Letters to the Editor
Volume VII Number 14
April 8-14, 1999

Everybody Loves A Garden

Dear New Bay Times~Weekly:

My dachshunds, Kenai and Sitka, must think they're vegetarians. When Kenai, now 13, was a pup, I lived in Alaska and her vet was a well known veterinarian for the Iditarod Sled Dog racing teams. Dr. Sept recommended that besides dried dog food, a good snack for hungry pups was cooked vegetables: a healthy filler without the calories.

By the time Sitka came along - she's now 11 - their main snack had become lettuce. Now, when I open a Tupperware container to make salad at dinnertime, they come running. The problem is, when I plant my spring garden, the dogs think I've planted the lettuce for them. To my aggravation, they graze in the garden, recklessly and voraciously eating lettuce and doing more damage than a nearby warren of rabbits. To solve the problem, last year I seeded a small window box with mixed greens just for them. Here's Sitka guarding her mini-lettuce garden. Or maybe she's just waiting for the raspberry vinaigrette!

-Kathleen Wilson, Churchton

Of Calverts and Kings

Dear New Bay Times~Weekly:

Thank you so much for the lovely story about St. Mary's City. There is much more to tell about it and the people who so colorfully inhabited it.

There is a small mistake in the lineage of James II, the English king who helped hasten the demise of the city as capital. He was the son of Charles I, not Charles II. Charles II was his brother, and Mary, who succeeded the unfortunate James II with her husband William of Orange (William and Mary) was his sister.

Charles II was a good king to St. Mary's City, as he was tolerant and quite benign by nature. He was the "Old King Cole was a merry old soul" type of guy. He had no legitimate offspring, although he had a litter of illegitimate ones, whom he supported and treated well. His queen, Catherine of Braganza, was the typical political alliance marriage, but he was always kind to her and refused to divorce her even though she was barren.

The Calverts are a very interesting bunch and quite important to Maryland history. I wish more could be written on my personal favorite, Leonard Calvert, of Leonardtown. He was so forward in his thinking that he appointed a woman overseer to his estate, Margaret Brent, who had the audacity to petition the court for a right to vote.

-Aloysia C. Hamalainen,
Silver Spring

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