Taffy

Ocean City -- It's as much a part of the Boardwalk as the worn brown planks: The sweet smell of fresh taffy blends with the buttery aroma of popcorn and the heavy perfume of chocolate as you round the corner at Wicomico Street.Dolle's Candyland has been on the corner since 1910, when the present owner's father came to Ocean City, bringing a small merry-go-round he'd built in Baltimore to put on the corner of Wicomico and the Boardwalk."My dad came here to live in 1910. . . . there was a man making saltwater taffy right on this corner," says Rudolph Dolle, who inherited the business from his father.

A century ago, carousel builder Rudolph Dolle and his wife, Amelia, left New York for the young resort town of Ocean City, Md. "Our family did business in different parts of the country," says Anna Dolle Bushnell, 31, the couple's great-granddaughter. "The story goes that they were invited down by the Trimpers," she adds, referring to the founders of Ocean City's oldest amusement park, Trimper's Rides. Rudolph Dolle set up a hand-carved carousel near the corner of Wicomico Street and the Boardwalk.

Somewhere above the tracks of the Baltimore subway and below the main floor of Lexington Market is a subterranean candy factory where decades-old copper kettles boil away to produce nut-rich brittle and tooth-testing taffy.Several days a week, unobserved by downtown shoppers, three men hover over long metal tables. They carry saws, spatulas and long knives. They wear thick gloves. Spread out before them is a molten sheet of what looks like candy lava. Soon they have patted and flipped this confection into rectangular sheets of a delicious goo that is still too hot to touch.

Maybe you met your true love on it, or perhaps a false one. Maybe you rode your first Ferris wheel, drank your first beer or whacked your first mole. Likely, you've paused on its benches to gnaw on taffy, gobble fries by the bucketful or simply rest your feet. And quite possibly, you left with memories that - boosterish as it sounds - really have lasted a lifetime. Even so, no one has taken more away from Ocean City's boardwalk than Yolanda Griffin. She's been cleaning it for 17 years, sweeping up and disposing of the cigarette butts, plastic spoons, straws, french fries, caramel corn, half-eaten hot dogs and abandoned flip flops that end up fluttering across it, or wedged in the pencil-thin gaps between its boards.

"My favorite book is 'The Valiant Red Rooster.' The author is Eric A. Kimmel. The story is about a rooster whose owner was a kind old lady. They were very poor and had no food. He found a diamond necklace and the sultan wanted it. The sultan took it. The rooster tried many tricks to get it back. The rooster teased him and bothered him until he gave it back. I think this book is really funny.- Eric Stoll, Grade 3Pine Grove Elementary" 'The Cry of the Cat' is a non-stop reading book. The author, R.L. Stine, writes scary books.

Can a Baltimore Christmas be a success without a candy dish full of satiny hard candy?Just ask Nicholas "Nick" Konstant, 34, whose great-grandfather founded a Lexington Market confectionery operation in 1896. Today, his stall spills over the Eutaw-Lexington corner of the old market building with separate counters for fresh-roasted peanuts -- outdoors on Eutaw Street -- old-fashioned hard candies and other confections, and a thriving coffee and hot dog bar that is often three and four customers deep.

Taffy came home early today, with a written apology from her dognapper.The 11-year-old bichon frise dog, stolen from her home near Catonsville in a Monday burglary, was recovered unharmed by her owners after the burglar called before dawn and directed them to a used-car lot in Remington.Her owners, Pam and David Crandall, of the 5100 block of Edmondson Ave., were dumbfounded. The burglar, Mrs. Crandall said, "has a conscience.""I apologize for stealing your dog," the burglar wrote on a torn envelope left with the dog in a pet carrier.

A century ago, carousel builder Rudolph Dolle and his wife, Amelia, left New York for the young resort town of Ocean City, Md. "Our family did business in different parts of the country," says Anna Dolle Bushnell, 31, the couple's great-granddaughter. "The story goes that they were invited down by the Trimpers," she adds, referring to the founders of Ocean City's oldest amusement park, Trimper's Rides. Rudolph Dolle set up a hand-carved carousel near the corner of Wicomico Street and the Boardwalk.

When Pam and David Crandall returned home from anywhere, their dog, Taffy, would greet them."She'd usually do a dance, get on her hind legs and wag her tail because someone was coming home to greet her," Pam Crandall said.On Monday, there was no dance and no wagging tail.That day, between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., the Crandalls' home, in the 5100 block of Edmondson Ave., was burglarized. Stolen were a stereo system, video cassette recorder, jewelry box, the contents of a refrigerator and freezer and Taffy, a 11-year-old Bichon Frise who is practically blind.

Marian Zak was 8 when she trained her first dog. She used ''a bell and Pavlov psychology,'' she says.''I was in need of a school science project so I decided I could teach Taffy, my Boston terrier and Bull terrier mix, to behave the way Pavlov's animals did in his psychological experiment. He rang a bell every time he offered food, which resulted in the animal salivating whenever it heard a bell.''I really worked with Taffy, but instead of drooling, Taffy would sit straight Pausing with petsup every time she heard the bell.

