I used to sit on my grandparents' sailboat on Pier 6 at the City Yacht Basin as a kid, watching a dog take flight off the dock at the launch ramp, soaring after a toy thrown by his owner. On Saturday, I'll be the dog. In virtually the same spot the dog used to plunge into the refreshing summer water, I'll be joining a couple dozen dedicated lunatics in taking the plunge—or dunk, rather—for charity. My wife, Liz, and I will be participating in the inaugural Duck Dunk to benefit the Susquehanna Hose Company. Patch is one of the sponsors of the event, too. Look for our logo on the shirts they'…

Thanksgiving is my wife's favorite holiday. Admittedly, she enjoys it for the food. I've always enjoyed Thanksgiving because—at least growing up in my family—it's a little more relaxed and less-rushed than Christmas Day. Thanksgiving also has an unbelievable power we often overlook: it makes the Detroit Lions relevant every year. Granted, this year they're actually a decent football team. But I rarely would find myself tuned into games in Dallas or Detroit otherwise. This year brings some new excitement, and something else to consider on the agenda for the day: the Ravens are playing. I've …

I had just arrived at my art history class at Harford Community College on Sept. 11, 2001. I remember always thinking how odd that date looked when you wrote it on a paper for class: 9/11 Those numbers would never look the same again. As I got ready for class—in my first month of college—I sat with Rob Guerreri, one of my teammates from the Harford Owls baseball team. Another member of class alerted our teacher about something to do with a plane hitting a tower. That's all I heard as the teacher gasped. I thought maybe a flight had clipped the air traffic control tower at BWI. Class went on …

It’s amazing how fast a year can go by. And at the same time, events from a year ago seem even more distant in memory than they really are. Last week, I celebrated — OK, more like looked back with appreciation —my one-year anniversary as a Patch employee. On Oct. 18, we’ll celebrate one year of bringing Havre de Grace Patch online. As I’ve told many of you when I’m out and about in Havre de Grace, this has been the most gratifying part of my career. It’s been more than just reporting the news. It’s been representing our community on a forum that has become part of the town's fabric. There …

It was the biggest day on the summer calendar. I was looking forward to the independence celebration in Havre de Grace for weeks. But what was supposed to be one of the best days of summer turned out to be the lowlight in mine. So I’m bidding July adieu. I’m not looking back. Don’t get me wrong—I love the July 4 holiday. I enjoy summer. I’ve enjoyed bringing our readers the news in July (we’ll get to some of the highlights in a minute). But on a personal note, July stunk. I was covering the independence celebration parade in Havre de Grace on July 3 when, after riding the parade route for an …

I was just down the street from home, visiting my grandparents’ house in the late afternoon on May 26, 2001. A couple days before graduation, taking a few minutes away from a hectic senior schedule to visit family. The phone rang, and it was my parents, asking me to come home immediately. I must have forgotten to finish some chores, I figured. Not quite. The news struck like a knife through the heart. I spent the next hour or so—I don’t know, time was out of line at that point—in the basement at Will Felix’s house in Bayview Estates, before heading to Miranda Powell's house in Perryville for …

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story was originally published March 5, but was taken off the site because it was to be a surprise for Karen. Nobody told the Patch guy it was a surprise. My bad. So if you're just hearing about this event, I'm sorry. Hope you can make it up to Broom's Bloom by 8 p.m. to help out a wonderful cause for an equally-wonderful person. ——— I first met Karen Green as a high school student. We were trying to find gym time in the winter to start throwing before baseball season. Karen had the ability to grant us that gym time. At that time, she was holed up in a tiny office in the "…

It was 2001. We used to cruise around town in my Ford Ranger. The music was different. Nelly’s “Ride Wit Me” was on repeat a lot. We snuck past Perryville in the season-opening football game to bring the Susquehanna Bowl to the right side of the river for the first time in almost a decade. Then we lost the next nine games. It was this time of year I was eagerly looking forward to baseball’s first game. Little did I know we’d lose each one of them until the season finale. Quite the losing streak my senior year. For all the things to look forward to, the one thing I didn’t want to close in on …

The work week has come to a close. So, too, has the first week for would-be candidates to file for the May 3 city election. The mayor and three council positions will be decided by voters. The window to apply is March 1-March 15. As of today, nobody has filed—that includes the incumbents: Mayor Wayne Dougherty, and council members John Correri, Randy Craig and Mitch Shank. Shank has said he will file Tuesday morning after announcing his intentions at Monday's City Council meeting. The lack of applicants thus far is an interesting water cooler topic in political strategy. Who will be the first…

