Yuppie

Riding the rails like hobos is dangerousRegarding your story "Yuppie hobos ride rails, share bond with the past" (May 13), those yuppie hobos have death wishes.Illegality aside -- yes, it is illegal -- people who bum rides on freight trains are putting life and limb in severe jeopardy.Your article glorifies an activity that demands the same level of common sense one would exercise by leaping aboard a tractor-trailer truck tooling down the Jones Falls Expressway.The Consolidated Rail Corporation has visited schools around the country, and every day we tell students that they should stay away from trains.

ARTIntriguing juxtapositionsIt's interesting what juxtapositions will do to works of art. Drawings by Brice Marden and Sol LeWitt, currently on view at the Baltimore Museum of Art, are both essentially geometric arrangements of black lines on white paper. But put them together and the LeWitt looks precise, cool and intellectual, while the Marden looks warm, emotional and intense.A lot of that kind of comparison is possible in "Marking the Decades: Drawings 1960-1990," a small show mounted as a companion to the much larger print show that opens on Feb. 23. Among its 25 works are ones by Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Elizabeth Murray, David Hockney, Nancy Graves, Terry Winters and Mel Bochner.

Some years ago, I took the family to a county fair in southern Wisconsin. After looking at some blue-ribbon 4-H goats and cows, I was heading for a beer tent when a complete stranger grabbed my hand, shook it vigorously and said something like: "Hi, I'm Les Aspin, and I'm running for Congress."I didn't know the young man and wouldn't have guessed that he would some day become a national figure. But because I feel sorry for politicians who have to engage in such undignified behavior, I shook his hand just as vigorously and said something like: "That's terrific!

UP TO NOW, I have remained largely ambivalent about the no-tie, top-button-buttoned look for men favored by artsy types, movie stars, rock musicians and unrepentant yuppies.Much of this ambivalence has to do with my own fashion sense, which has been described as sort of a Bud's-Exxon-Goes-to-College approach to dress.It leans heavily toward old sweaters, worn jeans and grease-stained sneakers, a timeless look that also (unfortunately) suggests the wearer is recently arrived from the unemployment line.

A long-running domestic dispute between movie actor John Heard and "Homicide" actress Melissa Leo moved yesterday to a Baltimore courtroom, where prosecutors dropped a stalking charge against Heard but named him in new harassment charges.Leo, 36, who plays a tough police detective in the NBC television series, alleges in court papers that Heard has been stalking their 9-year-old son, whom she was awarded custody of after a bitter 1994 court battle.She and Heard had a three-year relationship in the 1980s, but they were never married.

SAN FRANCISCO -- We Americans have had our flappers, our boomers, our hippies, our yippies, our yuppies. Now, as the millennium dawns, it is altogether appropriate that our English language respond to a new group for statisticians to ponder and economists to dissect: those young multimillionaires running dot-com businesses. What DOES one call 36-year-old Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com, a wunderkind whose company has set book-buying on its ear? Or Yahoo's Jerry Yang, who was 27 when that Internet stock went public in 1996?

Sen. Barack Obama is finally coming into focus. For a while now, the Obamaphiles have insisted that their candidate represents a profound break with the past. No more culture wars. No more "relitigating the 1960s," in Mr. Obama's own words. But what about relitigating the 1980s? There's always been a certain cultural lag time to Barack and Michelle Obama, a kitschiness that's been hard to pinpoint. But I think I've got it: They're self-hating yuppies straight out of the 1980s, which was to the Obamas what the 1960s were to the Clintons.

Vera Papa looks north from behind her Formstone-covered rowhouse in the 1600 block of Belt St. and sees the invaders coming her way. Yuppies. From Federal Hill.Moving steadily south from Cross Street, the newcomers are stripping South Baltimore's rowhouses of Papa's beloved Formstone in favor of exposed red brick fronts. They are adding wood decks to their roofs, allowing them to enjoy harbor views privately (and, some old-timers point out, to look down on neighbors). And they are replacing small back yards with parking spaces for their cars.

EXCEPT FOR SEX and race, nothing quite preoccupies the minds of Americans the way money and social distinctions do. And this is a country that views Great Britain as the epitome of class-consciousness!Sun reporter Joe Mathews' Dec. 29 story, ''Federal Hill's yuppies edge southward,'' was a case in point. It prompted a flood of letters from readers. Many were Federal Hill yuppies who proclaimed South Baltimore working stiffs to be among their best buddies.Don't you believe that for a minute.

On a recent frigid evening, I ventured into yuppie heaven -- the Whole Foods Market in the Inner Harbor East. Whole Foods began life as a natural-food store in Austin, Texas, but now has become a 166-store international behemoth, albeit a socially responsible behemoth, focused on organic, high-quality foodstuffs and friendly, competent service. Maryland has seven markets, including ones in Mount Washington and Annapolis. The one downtown occupies an expansive space with high ceilings and a concrete floor.