Shopping Bags

A CHRISTMAS shopping trip, 1998:7 p.m. -- Arrive at mall. Parking lot looks like the Gaza Strip minutes after the Israelis have closed the border.I circle for 10 minutes, end up stalking a giggling couple heading back to their car who decide to stop every 10 feet and kiss.L Yo, save that for the back seat of a Buick where it belongs!I'm trying to shop here!7: 16 -- Here's an upset: the mall's packed. Tired moms push baby strollers, determined, energetic women are trailed by weary, hollow-eyed husbands laden like pack mules with shopping bags, oblivious toddlers bump their heads against marble columns and sob mightily.

County police arrested three Chesapeake High School students yesterday on charges stemming from the theft of a car from a Mountain Road shopping center and a hit-and-run accident near another one.A man police did not identify was dropping off clothes at The Point cleaners at the Long Point Mall in the 4700 block of Mountain Road about 1: 30 p.m. when a youth approached and asked for 50 cents. He told the youth that he would give him the money when he came out of the store.But when he returned, the man's 1990 Mitsubishi, which was left running, and the youth were gone, police said.

I WAS FREED FROM Boys' Village, in Cheltenham, on June 10, 1960, after almost two years there. I was 13. My elder brother Brian picked me up at the Circuit Court for Baltimore City.''We have to go somewhere,'' he said, giving me shopping bags. Great! I thought. We boarded a bus. He would not speak of our mission and avoided my eyes.We left the bus at Greenmount and Oliver street, before a large building. A sign read ''Department of Social Services.'' We walked to a rear alley. A long line of people, black, as we were, and poorly dressed, were there.

Two men, one of whom implied he had a gun, robbed the T. J. Maxx store in the 8100 block of Ritchie Highway Monday of more than $300 worth of clothing, county police said yesterday.Both men escaped in a silver Mazda truck.Toni Coates, the night manager, told police the men came in about 7:15 p.m. and filled two shopping carts with men's clothes. They left the carts in the back of the store and walked to the front of the store, where one of the men reached behind the counter and took several shopping bags, police said.

Howard County recycling officials have found a way to prevent more than 900 tons of glass from being broken each year in the recycling process -- breakage that renders the glass worthless to recyclers and fit only to be buried in a trash dump.This month, all neighborhoods were required to put containers in see-through plastic shopping bags on the curb, rather than loose in the plastic bins that formerly had been used in the curbside recycling program.The tied-up bags -- each containing a mix of glass, plastic and metal containers -- keep the items from rattling around when they are loaded into collection trucks and from getting smashed when they are dumped onto the floor of the Browning-Ferris Industries recycling plant in Elkridge.

Howard County recycling officials have found a way to prevent more than 900 tons of glass from being broken each year in the recycling process -- breakage that renders the glass worthless to recyclers and fit only to be buried in a trash dump.This month, all neighborhoods were required to put containers in see-through plastic shopping bags on the curb rather than loose in the plastic bins that were formerly used in the curbside recycling program.The tied-up bags -- each containing a mix of glass, plastic and metal containers -- keep the items from rattling around when they are loaded into collection trucks and from getting smashed when they are dumped onto the floor of the Browning-Ferris Industries recycling plant in Elkridge.

Howard County recycling officials have found a way to prevent more than 900 tons of glass from being broken each year in the recycling process -- breakage that renders the glass worthless to recyclers and fit only to be buried in a trash dump.This month, all neighborhoods were required to put containers in see-through plastic shopping bags on the curb, rather than loose in the plastic bins that formerly had been used in the curbside recycling program.The tied-up bags -- each containing a mix of glass, plastic and metal containers -- keep the items from rattling around when they are loaded into collection trucks and from getting smashed when they are dumped onto the floor of the Browning-Ferris Industries recycling plant in Elkridge.

The unforgiving recession that has cost so many so much has put a damper on the holiday season. As the more fortunate among us prepare for this special time with family and friends, others are struggling to keep their homes and to feed and clothe their children. For many families, there will be no turkey and trimmings this Thanksgiving, no toys for the children under the Christmas tree.Safety nets of every ilk are straining under the lopsided equation of burgeoning need and shrinking contributions.

Q: How can I find out the value of some old Tarzan books I've had since I was a kid?A: Send for a copy of "A Reference and Price Guide to U.S. Books Written By Edgar Rice Burroughs," by James A. Bergen Jr., available for $11.95 postpaid from JO-D Books, 81 Willard Terrace, Stamford, Conn. 06903; phone (203) 322-0568.Q: My 94-year-old mother has a bag full of old pearl buttons she collected over the years. She insists they are of some value.A: Write to the National Button Society, c/o Lois Pool, 2733 Juno Place, Akron, Ohio 44313, or call (216)

3 Magic WordsEditor: Amidst all the hurley-burley of rhetoric about the education dilemma it was refreshing to read in Alice Steinbach's column the conviction of Tracy Kidder that ''public education rests precariously on the skill and virtue of people at the bottom of the institutional pyramid -- the teachers."

