Takoma Park

As many Marylanders cast their first votes on new touch-screen machines yesterday, the process was deemed, at the same time, a rousing success and a dismal failure. It all depends on who was doing the judging. Election directors said reluctant senior citizens embraced the machines, pointed to the thousands of precincts where the process ran smoothly and reminded voters that past elections weren't perfect either. "We had a few problems, as we would with any voting system, and that's because we have people involved," said Linda H. Lamone, administrator of the state Board of Elections.

Terry J. Seamens is the unofficial winner of one of Takoma Park's six City Council seats, with results from Tuesday's election showing he won 47 votes to Roland James Dawes' 30. The thing is, Seamens wasn't even running. Seamens, a former councilman who gave up his seat two years ago in an unsuccessful bid for mayor, had planned to run but withdrew his name from the ballot long before Election Day in the Montgomery County municipality. But a group of Seamens' neighbors had other ideas and started a grass-roots campaign.

TAKOMA PARK - It's not yet Thanksgiving - it's not even Halloween, for goodness' sake - but Christmas displays have already popped up in discount stores, vying with mountains of toy pumpkins and candy corn for shoppers' attention. After years of watching this ever-expanding holiday blur, the Center for a New American Dream says enough, already. The Montgomery County-based nonprofit group, whose slogan is "More Fun, Less Stuff," encourages people to consume responsibly to protect the environment.

On August 14, 2003 DORIS BETTY MYERS (nee Goldstein), beloved wife of the late Orin Myers, loving mother of Robert Myers of Takoma Park, MD and the late Gerrie Myers. Devoted mother-in-law of Diane Myers. Dear sister of the late Harold H. Goldstein and Sylvan Goldstein. Loving grandmother of Corrie and Peter Myers. Services at SOL LEVINSON & BROS, INC., 8900 Reisterstown Road at Mt. Wilson Lane on Monday, August 18 at 12 noon. Interment Arlington Chizuk Amuno Congregation Cemetery, 4300 N. Rogers Avenue.

The eclectic collections of bric-a-brac hocked at Takoma Park's trademark vintage shops have a uniqueness matched only by the burg's mishmash of people, cultures and lifestyles. Here, the pace is slow, and the inhabitants embody a small-town sincerity that soothes the soul like a pat on the back - an atypical atmosphere for a community so close to the hustle and bustle of Washington. In fact, the District line bisects the city, but locals agree that the pride and joy of Takoma Park is on the Maryland side.

A body found in a large trash can in Clarksville was identified yesterday by Howard County police as that of Rolando Andrade of Takoma Park. The body of Andrade, 29, of the 6800 block of 10th Ave. was found about 7:30 p.m. Thursday in the 7300 block of Guilford Road near Route 32. An autopsy found that he died as a result of a head injury, police said. Police declined to describe the wound but said they are investigating the death as a homicide. Police ask anyone with additional information to call investigators at 410-313-3200.

Montgomery County police charged a 42-year-old man yesterday with first-degree murder in the death of his 75-year-old mother, whose decomposing body was found Saturday in the living room of her Wheaton house. Walter Marquez, who has no permanent address, is accused of beating Esperanza Marquez to death with a tree limb. It was found near the front door of the house, said Officer Derek Baliles, a department spokesman. The woman lived alone in the 4000 block of Ferrara Drive in Veirs Mill Village.

TAKOMA PARK - The corn-burning stove that Mike Tidwell put in his living room last winter kept most of his 87-year-old, two-story bungalow toasty warm - so much, in fact, that his furnace never came on. But Tidwell and some other local residents who use the stoves realized they still had one big hurdle to overcome this winter: how to store enough corn in this Washington suburb. Their solution was a 25-foot-tall grain silo that holds nearly 21 tons of shelled field corn. Used mainly as animal feed, this type of corn has become more popular in recent years as a clean-burning, economical alternative to natural gas, oil and wood.

COLLEGE PARK - Classifications aside, Marcus Wimbush does not feel like the true freshman he is. Like 25 other football players going through drills yesterday at Maryland, the next football game will be the first since high school for Wimbush, who played at Dunbar in Washington. Strength trainers told the defensive back how he should stretch. The coaches made him run the length of the field five, six, seven times, as if to say, "Are you ready for this?" They taught him alignments and stances, "drills that they'll encounter when the varsity comes in," according to defensive coordinator Gary Blackney, who had to remind Wimbush not to ambush receivers, who wore no pads.

TAKOMA PARK - American flags fly alongside homemade signs promoting nonviolence in this quirky, liberal suburb struggling to square its enlightened image with deep-seated hostility toward those who directed the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. Long a hotbed for peace activism, Takoma Park would have seemed a perfect place to find mass objections to the retaliatory airstrikes unleashed by the United States during the past two days against targets inside Afghanistan. Dozens of residents attended a demonstration last month in Washington in which marchers called for a peaceful response to the terrorism in New York and at the Pentagon.