While most young people spend their summers lying on the couch watching reruns of "The Real World" or playing "Halo 2" for the umpteenth time, Christina Vathis spends her days on the boardwalk, steps from the beach and ocean, immersed in taffy, fudge and candy. And she gets paid for it. Vathis is an assistant manager at a Candy Kitchen location in Ocean City, where she has worked for the last four years. The draw that keeps bringing her back is obvious. "You're at the beach," said Vathis, 21, a native of Ocean Pines.

For all the years I've headed to Rehoboth Beach, I've dreaded the inevitable traffic delays. For many years it was the dreaded Kent Narrows Bridge, with its draw frequently open for boaters. My current nemesis is the wretched traffic knot outside the Rehoboth Outlet Mall, where we burned up gas for hours last August, all the while fearing the rental agent would pronounce us missing and turn in for the night. But let's face it, you can't return from a stay at the beach without a loaded shopping bag or two. The beach possesses its own categories of shopping - the inevitable caramel corn, fudge and taffy shops, the linen shop, the auction house.

The Fourth of July holiday weekend is set to sizzle, and what better time to whip up a do-it-yourself Martha Stewart Story. Just follow these original grilling techniques and you, too, can write a mouth-watering creation that screams summer vacation, beach and barbecue and insider trading scandal! Ingredients: Start with more than 1,000 stories in the past week about Martha Stewart. Stories include last week's Newsweek cover, "Martha's Mess," which reported that guests of Martha's East Hampton spread are instructed to walk one way on the grass so it wears evenly.

"My favorite book is 'The Valiant Red Rooster.' The author is Eric A. Kimmel. The story is about a rooster whose owner was a kind old lady. They were very poor and had no food. He found a diamond necklace and the sultan wanted it. The sultan took it. The rooster tried many tricks to get it back. The rooster teased him and bothered him until he gave it back. I think this book is really funny.- Eric Stoll, Grade 3Pine Grove Elementary" 'The Cry of the Cat' is a non-stop reading book. The author, R.L. Stine, writes scary books.

OCEAN CITY -- The T-shirt joints, seashell shops and grease-soaked food stalls have put aside some of their legendary rivalries and united to reinvent the boardwalk. A Victorian theme, maybe, or something nautical, they're thinking, to re-energize the seaside boards and complement the coming street lamps, planters and kiosks.Hotel development, fueled in part by a $30 million convention center expansion, is surging. And marketing gurus now target baby boomers with their large disposable incomes rather than hordes of teen-agers.

More than 100 years ago, when Carroll County Farm Museum was a working farm, families baked bread on an open hearth, spun their own wool and knitted their own sweaters.For holidays, the children and adults would create their own decorations and clothing accessories. The family would even make its own furniture.Most of those homemade arts have long since disappeared with the Age of Technology.But at the farm museum, such "forgotten arts" are being revived through a series of workshops designed to teach people how to make old-fashioned taffy, scrap-art Valentine and Easter cards, hats, lace, bandboxes and rush-seat weaving.

The Fourth of July holiday weekend is set to sizzle, and what better time to whip up a do-it-yourself Martha Stewart Story. Just follow these original grilling techniques and you, too, can write a mouth-watering creation that screams summer vacation, beach and barbecue and insider trading scandal! Ingredients: Start with more than 1,000 stories in the past week about Martha Stewart. Stories include last week's Newsweek cover, "Martha's Mess," which reported that guests of Martha's East Hampton spread are instructed to walk one way on the grass so it wears evenly.

While most young people spend their summers lying on the couch watching reruns of "The Real World" or playing "Halo 2" for the umpteenth time, Christina Vathis spends her days on the boardwalk, steps from the beach and ocean, immersed in taffy, fudge and candy. And she gets paid for it. Vathis is an assistant manager at a Candy Kitchen location in Ocean City, where she has worked for the last four years. The draw that keeps bringing her back is obvious. "You're at the beach," said Vathis, 21, a native of Ocean Pines.

Somewhere above the tracks of the Baltimore subway and below the main floor of Lexington Market is a subterranean candy factory where decades-old copper kettles boil away to produce nut-rich brittle and tooth-testing taffy.Several days a week, unobserved by downtown shoppers, three men hover over long metal tables. They carry saws, spatulas and long knives. They wear thick gloves. Spread out before them is a molten sheet of what looks like candy lava. Soon they have patted and flipped this confection into rectangular sheets of a delicious goo that is still too hot to touch.

Ocean City -- It's as much a part of the Boardwalk as the worn brown planks: The sweet smell of fresh taffy blends with the buttery aroma of popcorn and the heavy perfume of chocolate as you round the corner at Wicomico Street.Dolle's Candyland has been on the corner since 1910, when the present owner's father came to Ocean City, bringing a small merry-go-round he'd built in Baltimore to put on the corner of Wicomico and the Boardwalk."My dad came here to live in 1910. . . . there was a man making saltwater taffy right on this corner," says Rudolph Dolle, who inherited the business from his father.