Bulletin

Stuart Symington Taylor Sr., 91, an editor and vice president of the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin from 1935 to 1964 and publisher of the Santa Barbara (Calif.) News-Press from 1964 to 1984, died in his sleep Sunday at his home in Montecito, Calif. A native of Norfolk, Va., Mr. Taylor grew up in Baltimore and graduated from the University of Virginia in 1935, the year Bulletin owner Robert McLean hired him. He left the paper at the start of World War II to enlist in the Army.

IWANT TO add my name to the list of people who will vote against President Bush. He has done absolutely nothing but send this country backward in terms of economic stimulus, job creation and worldwide negativity. If this is the ideal leader, then I must be missing something. He did not support the extension of the assault-weapons ban, which is an affront to police officers and their families. Though he's a wartime non-duty respondent, he cast a pall over Sen. Kerry's war record.

At the height of its popularity during the first two decades of the 20th century, Willow Grove Park was one of the most famous amusement parks in America, according to historian Donna L. Cohen. In the Philadelphia region, it was where people first learned how to play using their newfound leisure time. The park was developed by the Peoples Traction Co., which owned trolley lines, to increase weekend ridership during the summer. It was located near a spa, the Mineral Springs Inn, on more than 100 acres at Willow Grove and Germantown turnpikes in Abington Township.

We are a culture of stuff, and sometimes it overwhelms - beds and bowling balls, candles and chairs. You want to streamline life and clear out closets, but there's always a catch: The item is too nice or useful to simply toss; you don't want to bother auctioning it on eBay; the charity to which you usually donate won't take everything. That's where Freecycle comes in. Just a year old, the online service is a bulletin board on which people can both list things they want to discard, and post requests of stuff they need.

John H. Buhsmer, 71, of Gulph Mills, a former vice president of the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, a foundation president, online pioneer, and a golfer who continued to play despite losing most of his sight, died of complications from heart disease Saturday at Lankenau Hospital in Wynnewood. In 1973, Mr. Buhsmer, who had always loved newspapers, became vice president in charge of personnel and labor relations at the Bulletin. After the Bulletin's owner, the McLean family, sold the newspaper in 1980, he became vice president of Independent Publications, a McLean affiliate, and he also became active with the McLean Contributionship, a private foundation.

On Rosh Hashanah mornings in my childhood, my mother saw to it that my sister and I were dressed presentably for the Jewish new year, which invariably meant clothing that scratched or felt too tight. Even as she put the finishing touches on the epic meal that would follow services, she insisted that we eat a decent breakfast. We had to make it through the long morning prayers; Mom believed that only on a full stomach was that remotely possible. Then our family joined streams of neighbors walking to the neighborhood synagogue, an imposing gray stone building that seemed like an impenetrable fortress.

The bumpy road to the altar for Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck took another detour yesterday. The Hollywood supercouple known as Bennifer were supposed to tie the knot Sunday, but said yesterday that they had postponed the wedding because the media frenzy had spoiled their efforts to keep the ceremony private. "When we found ourselves seriously contemplating hiring three separate 'decoy brides' at three different locations, we realized that something was awry," the couple said in a statement issued through their publicists.

Founded a century ago, the Jenkintown Day Nursery is one of the oldest continuously operating children's day-care centers in the region. Tradition at the nursery holds that in February 1903, Theodore Culver, a Jenkintown resident and Roxborough manufacturer, learned from a friend that two children were spending the daylight hours in a barn at the rear of Culver's property. When Culver returned home, he asked his wife, Annie, who was 36 and busy with their own family, to look into the story.

An all-points bulletin alerting law enforcement authorities in much of the East Coast to be on the lookout for a man driving from Pennsylvania toward the White House in a car laden with explosives ended yesterday with an arrest in Washington. The car, a 2001 Chevrolet Cavalier rented from Enterprise Rent-a-Car near Philadelphia International Airport, was stopped about 12:30 p.m. in the Adams Morgan section of Washington, about two miles from the White House. Inside the vehicle, law enforcement officials found 10 rifles and six handguns but no explosives, according to Washington Police Chief Charles Ramsey.

The Belmont Driving Park Club of Merion, a sulky racetrack, was established in 1876. It resulted from a wave of pride generated in the region by the Exposition of 1876, held in Philadelphia, which celebrated 100 years of American independence and progress. When it was finally completed, the driving park had a rectangular track that measured 80 feet wide and one mile long. The straightaway passed in front of an impressive multilevel clubhouse, according to an article by Milton R. Yerkes in the Bulletin of the Historical Society of Montgomery County, Vol. 1, 1936.