Village Green

Sue Haller reports on events in Crofton.Have you ever wanted to try the boot-scooting boogie, sleazy slide, Hawaiian hustle or the down and dirty? The Crofton Civic Association is accepting registrations for a country-western dance class from 7:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. beginning Thursday at Crofton Woods Elementary School. Jerry Thompson and Sandy Hilbert are the instructors. Classes will run on Thursdays through Nov. 11. For more information or to register, call Sue Bents at town hall, 721-2301.

What a difference one day can make. On Saturday, the temperature was in the 80s; on Sunday, we had to pull out winter clothes. If I had my way, we wouldn't need winter clothes, just summer.*The Ladies of the Elks, BPOE 2309, will be holding its fifth annual craft fair at the Bowie Elks Lodge, Route 450 in Crofton, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 30. Table space is still available to rent. For more information, call 262-4718 or 262-3834.*The Crofton Scrabble Club meets the second Friday of the month at Davidsonville Holy Family Catholic Church and the fourth Friday of the month at the Crofton Country Club.

FROM THE late Jim Rouse's handwritten crab cake recipe to Ellen Conroy Kennedy's Poetry Reading Rice, Wilde Lake's new village cookbook is filled with memories as well as mouth-watering dishes.Janet Blumenthal, the village board chairwoman, compiled the collection of residents' favorite recipes as part of the 30th anniversary celebration for the Wilde Lake village.The collection, "Wilde & Wonderful Recipes," will be available at the June 7 festivities on the village green.Kennedy's rice recipe was a favorite dish at HoCoPoLitSo suppers in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

PAKRAC, Croatia -- After four years of savage war in the former Yugoslavia, the specter of a Balkan explosion again haunts the ruins of towns such as this one.Here, among churches and homes destroyed by shelling, the fault lines of past and present conflicts run together like cracks in a mended glass, and the most fragile seam of all is a year-old cease-fire boundary next to Pakrac's village green.With its checkpoints and barbed wire, the line divides Serbs and Croats, former neighbors now in an uneasy peace that has held despite the ethnic war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, 20 miles to the south.

About 50 residents and leaders of homeowner associations met with officials of the Rouse Co. and the Columbia Association last night to learn how they could modernize Columbia's oldest village -- the village of Wilde Lake."

They were mostly idealistic twenty- and thirtysomethings with good careers and burgeoning families.They had heard that a new, different kind of community was being built in the wide-open farmland between Baltimore and Washington -- and they liked what they heard.They were Columbia's first residents -- pioneers, they called themselves -- and they began unpacking their boxes in the first Village of Wilde Lake three decades ago this month.As Columbia begins its 30th-birthday celebration this summer -- a party in Wilde Lake kicked it off yesterday -- many of Columbia's first residents are retired, and their once-modern homes need refurbishing.

Chateau Builders has a model open and 36 condominiums available at the Cloisters at Village Greens community in Howard County. The golf course community in Marriottsville offers six plans, ranging from 1,350 square feet to 1,900 square feet and priced from $206,490 to $255,490. The homes front the eighth fairway of the Waverly Woods Golf Course. Standard interior features include screened porches, 9-foot ceilings, luxury baths and upgraded trim and lighting packages. The condominiums come with natural gas heat and hot water.

State landscapes and landmarks are the subjects of a new exhibit at Slayton House Gallery. Maryland Wanderings features watercolors and photographs by Bonita Glaser, Audrey Hopkins and Natalie Harvey. Maryland Wanderings opens today and runs through June 9 at Slayton House Gallery. There will be a reception with live music 3 p.m.-5 p.m. Sunday. The gallery is at Wilde Lake Village Green in Columbia. Hours are 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mondays-Fridays and 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturdays. For more information, call 410-730-3987.

At the top -- Slayton House Gallery on Wilde Lake Village Green will present an exhibit of watercolors by Rhoda Seiden and photographs, titled Top of the World, by Steve Ember, from Thursday through May 12. A reception with refreshments and music is planned from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. April 22. Gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. 410-730-3987.