Summer Vacation

At my son's parent/tot pre-school class earlier this week, we created lists of things we want to do this summer. The thinking is that if you write them down, putting pen (or pencil) to paper and put them somewhere for everyone to see, you're more apt to do them and less likely to ignore them. (I'm also somewhat copying colleague Marissa Gallo, who wrote a similar etc. column for today's Aegis .) So here's what I want to do this summer, some of these involve the kids, others they may not be so interested in. Take Henry fishing.

At my son's parent/tot pre-school class earlier this week, we created lists of things we want to do this summer. The thinking is that if you write them down, putting pen (or pencil) to paper and put them somewhere for everyone to see, you're more apt to do them and less likely to ignore them. (I'm also somewhat copying colleague Marissa Gallo, who wrote a similar etc. column for today's Aegis .) So here's what I want to do this summer, some of these involve the kids, others they may not be so interested in. Take Henry fishing.

Reading the area newspapers the last few weeks has been very confusing. On the front page of one it talks about funding the educations of illegal aliens while on the very same page it talks about defunding our Distinguished Scholars (that would be the legal students who worked very hard). If you turned to the next page you could read all about Maryland's great schools yet still find a chart showing the student groups who are being left behind and forced to take remedial classes in college just to compete (after graduating from these "great schools")

Justin Sausville of Mount Washington is a whiz at the brainy TV game show "Jeopardy!" - and he's proving just as stellar at "I've Got a Secret. " In effect, he has reigned as "Jeopardy!" champ for a staggering two weeks. He scored back-to-back wins on the July 28 and July 29 episodes. Then "Jeopardy" broke for summer vacation - and won't come back until Sept. 19. Sausville knows exactly what will happen that night. He recorded his return match on Aug. 2, because "Jeopardy!"

100 Years Ago An article in the Aug. 5, 1911, edition of The Argus reported on some hardy residents' ambitious plans for a summer vacation adventure in the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York . Messrs . Benjamin Whitely and Harold Phillips of Catonsville, and Mr. Frederick R. Huber , of Baltimore, left last Friday for a month's canoeing in the lakes of Northern New York, and from accounts of their previous experiences...

* Editor's note: One boy's summer recap shows that the wild west is no competition to his imagination. "How I spent my summer vacation." By Wallace Bleff. When summer began, I headed out west. My parents had told me I needed a rest. "Your imagination," they said, "is getting too wild. It will do you some good to relax for awhile." So they put me aboard a westbound train. To visit Aunt Fern in her house on the plains. But I was captured by cowboys, A wild-looking crowd. Their manners were rough And their voices were loud.

School is out, and summer vacation '93 is roughly 48 hours old, not long enough for boredom to set in . . . just yet.It's still a novelty to stay up late and sleep in. But all too soon today's small pleasures will become tarnished, and you'll be searching for activities to fill those long, hot summer days until school opens on Sept. 1.Before you find yourself in that parent trap again this year, there are still openings in programs in the Pasadena area.Summer playground sessions at several area schools will be offered to youngsters ages 5 1/2 to 12. Sponsored by the county Department of Recreation and Parks, the activities run weekdays from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., June 29 through Aug. 6.Playground sites in the area are: Freetown Recreation Center and Fort Smallwood, High Point, Jacobsville, Bodkin, Pasadena and Riviera Beach elementary schools.

With most schools closed or closing this week, the summer vacation season moves into full swing for many families. This year, job uncertainty and economic woes seem to have put a lot of travel plans in flux. Some destinations report that visitors are waiting until the last minute to make reservations and when they do, they're bargaining for - and often receiving - lower prices. Good for them. It may be too far a stretch to say the annual rite of summer travel is in danger, but HomeAway.

With the weak dollar, record gas prices and fears of a recession, it's not surprising that many Americans are rethinking one of life's great pleasures: summer vacation. But once you travel, it's not something you give up easily. As Christine Delise, a spokeswoman for AAA Mid-Atlantic, puts it: "Maybe it means giving up Starbucks or eating on the cheap for a week. People are going to make sacrifices -- but what they are not going to sacrifice is their summer vacation." In celebration of the summer vacation season that officially starts this weekend, here are 20 tips to help you recession-proof your holiday.

