OTT

AMONG HIS last actions as the B&O Railroad Museum's executive director, John H. Ott has been hitting up big financial contributors for help with a $7 million expansion. "The past is what we are all about," he explained, "but if we don't prepare for the future, we will be shut out."The departure next week of Mr. Ott and his wife, Lili, is a great loss for Baltimore. In eight years here, he brought stability and recognition to the museum and played a key role in reviving the Baltimore City Chamber of Commerce; she wielded influence as director of Evergreen and Homewood, two historic houses belonging to the Johns Hopkins University.

The B&O Railroad Museum's executive director, John H. Ott, said yesterday he will leave his job in October to take a similar position at a Masonic history museum in Lexington, Mass.Ott has been credited with creating closer ties between the roundhouse museum and its southwest Baltimore neighbors, and news of his departure was expected to hit the community hard."It's a blow. He's done so much," said Amber Eustus, a housing counselor with Communities Organized to Improve Life. She is also secretary of the Hollins Market Neighborhood Association.

WASHINGTON -- On a July morning in 1967, Petty Officer 3rd Class Thomas Ott, a 23-year-old parachute rigger, was preparing a bomber pilot for takeoff on the USS Forrestal as it bobbed in the South China Sea. Suddenly an errant missile skittered across the flight deck and ripped into the jet's fuel tank.Ott scrambled to help the pilot escape from the cockpit of his A-4 Skyhawk. The young sailor then turned to fight a great sheet of flame and dense smoke. But it would soon consume him and 133 crew members.

PHOENIX -- The government's case against the Viper militia of Arizona threatens to backfire on federal agencies that heralded it as a breakthrough in the war against domestic terrorists.Federal authorities said this month that the arrests of 10 men and two women here -- the largest apprehension of militia members in U.S. history -- thwarted a plot to launch a terrorist campaign to attack government buildings with ammonium nitrate bombs.Standing on the White House lawn, President Clinton said: "I'd like to begin today by saluting the enforcement officers who made arrests in Arizona yesterday to avert a terrible terrorist attack.

It was the classic workhorse of the rail, a locomotive with a smokestack that looked like a giant, upside-down funnel and with enough horsepower to push a growing nation west and revolutionize its culture and commerce.In the decade immediately before the Civil War, the American-class locomotive was a smoke-belching fixture on the tracks spreading like steel spider webs across the continent -- many starting from Baltimore."At the time, it was considered part of the cutting edge of technology, plus it had a classic look about it," said John Ott, executive director of the B&O Railroad Museum at 901 W. Pratt St., in the remains of the Mount Clare shops.

IRVIN OTT, PROFESSOR of national security policy at the National War College, will discuss "Cambodia: Is It a United Nations Success Story -- Or Not?" at 1: 30 p.m. Nov. 7 at the East Columbia library.Ott has lived and traveled extensively in Asia.Recently, he has been deputy staff director of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.He was associate professor at Mount Holyoke College and adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins and American universities.Ott was senior Japan analyst at the CIA, consultant on Japan to the National Academy of Sciences, chairman for Southeast Asia at the Foreign Service Institute and senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

I became an Annapolis Symphony groupie this past weekend.Owing to family circumstances, I caught the first half of Saturday evening's Maryland Hall concert, featuring Maurice Ravel's "Concerto for the Left Hand" with the symphony's conductor emeritus at the keyboard. A performance of contemporary American composer David Ott's new "Annapolis Overture" also was on the program.Sunday evening, I was off to Alumni Hall at the Naval Academy where portions of the weekend program were reprised under the auspices of the Annapolis 300 Capital Celebration group.

The B&O Railroad Museum already is one of Baltimore's most popular tourist attractions, with 90,000 to 100,000 visitors inspecting its landmark roundhouse and vintage locomotives every year.But executive director John Ott believes it could attract even more people if it also were home to the Baltimore Streetcar Museum, now located in a flood plain in the Jones Falls Valley, and other transportation-related attractions that have expressed a desire to be closer to the Inner Harbor.Potential candidates, he said, include the Society of Model Railroad Engineers, now located on Eutaw Street near Lexington Market, and the Fire Museum of Maryland, in Lutherville.

Memories are stored away, to be drawn upon as a personal bank account. So it is with Joe Cascarella, never a boring braggart but a raconteur extraordinaire. His baseball career didn't lead to the Hall of Fame, but it's obvious he was paying attention to what was going on around him.Cascarella pitched in the major leagues with "modest effectiveness" for five years and, at age 85, is the last surviving member of the distinguished 1934 All-Star team that toured Japan with such illustrious players as Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, Lou Gehrig and Charlie Gehringer.

The train certainly did not look like a rich or glamorous gift -- a jTC string of battered diesel engines, old cabooses, a hopper, a flatcar and an ancient day coach.Yet this gift of rail tonnage has a permanent home at the B&O Museum at Pratt and Poppleton streets in Southwest Baltimore.Baltimore's newest acquisitions of its industrial history represent the workaday world of the 20th century American railroad.Stored on museum tracks are the blackened hoppers that carried coal from Appalachian mines to the Port of Baltimore.

Arthur Eugene "Ott" Lundvall Jr., a retired Baltimore Gas & Electric Co. executive, died of complications from Parkinson's disease Nov. 19 at Roland Park Place. The former longtime Homeland resident was 85. Mr. Lundvall was born in Baltimore and raised on York Court in Guilford. He was a 1940 graduate of Polytechnic Institute and entered the University of Maryland, College Park. He left college and enlisted in the Army during World War II. He attained the rank of lieutenant and served in the Philippines.

