Porch

A Northwest Baltimore man was sentenced yesterday to 33 years in prison for the fatal stabbing of his 17-year-old half-brother during a drunken brawl on their mother's front porch in July, according to Baltimore prosecutors. Eric Little, 29, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and a weapons violation in the death of Calvin Ray. According to charging documents, their mother, Sharon Brown, had broken up a fight by stepping between her sons. But as Brown spoke with Ray, Little went inside the house, grabbed a knife from the kitchen, returned to the porch and stabbed Ray in the upper chest, prosecutors said.

Ratcheting up the cute factor several more notches, Mayor Sheila Dixon is airing a new television ad that focuses on her family, specifically her children. The 30-second spot is Dixon's sixth and the 11th overall in the race. What the ad says: Dixon's children, Josh and Jasmine, are seen talking on a porch. "I'm Josh, the mayor's son," he begins. "Mayor?" Jasmine teases, "You mean ma?" Josh continues: "At home, Mom always asks us a lot, makes sure we rise to the occasion." Dixon is seen standing in the front yard of the house and says, "If you don't ask much of people, you can't expect much."

Emerald Hill will be repainted, repaired and its deteriorated wooden posts and porch replaced as part of a major exterior renovation of the white mansion that became Westminster's City Hall 60 years ago."In the past, it's simply been painted a number of times without a whole lot of other exterior work," said Thomas B. Beyard, city director of planning and public works.Work began last week on the $50,000 second phase of the renovation, by the Patrick Construction Co., he said."This is probably the most significant exterior renovation by the city," he said.

Her home has been the hottest "painted lady" in Baltimore's Charles Village since the news broke that Silvija Moess won the Best Porch Facade prize in the Victorian neighborhood's house-painting contest.With the honor and praise come $3,000, said Steve and Linda Rivelis, contest founders and coordinators who live and work in their Victorian house on St. Paul Street.The Moess house is a colorful sight in the 2700 block of N. Calvert St.: a study in two shades of purple, with a brush of coral and teal.

Emerald Hill will be repainted, repaired and its deteriorated wooden posts and porch replaced as part of a major exterior renovation of the white mansion that became Westminster's City Hall 60 years ago."In the past, it's simply been painted a number of times without a whole lot of other exterior work," said Thomas B. Beyard, city director of planning and public works.Work began last week on the $50,000 second phase of the renovation, by the Patrick Construction Co., he said."This is probably the most significant exterior renovation by the city," he said.

Melanie Hamilton is moving out.With an elbow on the For Sale sign in her postage-stamp front lawn, the black 36-year-old corrections officer says she has had it with her Brooklyn Park block.Someone damaged her car, someone else yelled racial slurs at her daughter, she has had a series of fights with her neighbors, and after eight visits by police, nothing has improved, she says."I'm tired of it," Hamilton said. "I've called everyone I can think of and no one can help."But Connie Bates, a white 39-year-old convenience store clerk, said the problem is with Hamilton, whom she accuses of harassing her neighbors with noise and vitriol.

CASCO BAY, Maine -- The phoebes have taken flight.The boldest of the four offspring achieved a shaky liftoff Friday. He took a short hop to a nearby pine tree and sat there for a while, twitching in surprise at his own audacity. Then he took wing across the road.By Monday, his three sibling flycatchers had gathered up their nerve as well. Now they're all airborne and on their own.The nest that served as the hub of their activity holds only the downy residue of their infancy. The air that was filled with the noisy demands of a growing family is quiet.

FireWestminster: Firefighters responded at 7: 39 p.m. Monday to an emergency water detail in the 100 block of E. Green St. Units were out 10 minutes.PoliceWestminster: A resident of Charles Street reported Monday that her bicycle was stolen from the back porch of her home. The loss was estimated at $130.Westminster: A resident of Shaefer Drive told police Sunday that the tires on her vehicle were damaged, and sugar was poured in the gas tank. Damage was estimated at $2,129.Pub Date: 9/02/98

A 26-year-old Carroll County man was killed and a woman critically injured early yesterday morning when the car they were in crashed into a porch and two trees in Woodbine, state police in Westminster reported.John Bruce Yelton of the 2100 block of W. Old Liberty Road in Taylorsville was pronounced dead at the scene. Donna F. Cianci, 35, of the same address, was taken by ambulance to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore, where she was listed in critical condition last night.Police said Cianci was driving a north on Woodbine Road, just south of Buckhorn Road, when she lost control of the car about 2: 15 a.m. and skidded off the left side of the wet road.

The dictionary calls it "a covered structure at the entrance of a building," but that hardly does justice to the porch.A porch is the gentle grind of rockers on floorboards, the drone of bees in the zinnias. It's the easy greeting when a neighbor ambles by. And a porch is where our grandparents went to unwind -- until they bought one of those fabulous inventions, the automobile.Suddenly, after World War I, going for a drive was a lot more enticing than rocking in place for hours. And arriving home to houses that were being squeezed increasingly closer together, people found themselves craving privacy, not a porch.