When Tony Bartlett was shopping for a vacation recently, he looked for three things: a first-class hotel on a world-class beach, a destination with Old World charm . . . and a great bargain.Sound like a tall order?Maybe -- but he found all three.Later this month, Mr. Bartlett and a friend, Lauri Holthaus, will board a charter jet to Puerto Vallarta, on Mexico's Pacific coast. They'll stay at a beach-front hotel that's rated one of the best in this fishing village with its growing reputation for great beaches and wonderful weather.

100 Years Ago An article in the Aug. 5, 1911, edition of The Argus reported on some hardy residents' ambitious plans for a summer vacation adventure in the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York . Messrs . Benjamin Whitely and Harold Phillips of Catonsville, and Mr. Frederick R. Huber , of Baltimore, left last Friday for a month's canoeing in the lakes of Northern New York, and from accounts of their previous experiences...

I packed this summer's hot beach novel, "Maine," by J. Courtney Sullivan, along with my shorts, sandals and suntan lotion and headed for the Delaware shore. "Maine" is the story of Alice Kelleher, an imperious Irish-American matriarch, and her far-flung, dysfunctional family and the beach house in Maine where the family has been gathering every summer for 60 years. But this summer, Alice plans to tell them that she is donating the house and land to the Catholic Church, and their fractious summer ritual is ending.

It's summer time in Carroll County; for Valerie Virchow, that means only one thing - Carroll County Farm Museum's living history camps. For the last 10 years, Virchow has served as a group leader for the camps at the Westminster museum, escorting campers to various activities, from candle-dipping to fishing, toy making to tin punching. "Hot weather and I are not friends. By the middle of the third week, I'm saying, 'Why am I doing this?' " Virchow said. "By October, I'm looking forward to the next camp.

Summer reading doesn't have to mean light reading. A summer vacation can offer the free time to grapple with weighty themes. Whether you're lying on the beach or pressed against the air conditioner this month, you might give one of these idea-driven books a try. "Exorcising Hitler" by Frederick Taylor Bloomsbury Press, $30 The evils of the Nazi regime have long been fodder for popular history, as has the Allied...

With another school year at an end, most students are looking forward to summer vacation. But when schools close, more than 340,000 children across Maryland will wonder where their summer meals will come from. One of the great shames of our country is that anyone would go hungry in the United States of America. As Bill Shore, founder of Share our Strength, said, "Poverty is complicated, but feeding a child is simple. " Although there are adequate nutrition programs in the U.S. that provide needy children with school breakfasts, lunches and summer meals, these programs reach only a fraction of the children who qualify for them.

It's a whole summer vacation away and not on the minds of many parents or students, but the next academic year isn't that far off. While such a statement is little more than a mindless truism most years as commencements are commencing and classes are ending, this year by the time summer vacation ends, the group of people in charge of Harford County Public Schools will be changed entirely. By the end of this summer, only two of the seven-member Harford County Board of Education will remain in office, and the size of the school board will have expanded from seven members to nine.

In Gift from the Sea, published in 1955, Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote, "By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class." Today, half a century later, that vacationless class has grown. For many Americans, the traditional summer vacation -- an extended holiday from the cares of day-to-day living -- is fading, eroded by social and economic forces. In its place, more families are squeezing weekend escapes to nearby destinations into their busy lives.

Reading the area newspapers the last few weeks has been very confusing. On the front page of one it talks about funding the educations of illegal aliens while on the very same page it talks about defunding our Distinguished Scholars (that would be the legal students who worked very hard). If you turned to the next page you could read all about Maryland's great schools yet still find a chart showing the student groups who are being left behind and forced to take remedial classes in college just to compete (after graduating from these "great schools")

Students are gone from school just a week and a day for winter break at Takoma Park Elementary School in Montgomery County. But principal Zadia T. Gadsden knows that even that short time away will show when the children return for the new year. "The main difference we've noticed is that students need to be refocused," Ms. Gadsden says. "They often have to be reminded of the rules and routines of the school. This causes a loss in instructional time. " It is the children who are already struggling who suffer the most from this short break, she says.