A FELLOW named Mark Harbold keeps a couple of pigs on his property on Falls Road near the Brooklandville fire station. A whole bunch of people, including several Ruxtonians, got a look at these pigs Saturday afternoon after the animals apparently caught the smell of fresh cantaloupe, busted out of their pen and went on a sortie to Debbie and Butch Snyder's long-standing produce stand on Ruxton Road. Pigs being pigs, they refused to wait in line for service and caused a scene. They caused a Baltimore County cop to earn his pay as a field training officer, too.
"They ran through the zucchini and squash, and ate some tomatoes," says Joe Hoffman, the teen-ager on duty for the Snyders when the swine arrived for their midafternoon snack. "They got into the cantaloupes and the watermelon. We shooshed them away, but they came back and most people were afraid of them." Apparently one of the pigs gooped up some string beans, too.
Police were summoned to secure the public safety. They found the pair of pigs in a field north of Ruxton Road and the produce stand. Officer Jason Sherfey, a seasoned professional serving Saturday as a field training officer, showed rookie Officer Michael Salamone, only five days out of the police academy, how to bring home the bacon. (Sorry, but I think in a story about pigs, I'm allowed one of those awful pig phrases. I won't let it happen twice.)
Sherfey and Butch Snyder managed to get some rope "like a leash" around one of the pigs, but the animal slipped away at least twice. After much effort - and the arrival of Harbold, the pigs' owner, from around the corner - the officers managed to get one of the pigs, a 125-pound male, into their patrol car and drive him home. Harbold lured the other pig back to its pen with a hot dog. (Beef or pork, we could not ascertain which.)
Big hair hits stage
TJI reader Ed Sherwin went to Seattle on business recently and caught the Broadway-bound musical Hairspray, based on our favorite John Waters film, at the 5th Avenue Theater. "We were able to purchase three tickets right up front in Row K," says Sherwin. "After we arrived at the theater and were milling around the lobby prior to the performance, I heard my wife saying to someone, 'We're from Lutherville.' When I walked up to see who she was talking to, it was none other than John Waters himself. He was extremely courteous, but asked us to keep quiet so no one would know he was there. Right.
"The show is fabulous. It is upbeat and funny, and reflects well on the original movie with some modifications to accommodate the stage and the wonderful musical score. Marissa Jaret Winokur, who plays Tracy Turnblad, does a terrific job and Harvey Fierstein was hilarious in the Divine role. Hairspray will be a huge success on Broadway."
Sherwin might be right. In a review of the premiere, the Seattle Times raved.
You may soon see stars
We've heard the gossip for the past two months and now one of our best sources says it's so: Megastar Will Smith and his wife, Baltimore native Jada Pinkett Smith, are looking to buy a house around here, supposedly in Hunt Valley. And Chris Rock, making a movie here this summer, is looking for a place in Maryland, too. ... Meanwhile, would you believe Montel Williams' brother on stage as Satan? Watch this space.
New career, new city
So whatever happened to Lawrence Bell, the former Baltimore City Council president who lost to his old pal Martin O'Malley in the 1999 Democratic primary bid for mayor? Divinity school? Men's fashions? Selling Cutco knives? Turns out that, after his political career went south, so did Bell. The one-time almost-Wunderkind is in Atlanta, acting as host of a nightly talk show on WAOK-AM. "The Lawrence Bell Show is both innovative and entertaining," says an Internet blurb for the program. "While most news talk programs merely highlight issues and provide their listeners with an avenue to blow off steam, The Lawrence Bell Show elevates its audience and challenges it by asking the simple but poignant question: 'Where do we go from here?'"
Bugged
Sorry but ... whenever I see that big billboard for "EHRLICH, The 911 of Pest Control" along the JFX, over Pepsi-Cola Valley, I think of the Republican candidate for governor, and I know I'm not the only one. Strange. I also doubt that I'm the only person who now associates "911" with something other than the emergency services telephone number. Seeing it used to market an exterminator is beyond strange and makes me wonder what the ad agency was thinking - or if it was thinking at all.