Andre K. Haney ran errands, washed cars and swept up leaves for the residents of a secluded block in the city's Harwood neighborhood. The residents - many of them elderly women who have lived in their homes for decades - gave him money and food, and brought him inside for holiday meals. At night, he slept on the porch of a vacant house. "He was our homeless man," said Elnora Barnes, 73. "We all fed him. If it was raining or cold, we'd say, 'Andre, why don't you come inside?' But he always said he wanted to stay outside."

A 2006 Bay Theatre Company benefit performance of D.L. Coburn's The Gin Game, starring Rena Cherry Brown and Paul Danaceau, inspired several requests for an extended run of the show, and that led Bay's artistic director Lucinda Merry-Browne to ask the two Equity actors to appear in a six-week run on Bay Theatre's stage. Merry-Browne again uses her sensitive artistry in directing Bay's production of Coburn's 1978 Pulitzer Prize-winning play. This production has an ideal setting crafted by designer Ken Sheats, who has created outside the enclosed porch a narrow flagstone patio with brown leaves edged by a few green plants with a hearty vine climbing the porch to suggest a mature life cycle.

A Northwest Baltimore man was sentenced yesterday to 33 years in prison for the fatal stabbing of his 17-year-old half-brother during a drunken brawl on their mother's front porch in July, according to Baltimore prosecutors. Eric Little, 29, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and a weapons violation in the death of Calvin Ray. According to charging documents, their mother, Sharon Brown, had broken up a fight by stepping between her sons. But as Brown spoke with Ray, Little went inside the house, grabbed a knife from the kitchen, returned to the porch and stabbed Ray in the upper chest, prosecutors said.

Summer nights! The fragrant dark descends, the night creatures chitter and chirrup, and we linger on the porch, a little wine in the glass, children coming and going, and we inhale the sweetness of life. In Pasadena, Calif., people are lined up outside a bank, hoping to get their money out before it goes belly-up, and Mr. McCain's friend Mr. Gramm says we are a nation of whiners complaining about a recession that is only mental, but we are engulfed in summer and don't notice. We're sitting on the porch, inhaling the breeze from the trees, and we are American optimists.

At a time when video gamers can simulate a tennis swing by waving a remote control, it might be hard to appreciate the attraction of the "perspective glass" on display at the William Paca House in Annapolis. The zograscope was a luxury that only the wealthy could afford to have at home in the late 1770s. For fun, colonists could place an engraved picture upside down on a table, then look at its reflected image in a mirror suspended over it on a wooden stand. Through the zograscope, the image appeared right side up and three-dimensional -- an optical illusion that proved to be a nifty parlor trick.

An Annapolis couple who allowed fiberglass columns on the new porch of their 19th-century home in downtown Annapolis without receiving permission from the city's Historic Preservation Commission, have sued the panel, charging that its denial of their materials switch was unreasonably stringent. Valerie and Bryan J. Miller have asked Anne Arundel County Circuit Court to overturn the commission's decision and its order that the fiberglass columns be torn down and replaced with wood. The lawsuit, filed Feb. 20, has roiled the local historians and preservationists who passionately defend the building standards in downtown Annapolis' Historic District.

Ratcheting up the cute factor several more notches, Mayor Sheila Dixon is airing a new television ad that focuses on her family, specifically her children. The 30-second spot is Dixon's sixth and the 11th overall in the race. What the ad says: Dixon's children, Josh and Jasmine, are seen talking on a porch. "I'm Josh, the mayor's son," he begins. "Mayor?" Jasmine teases, "You mean ma?" Josh continues: "At home, Mom always asks us a lot, makes sure we rise to the occasion." Dixon is seen standing in the front yard of the house and says, "If you don't ask much of people, you can't expect much."

HERE'S TEMPTATION NO. 1 IN THE little towns west of Frederick: the porch rocker. Wind your way along Route 34 toward West Virginia, through Boonsboro, Keedysville, Sharpsburg. All the narrow front porches have rocking chairs. In Sharpsburg, the inn's front porch surveys the town's evening life -- damp-haired teenagers walking by under kayaks, the new French bulldog puppy next door, the elderly man with red electrical tape on his glasses holding a mountainous ice cream cone. People watch, rock and ruminate in the quiet.

Once, twice, thrice upon a Mother's Day, there was a mom who thought: "If this day were truly mine, it wouldn't be about roses and breakfast in bed. It wouldn't be about some generic mom. It would be a celebration of me." Roses are nice, the mom reasoned, but she preferred flowers from the garden. Breakfast in bed was fine, but why not have brunch on the porch, or in the grass? Sure, she liked perfume, but why not something a little crazy or out of the blue that suits her particular tastes?

Sykesville will build an addition to its century-old Town House, an estimated $140,000 expansion that would preserve the building's historic character while making the seat of town government more accessible to those with disabilities. A state grant for historic improvements will pay for the work that will give the building a new entrance, a roomier meeting area and two bathrooms. "Our plans are nearly complete, and we have our historic district's approval," said Matthew Candland, town manager.