Baltimoreans and other Marylanders prepared for yesterday' snowstorm, but many simply couldn't stay home after it ended. They took to the hills to slip, slide and glide on sleds and toboggans. They cheered on swim teams and socialized at parties.
Having collected milk, bread and other essentials Friday, yesterday was the time to enjoy the winter scene.
The snow was well-timed for commuters, who didn't have to dig out cars -- an early-morning routine that became too familiar last year.
Some snapshots from yesterday:
Doug Ahern, 9, of Rodgers Forge got up at 4 a.m. yesterday to watch the snow, said his father, Don, as he stood atop the hill at Baltimore County public schools headquarters at 6901 N. Charles St. in Towson. "All the kids -- they've just been waiting for this. These kids live for it."
The hill in front of the school building is a gathering place on snowy days.
Parents like the abundant parking. Sledders like the long hill with its many bumps and dips.
Mr. Ahern made a run down the hill on a sled with his son clinging to his back. Bob Vaeth, a neighbor, and his son, Jimmy, 9, had made the same trip.
Mr. Vaeth proposed switching positions for the next run.
"Nooooooooooo," Jimmy said.
Nearby, Wendy and Ron Duncan of Rosedale were readying two large inner tubes at the top of the hill.
"I say we all go," Mrs. Duncan said to her three nieces. When they agreed, she and her husband each sat in a tube with their legs stretched across to the other tube. Then the girls piled in, with 4-year-old Sarah Wilkinson of Parkville landing on top. The group made it almost to the bottom of the hill, then tried the ride again.
You had to have planned ahead to get a new-issue movie for viewing yesterday if you were a patron of places such as the Blockbuster Video Store at Greenspring Tower Square shopping center, off 41st Street in Baltimore. The place was packed, said Cecilia Mendez, who works behind the counter, from early afternoon Friday into the evening before the snow started.
"It was really busy," she said. "They wanted anything new."
A quick scan of the shelves yesterday proved her point. How about "When a Man Loves a Woman"? Nope; all 25 copies rented. "Wolf?" All 46 copies claimed. "True Lies?" No way; 64 copies gone.
Nicole Jantz was dismissed yesterday from University of Maryland Medical Center after abdominal surgery. And then, a few minutes later, she was back.
Relapse?
No. Bad luck.
Moments after she climbed out of her friend's car in the 1000 block of St. Paul St., she was hit by a red Ford Bronco that slid out of control down the street. A glass vase of flowers she was holding flew through the air, scattering petals and stems on the slush-covered roadway.
"It's just a freak thing," said Central District Officer David Raugh, adding that Ms. Jantz was not seriously injured.
"[The driver] started to slide. He did what he was supposed to do -- turn into the slide."
Yesterday's storm may have touched off bad memories of last winter for folks in the Sandy Point area of Anne Arundel County. As Judy Persons put it: "Actually, we didn't get any snow. We've got slush. That's all we've got." She attributed the slush at Pleasure Cove Yacht and Beach Club at Sandy Point, which she and her husband, Alex, manage, to the nearby Chesapeake.
Those icy, bad memories of early 1994 began with an all but unprecedented slush storm that froze . . . and froze . . . and seemed never to thaw.
Yesterday's slush did cause grief for one Pleasure Cove boat owner, whose canvas cover collapsed, spilling slush into the boat's cockpit. Besides that, though, the slush didn't slow the club down, Mrs. Persons said. "One of our members is having a party tonight, and there's another party tomorrow afternoon, and that's not canceled, either."
Buffy Burke, captain of the Western Maryland College women's swim team, had thought it might be a little difficult to get psyched to swim against invisible opponents. "But because everyone was cheering, that made it easier to go fast," said the 21-year-old senior from LaPlata.
Western Maryland and Ursinus College, from the Philadelphia area, had a swim meet yesterday despite bad traveling conditions (it was worse in Pennsylvania).
With the Centennial Conference championships scheduled in two weeks, no time remained to reschedule. So, with conference officials concurring, the coaches agreed to have Ursinus' team swim in its pool, WMC's team in its pool -- with officials scoring the competition over the telephone.
Head Coach Kim Easterday was happy. Several of her swimmers set personal time records, and others qualified for the conference championship. "It was fun. I'm glad we did it, but I wouldn't want to do it on a regular basis," she said.
Western Maryland's men defeated Ursinus, 112-53. Ursinus' women's team beat the local women's team, 108 1/2 -82 1/2 . In Owings Mills, Bill Bullis and Randy Freeman made do with a man-made hill. They climbed a 30-to-40-foot mound of dirt that had been deposited by construction crews in New Town.
"It was a little steeper than I thought," said Mr. Bullis, 27, who lives nearby. Mr. Freeman, 32, of Eldersburg was rubbing his back.
The friends make it a point to get together every winter for snowstorms. Besides the two saucers they used to slide down the hill, they pulled a small plastic blue sled -- containing beer.
In early morning, the snowstorm brought Columbia cabbie James Wills a steady stream of off-duty truckers leery of driving their big rigs on snow-slickened roads, motorists whose cars had stalled and anxious travelers bound for Baltimore-Washington International Airport.
"We were busy," said Mr. Wills, who started work at 6 a.m. yesterday, when many roads were still snow-covered. "We got a lot of calls from people who got snowed in."
But Mr. Wills had the road conditions well in hand. "Just go slow," he advised. "Instead of going 30 mph, go 15."
Friday, officials at New Germany State Park in Garrett County canceled yesterday's annual cross country ski race because of poor trail conditions -- just 2 inches of snow with many icy or bare spots.
The race, part of the Allegheny Mountain Nordic Race Series, drew about 100 participants last year and another 100 or so spectators to the rugged, lovely park.
Wouldn't you just know that Garrett County is experiencing a blizzard -- the real thing -- with as much as 2 feet of new snow expected? Western Maryland College's golf course was jammed yesterday afternoon with people coasting down the hill on sleds, snowboards, plastic toboggans, wooden toboggans, blade-runner sleds, inner tubes and for a few improvisers, sheets of plastic.
Crowded conditions on the golf course were, as usual, good news for Chuck FitzGerald, who owns the Carriage House package goods store nearby. "They buy snacks, anything to warm up. Beer, sodas, a little brandy," he said. "We don't sell much ice, though."