Education, not fee, is the answer for shopping bags It is not surprising that the proposal to charge twenty-five cents a bag for plastic and paper shopping bags ran into a storm of opposition in the City Council because of the burden the surcharge would place on poor and elderly shoppers in Baltimore ("A united cry of 'no' to shopping bag fee," June 17). Nevertheless, the catastrophe that both plastic and paper bags pose to the world's environment is huge, and people all over the world are seeking solutions.

Germans are widely praised - and sometimes, widely ridiculed - for their ruthless efficiency in business and government. They famously make the trains run on time. As I discovered while living in Badem, Germany, those traits carry over to the household level, too. The average German's environmental habits leave the average American's in the dust, whether by using natural fertilizers, recyclable shopping bags and energy-efficient appliances or by refusing to live in sprawling, car-dependent suburbs.

The City Council of Baltimore might not be ready to ban single-use plastic shopping bags, but I am. I'm done. I don't know when this happened exactly, but I reached some sort of tipping point with plastic bags a few weeks ago. Now I can't stand them. Some people don't want to see Kyle Boller as the Ravens' quarterback anymore. I don't want to see plastic bags. Of course, going cold turkey requires asking for paper at the supermarket - not a great option - or toting reusable bags into the store with you. A lot of people, especially males, struggle with this.

On a warm Saturday earlier this month, the Inner Harbor looked as good as the pictures in the travel brochures. I was downtown on a mission - shopping, now that a handful of new stores have opened on Pratt Street. Given the brisk business they were doing, I'll guess more will follow. I was hauling a couple of shopping bags across Calvert Street when a thought crossed my mind: A Saturday spent shopping at Baltimore's old downtown, Howard and Lexington, was a lot more compact and easier on the feet.

IKEA plans to charge customers a nickel for plastic shopping bags to reduce waste. Wal-Mart is pushing energy-efficient light bulbs. And Texas' largest energy producer, TXU Corp., will eschew coal for cleaner sources. It seems that Corporate America is wrapping its arms around global warming, reducing waste or otherwise greening itself and, by default, its customers. Efforts were once made only by niche companies such as Whole Foods Markets and Starbucks Coffee Co., but others not known for their conservation ethic seem to be jumping on the bandwagon in droves.

SOMETIME before the snows arrived, my brother Eddie telephoned to suggest I pay a call to 6 N. Eutaw St., otherwise known as the Hippodrome. He was speaking not of the theater itself, but of the newly installed sign that rises vertically above the street. So, last Saturday, I dropped into a very busy, almost frenetic Lexington Market to pick up a few items and emerged from its south doors. I didn't know what to expect, but the air was cold, and the skies on the last day of January were a deep indigo blue.

Another institution in Baltimore's Highlandtown neighborhood slipped into history yesterday when Nick D'Adamo Sr. closed his Shocket's bargain store forever with copious tears and great warm hugs for his last customers. "You gotta go, you gotta go," he says through his tears. At 78, he's a slightly stooped, innately courtly man with a firm but gentle manner. "The people. I'll miss the people the most." D'Adamo, long known as Mr. Nick on the avenue, received friends and well-wishers yesterday while seated on a throne as "King Shocket," wearing a plastic tiara and ringing a hand bell as customers searched for their last bargains.

Baltimore can relax now. Massage therapist Theresa Mueller has opened a new aromatherapy shop and massage studio at 935 S. Charles St. in Federal Hill. Besides the custom blending bar, everything in Life Smells Good is related to the "essential oils" of aromatherapy in one way or the other -- like soaps, candles, aromatherapy pillows, and diffusers. Customers can create their own scent for potpourri. No synthetic fragrances are used in any of the products. Mueller will hold aromatherapy classes starting in January; facials will be offered in the next month or so. Most relaxing of all are the aromatherapy massages and hot stone therapies, which run from $80 to $140.

THIS TIME OF the year I'd normally be seeing Ross Alexander, a friend for nearly 40 years who lived at Rehoboth Beach, Del. He died of cancer last Saturday at his home there at age 79. Ross was one of the ever-memorable characters I've known. Ceaselessly optimistic, he'd cheer me up because he never took himself too seriously. A driven, hard worker, yes; a sourpuss, no. Did he own more than one pair of the khaki pants that I saw him wear for those decades? I don't know. I also do not know where he tapped his energy.

IT FINALLY turned cold enough this week to start my Christmas shopping, the kind I like the best: on foot, conducted in old Baltimore neighborhoods. And I'll add the word "fast" because I don't have much time these days. Indeed, I didn't. It was 5 after 4 Thursday when I tore up Calvert Street in search of a few gifts. I knew I was on the right track when at Charles and Madison I ran into a friend, Jim Magruder, weighted down with some of the same presents on my little list. We spoke briefly and darted off in separate directions.