On June 5, 2007, FRANCIS W. "Fran"; beloved husband of Marie F. Ott. Mr. Ott leaves behind 11 children, many grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, six brothers, two sisters and one brother- and sister-in-law. Friends are invited to call at the family owned and operated McCULLY-POLYNIAK FUNERAL HOME, P.A., 130 E. Fort Avenue (South Baltimore) on Monday and Tuesday from 3 to 5 and 7 to 9 P.M. Funeral services will be held Wednesday 11 A.M. at the funeral home. Interment Cedar Hill Cemetery.

On February 5, 2006 ANNE O. JOHNSON (nee Ott) beloved wife of the late George Henry Johnson, devoted mother of the late Lynda J. Keffer, mother-in-law of James Glenn Keffer, Jr, loving grandmother of James George Keffer and his wife Cheryl, sister of the late Lawrence Ott Jr, half-sister of Donna Ott-Lang, also survived by numerous cousins, family and friends. Relatives and friends are invited to call at the SCHIMUNEK FUNERAL HOME INC., 9705 Belair Rd (at Forge RD) on Wednesday 3 to 5 and 7 to 9 P.M. and Thursday 10 A.M. to 12 noon at which time funeral service will be held.

On Friday, September 16, 2005 NOREEN A. OTT (nee Bleich) beloved wife of Lawrence Ott; loving mother of Kimberly Davidson of Owings Mills, MD and Jason Ott of Owings Mills, MD; devoted mother-in-law of Brian Davidson; beloved sister of Sheryl Hanover, Marleen B. Miller and Denise Silverstein, all of Baltimore, MD and Bentley Bleich of Boca Raton, FL; loving daughter of Bernice (nee Ely) and the late Sidney Bleich; loving grandmother of Jordyn, Corey and Brady Davidson. Services at SOL LEVINSON & BROS.

On August 15, 2005, GLEN "Chuck" R. FOLCK, beloved husband of Thelma Ott (nee Jones), devoted father of Glen R. Folck, Jr., Richard A. Folck, Nancy Moffitt, Cindy Ryan and Margie Knee, step-father of Charles J. Ott, and Bonnie M. Kappes. Also survived by 18 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren. Friends may call at the CONNELLY FUNERAL HOME OF DUNDALK, P.A., 7110 Sollers Point Road, on Thursday 3 to 5 and 7 to 9 P.M. Funeral Service will be held on Friday 11 A.M. Interment Sacred Heart of Jesus Cemetery.

On October 31, 2004, EMMA CATHERINE OTT, age 83, died of natural causes. Beloved wife of the late Elwood L. Ott, Sr.; mother of Rosemary, Nancy, Joan, Elwood, Jr., Raymond and Timothy. She is survived by 12 grandchildren and numerous great-grandchildren. Burial and a brief service will be held at Woodlawn Cemetery in Baltimore County on Friday November 5 at noon.

On Friday, October 15, 2004, IRENE GREENBERG (nee HURWITZ); beloved wife of Abe Greenberg; loving mother of Linda Ott and Richard Greenberg; mother in-law of Brian Ott and Terry Greenberg; beloved sister of Irving Hurwitz; adored grandmother of Justin Price, Monica Ott, Heather and Kelly Greenberg. Services at SOL LEVINSON & BROS INC., 8900 Reisterstown Rd at Mt. Wilson Lane, on Sunday, October 17 at 1 P.M. Interment B'nai Israel Congregation Cemetery-3701 Southern Avenue. Please omit flowers.

On November 18, 2003; DAVID WALTER OTT, beloved husband of Patricia Moore-Ott; dear son of the late Rev. Walter L. and Mabel I. Ott; loving brother of Dorothy Juso, Robert "Bob" Ott and the late Richard Ott; dear uncle of David Gale, Douglas Gale, Steven Gale, Donna Balsan, Judy Gale, Jennifer Ott Sergio, Beth Ott and Laurie Ott Smith. Friends may call at the family owned Bruzdzinski Funeral Home, P.A., 1407 Old Eastern Avenue, Essex at Route 702 (Beltway Exit 36), on Saturday from 1 to 4 PM Funeral Services on Saturday at 4 PM. Private cremation to follow.

Eirik Ott was a Dungeons and Dragons kid, a teen-age outcast who was unliked and unnoticed by his peers. "I was the kid in the back of talented and gifted English [class] who never talked to anybody," Ott said. "I had no friends. I had no girlfriends. I could have been voted the person most likely to be forgotten -- if people had remembered me long enough to vote." For years, the 36-year-old poet, who also goes by the name Big Poppa E, has used his high-school experience as fodder for a number of creative and poignant works.

Howard County police have arrested two men on charges that they blew up homemade bombs Sept. 11 near an Owen Brown auto shop. William R. Ott, 31, of the 9300 block of Millbrook Way in Ellicott City and James E. Bessling, 27, of the 300 block of Scott Manor Drive in Glen Burnie were charged with manufacturing explosive devices and reckless endangerment. Police say Ott and Bessling detonated chemical bombs behind the Midas Muffler and Brake Shop where they work in the 6400 block of Dobbin Center Way around 1 p.m. Wednesday.