It was March 1, 2010.  I was in much better shape. My arm was ready to throw batting practice (or, so I thought). The bucket in my trunk—which is still there—was full of clean, white baseballs. That maroon fungo bat was pristine—no tape, no dents, no dirt. I drove to the high school from Bel Air. I could have sprinted. This time last year, I was running on no sleep. Well, some things never change. Only last March 1, I woke up with no need for coffee. No caffeine necessary on the first day of baseball season. My e-mail exchange overnight with new Havre de Grace High School baseball coach Chad …

Liz and I got to St. John Street around 6:30 Sunday night. The gathering at Tidewater Grille had been going for a good hour-and-a-half. As we took the hill down past MacGregor’s and turned left into the parking lot for Tidewater Grille, we had a feeling we might be walking a ways. Cars filled the riverside parking lot, leading up the hill at the opposite side near the American Legion. Looping back around, St. John Street itself was crowded in front of Coakley’s. Not knowing any better, I would have assumed it was a mid-summer First Friday’s. When we finally parked halfway between Franklin and…

Small world ... How many times have you discussed a name around town and said that exact phrase? Let’s try it out. Close out this window if you don’t know someone around town with the last name “Curry.” I'll wait. Waiting. Still here? I figured you would be. I'll get to my point: I got a touching e-mail the other day detailing the plight of a young mother struggling with a sickness that popped up from virtually nowhere. She’s been hospitalized for more than a month. She turns in for the night in that hospital bed every day, with her infant daughter sleeping an hour away. In fact, she hasn’t …

If I were still single with no responsibilities, I’d spend the next 34 hours finding out how many football games I could play on PS2 before my eyes cross. Thirty-four hours. Why? Because that’s how long we were without power. Some contractor—not to be confused with Ricky Bobby—decided it would be cool to destroy some BGE hardware in our neighborhood. Toss in our daughter’s sudden fever Wednesday night, and sleep has been at a premium (even more than usual). Thanks to our family for keeping us sane, providing us a place to stay, and keeping Havre de Grace Patch plugged in through their …

Dear Moms & Dads— Hi, I'm Sean Welsh, Editor of Havre de Grace Patch. I want to invite you to join us in an exciting project that we've launched for mothers in our community. We are recruiting a Moms Council of three to five knowledgeable mothers who would help us answer questions posted by parents, lead discussions of key parenting topics in our area, and reach out to online and offline moms’ groups in the community. As a council member, you'll help us improve our coverage of families by suggesting stories to write and you'll also help us recognize outstanding kids in Havre de Grace. While …

Stir crazy yet? Our dog is going nuts. We’re still holding it together. Give it a few hours though. If you’re already there, here’s a list of a few things you can do to pass the time while snowed in tonight: 5. Flip on the TV. In our house, its stuck on Nick Jr. until 8 p.m. Tonight, you have "Modern Family" and "Off the Map"—two of our favorites—to pass the snowy evening away. There’s plenty of basketball on ESPN. "A League of Their Own" is on Encore. Oh, and there’s that "American Idol" thing. 4. Explore the kitchen. Make something new that you’ve never tried for dinner. Mix up a new drink …

 Havre de Grace resident Curtis Coon brought it to my attention when he did to everyone else in the community at Tuesday’s city council meeting. Behind-the-scenes work—primarily by council members Mitch Shank and Randy Craig—has been underway for more than a year, with the hopes of creating enough support to have a new Havre de Grace High School built. My first reaction: cool. But, certainly, there are some issues at play. Should it really be a priority? How is the school built in its current location while classes are ongoing? And then there's the always popular question: How do we pay for …

Terence Mann, James Earl Jones’ character in "Field of Dreams," couldn’t have put it any better: ... The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time ... For me, baseball has been there my whole life. Ultimately, I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do with that life, only because the game proved too difficult for me to reach my goal of playing it for a career. But for the past two years, baseball was there for me. After …

Cars were supposed to fly in 1999. I remember reading a story about it in the early 90s. I believed it because in Back to the Future II, cars were flying on a "skyway" in 2015. These flying cars—many of them looked like a Prius, as my wife pointed out—maneuvered on invisible sky-high interstates with exits just like the ones we take on I-95. Here we are a full decade beyond 1999. Still no flying cars. The closest thing we have to flying cars is a Prius—or, as we call it in our household, the Space Shuttle. Where did we go wrong? We should have let Doc Brown run the show. That dude had it all …