Volume 14, Issue 52 ~ December 28 - January 3, 2006

Features:

Local Bounty 2006

More than 40 Days and Nights of Pleasures for All Ages

From lights displays to gingerbread house workshops to Messiah performances to ringing out 2006 and in 2007, Bay Weekly’s Local Bounty holiday guide will fill your days and nights, all the way from preparing for Thanksgiving through celebrating the New Year. We’ve reported as thoroughly and accurately as our early deadline allows, but it’s best to call ahead to confirm times. Also, peruse the whole calendar early and make your reservations, for the season’s popular events fill up fast.

The Best of Bay Weekly

We want every story we write at Bay Weekly to be our best. But it’s only in retrospect we see — always with startling clarity — subject and telling so aligned as to lift a story above the weekly grind, into star-spangled memory.

These are the stories we remember best from the pages of 52 issues of Bay Weekly in 2006. Under various headings — features, sports, business, arts and entertainment, environment, science, growth and development and education — they’ll be our entries in the Maryland-Delaware-District of Columbia Press Association’s editorial contest for 2006. In the new year, judges from the North Carolina state press association pick the top two stories from all the competing entries sent by papers in five size categories. Ours is non-dailies with 10,000 to 20,000 circulation.

Farewells

We lost both subjects and writers of Bay Weekly stories in 2006.

The Best of the Bay

We asked you, our loyal readers, to choose your favorites of 2006 in everything from restaurants to clean bathrooms to Bay Weekly stories. Here are the results. compiled by Erin Huebschman; written by Aubree Stafford with Sandra Olivetti Martin

Departments:

Letters • Editorial • Bay Reflections

The Best of Bill Burton ~ Bill Burton’s far-ranging commentaries have been a part of Bay Weekly for more than 650 issues, since 1993, earning prizes year after year in the Maryland-Delaware-District of Columbia Press Association’s annual competiton.

The Best of Bay Weekly’s Columnists ~ Our four columnists of 2006 — Gary Pendleton, Steve Carr, Dennis Doyle and Alice Snively — will return in ’07, when we will introduce some new additions to our lineup.

Tidelog® • Sky Watch ~ Celebrating the return of light: Winter’s just begun to clench its icy fist, but the sun is on the rise. by J. Alex Knoll

8 Days a Week ~ Bay Weekly’s gguide to good times. by Carrie Madren with Aubree Stafford

Flickerings ~ Burns on Rocky Balboa: So the movie has hiccups. Rocky Balboa still rates as the most intelligent Rocky film to date. The boxing action is great when it comes. I defy you not to perk up at the sound of Rocky’s fanfare.