MARCH MUDNESS -- you know what I'm talking about? You don't have to be a Terps fan to experience it. Just look at your shoes. Look at your car. Look at the back yard. Look at the front yard. This is the month we move through the muck on the way to more muck. April is muck with tulips. You know what I'm talking about? You ought to. Mudness is everywhere.

It leaves a gray film all over your attitude.

Not to mention your windshield.

Ever get stuck without wiper fluid while driving? What joy. You keep pushing the wiper fluid button, in the belief that if you apply just the right amount of pressure, at just the right angle, you'll be able to tap into a reserve well and force a stream of cleansing blue water across your windshield. Of course, it never happens. All you get is a mechanical hum from the pump.

I've been known to reach out the driver's window and toss yesterday's coffee onto a dirty windshield. It's brown, but it works. A couple of passes of the wipers and one can see the world again.

Of course, some people don't even have wipers that work. Ever seen fellow motorists challenged by this dilemma? It's a memorable sight.

TJI reader Kurt Kolaja, who has reported odd visions from the front seat of his truck before, noticed a couple so challenged near Druid Hill Park on a recent rainy day. As the man drove, the woman stretched her body through the front passenger-side window, reached across the windshield with a long-handled squeegee and made repeated swipes with it.

"She was allowed to rest at red lights," Kolaja reports. "Then, when the light turned green, she gave the guy a look, then resumed squeegeeing. That's an owner-installed option I hadn't seen before."

'Star wars' trailers

Here they are, in their entireties: Statements by our two Democratic U.S. senators, Paul S. Sarbanes and Barbara A. Mikulski, explaining (so to speak, in Sarbanes' case) why they voted last week -- with 95 other senators -- to authorize the kind of missile defense system derided as an expensive "star wars" fantasy when Ronald Reagan proposed it in the 1980s.

Sarbanes: "I voted for this legislation after two important amendments, which I supported, were adopted unanimously by the Senate. Both amendments significantly improved this measure by making it clear that it is the policy of the United States to continue to work toward negotiated reductions in Russia's nuclear weapons arsenal, and that the costs of a national missile defense will be subject to annual congressional approval, just like any other program."

Mikulski: "Our national priority must be arms control treaties that aggressively pursue the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Yet America must be realistic about the new, ghoulish threats. The threats posed by Iran, North Korea and other rogue states mean we must develop a missile defense system that is fiscally and technologically realistic, as long as that does not violate our arms control treaties. However, we must not rush to deploy a missile defense system. We must only deploy the best possible technology -- instead of the first available technology. And we can't let a missile defense system give us a false sense of security. Our national securiity is now threatened more by terrorists who use chemical and biological weapons than by nations using ballistic missiles."

Sarbanes' statement suggests a faith that, once the Pentagon gets busy planning this thing and taking bids from defense contractors, Congress will exert prudent controls on its costs, estimated to be in the hundreds of billions. The last line of Mikulski's statement suggests she went along for the ride with the majority on this one. Ninety-seven out of 100 senators can't be wrong, can they? They wouldn't overreact to missile threats and invest their political support in a potential multibillion-dollar boondoggle, would they?

Playing the numbers

Is there are a more famous number in Baltimore than 2,131?

Twenty-one-thirty-one is the number of consecutive games Cal -- is there a more famous name in Baltimore? -- reached Sept 6, 1995, to set the Major League record. But I still got it wrong. My reference to it in Friday's column was 2,132. Don't ask me where that came from. (I might have confused it with another famous number -- 2,632 -- which is where the streak ended, Sept. 20, 1998.) The columnist regrets the error.

But back to my question: Is there a more famous number associated with Baltimore?

The only others that come to mind are from the realm of professional sports -- 4, 5, 20 and 22 from the Orioles, 19 from the old Colts.

Here are few others (only one related to sports).

Do you know their significance?

02/07/04.

Four straight.

228.

30-by-42.

07/02/80.

(Answers later this week)

TJIDAN@aol.com is the e-mail address for Dan Rodricks. The TJI columnist also can be contacted at 410-332-6166, and by post at The Sun, 501 N. Calvert St., Baltimore 21278.

Pub Date: 03/22/99