Woodworking

He's been called the most famous carpenter since Joseph and the guru of home improvement.Norm Abram, the amiable carpenter star of public television's "This Old House," has for 15 years made a dovetailed joint look so easy that any average Joe or Jane could pick up a tool and do it, too.It is a talent that has helped propel "This Old House" into position as the most popular half-hour program on public television, with 7 million people tuning in each week....

Ralph N. Taylor, a retired architect who later worked in facilities management for the University of Maryland, died Monday of kidney failure at Glen Meadows Retirement Community in Glen Arm. He was 82 and had been a longtime Towson resident. Born in Lowell, Mass., and raised in Dover, N.H., where he graduated from high school, Mr. Taylor worked as a draftsman at the Navy yard in Portsmouth, N.H., until enlisting in the Army in 1944. He served in ordnance in the Pacific, and attained the rank of lieutenant.

Back in Biblical days, Noah turned to the craft of carpentry to keep his head above water during tough times.These days, Ilex Construction & Development Inc., is following the same course.In 1989, officials of the Baltimore-based company, which specializes in custom homebuilding, remodeling and restoration, looked to the future and saw a recession brewing. Diversification seemed to be the key to survival.They started a woodworking division in 1989 by acquiring the shops of two local cabinetmakers, Raymond Book and Joshua Brumfield.

Free workshops scheduled at woodworking showLocal woodworkers will conduct 14 free workshops during the Baltimore Woodworking Show, which runs Friday through Sunday at the Maryland State Fair Cow Palace, 2200 York Road in Timonium.The show will feature the latest in hand and power tools, machinery and supplies that can be purchased at "special show prices."Four full-day seminars on furniture-making fundamentals, picture framing, beautiful wood finishing and scroll saw techniques will be offered for $125 when registering at the show.

The vacant old elementary school comes first as you enter Harney from the south on Harney Road. Then comes the closed-up United Brethren church with holes in the slate roof. A few "For Rent" signs on houses and other buildings. Some "For Sale" signs. A place or two boarded up. Peeling paint. Nobody around. The last thing in Harney before the "Welcome to Pennsylvania" sign is a cemetery. Maybe this is a ghost town.A casual visitor to this Carroll County hamlet of 50 or 60 homes might get that impression, especially at midday when many working people are away, says 15-year resident Charles Cole.

"What do you do?" we ask one another, and what we really mean is: "What generates your weekly paycheck?" But no one is, or should be, completely defined by a job.Yet the word hobby is unsatisfying, too. With its childlike and casual connotations, hobby cannot capture the passion some people bring to their avocations, as opposed to their vocations."In terms of leisure behavior, a lot of people want their leisure to 'count' as much as their work," says Jeff Godbey, a professor of leisure studies at Penn State University, who has co-authored "Time for Life" with John Robinson of the University of Maryland.

In Harney you don't have to cut through the city haze to see brilliant stars. Grand, rolling farms frame the community on all sides. The Monocacy River has entertained generations of children who venture there for a quick swim or to fish.Tractors rumble down the road in this place where the residents' sense of community is defined by three things: history, farming and the local fire hall.Called Monocacyville until the late 1850s, Harney rests on the edge of Carroll County, four miles north of Taneytown and almost the same distance to Gettysburg, Pa. The Mason-Dixon Line runs on a hill north of town near the lovely Mountain View Cemetery.

Engelina van Opstal remembers having a problem with the air conditioning in her apartment at Charlestown Retirement Community and calling for someone to come repair it. "John came," van Opstal recalled Thursday, "and he got it working. " That would be John C. Erickson, who 30 years ago opened Charlestown on the grounds of a former seminary in Catonsville, the first of what would become a chain of 16 retirement communities in nine states. Erickson, who sold the company in 2010, returned Thursday for what he called "a big homecoming" to help residents and staff celebrate Charlestown's 30th anniversary.

RARE IS THE schoolchild whose heart still swells with pride at the 400th or 500th recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. It's a morning ritual. It means it's time to stop clowning around. It means the whole school day still lies ahead. That's not to say the pledge doesn't have a place in American life, beyond helping small children learn how to say "indivisible." The Pledge of Allegiance is like a civic prayer, so familiar from constant repetition that the words themselves hardly carry any specific weight anymore.