. The fire unions, however, say the move would represent a cut to their hourly pay and is unfair to employees who have built their lives around a work schedule that's been in place for 20 years.