Waitress

Angela G. Thompson, who in 49 years of waitressing at Sabatino's in Little Italy memorized her orders and rarely used a pad, died of a heart attack Nov. 15 at Franklin Square Hospital Center. She was 76 and lived in Highlandtown. "She worked until the week before she died," said her son, Michael R. Thompson of Baltimore. "She wanted very much to make 50 years at the same job. " Born Angela Goth in Ansbach, Germany, she met and married a Virginia-born serviceman, Richard McCarty Thompson.

Welcome to my first restaurant review column, wherein I will describe an exquisite meal I enjoyed last Sunday evening. Unfortunately, I really can't tell you the names of any of the dishes I sampled. I can't expound on the origin of the recipes or the inventive things the chef did to change them up. I can say for sure, however, that some of the dishes were made with chicken, some were made with beef and some were made with the relentless, fiery tears of the scorned Goddess of Red Pepper Heaven.

Suzana Pesa was disgusted by the images of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that she saw on television. She jumped on the Internet and was soon linked to a Facebook effort to gather hair clippings from local salons to make hair booms to soak up the waves of black, greasy gook. "When it happened, I was really upset," said Pesa, a dental assistant living in Mount Vernon. "I was looking for anything I could do to help." In two weeks, Pesa gathered two garbage bags filled with hair clippings from 10 salons in Baltimore.

To many Catonsville residents, veteran Jennings Cafe waitress Peggy Bailey is considered a fixture of the community, much like the annual Fourth of July parade. Sporting clothes in patriotic colors, residents and neighbors packed Frederick Road on Saturday with coolers and aluminum and canvas camp chairs for the parade put on by volunteers with the Catonsville Celebrations Committee Inc. This year's parade theme not only focused on the national holiday, but also on Catonsville's 200th anniversary.

Ethel A. Smith, a retired waitress and Highlandtown poet, died March 11 in her sleep at Bonnie Blink, the Maryland Masonic home in Hunt Valley. She was 101. Ethel Adel Swanner, the daughter of farmers, was born in Rutledge, Harford County. In 1918, she moved with her family to a rowhouse on Lombard Street in Highlandtown. She attended city public schools through the sixth grade, when she dropped out to help raise a brother after her mother became ill. In 1926, she married Robert Keller, a baker who later became a tavern owner.

A former waitress at a Double T Diner in Anne Arundel County filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit Thursday in federal court against the restaurant chain and the son of one of its owners, alleging she was subjected to sexual advances, gropings and graphic profanity. The suit by the 27-year-old woman is the latest in a decade-long string of legal actions - including two suits by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission - against the Double T chain by former waitresses who claimed they were sexually harassed by managers and other employees.