Written By Sherwood Kohn The cool, clear air of autumn has for some time now evoked mixed emotions. In the days before 9/11 and Katrina, one looked up at the dry, blue sky, smelled the coming fall breezes, and felt a sense of...

Written By Mary Spiro The place is Kenya, East Africa, early August. Bart Walter, a wiry man in his late 40s wearing wire rimmed glasses and an equally wiry beard, intently studies the form of a lioness crouched in the grass....

Written By Michael Dibari In the context of the currently superheated real estate market, whole subdivisions of what have been called “McMansions” are springing up. By contrast, a few large homes embody the best of their genre....

Written By Patricia Rouzer Relatively modest houses that 15 years ago may have fetched $100,000 now command two or three times that– sometimes more in the coveted Mt. Airy, Finksburg, and Sykesville-Eldersburg areas, now...

Written By Shelly Horn As Labor Day approaches, we look forward to celebrating the work ethic and the people who believe in it. Everybody is familiar with the usual means of employment. But some Carroll County breadwinners do...

Written By Mary Spiro When internationally-known jazz pianist Eric Byrd sits down at the piano, it is as if he is sitting down to chat with an old friend. And as blues and gospel-flavored music emerges, Byrd seems touched,...

Written By Sherwood Kohn Things obviously moved at a slower pace 100 years ago. It is not a law of nature, but sometimes when you try to reproduce something that was built in the past, you import something of the old timeline....

Written By Patricia Rouzer Westminster aquatic phenom Lyndsey Smith (see Carroll Magazine, April/May, 2005) has taken another step toward her goal of swimming for the U.S. at the 2008 Olympic Games. In early June she placed...

Written By Lisa Breslin Approximately 4,000 people visited the Carroll County Farm Museum July 9 and 10 to immerse themselves in music, crafts, dance, and traditions from all over the globe. They heard Scottish ballads, songs...

Written By Lisa Breslin The other morning, while my husband was whipping up breakfast in the kitchen, the phone rang. “Lisa, come deal with this,” he said after listening to something on the other end of the line. “I can’t tell...

Many men in their late 70s are content to retire and take it easy: play a leisurely game of golf, go fishing, sit on the front porch in a rocking chair. Not so for Paul S. Crowl, 77, of Finksburg. Last March, he broke with the...

Written By Carol Cahall At the heady altitude of about 830 feet, Mount Airy is the highest point between Baltimore and Braddock Heights. A brisk, steady wind is not uncommon. Local folks often comment, “they don’t call this...