For the fourth year, a team of teenagers will be putting on a fashion show at the Stanford L. Warren Library at 1201 Fayetteville St. The event is free.

The show, featuring 15 models, ages 12 to 17, will be held from 2 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. this Saturday.

The clothes, on loan from Cato, Dress Barn and S&K Fashion, are divided into categories including looks for prom, casual styles, hip-hop styles, formal wear, outfits for church and some just for fun.

The Durham County Library is hosting six free sessions on how to gather basic genealogical information and write your family history, starting Thursday.

Registration is required. The details:

WHAT: Genealogy 101

WHEN: noon to 1:30 p.m. on Thursdays, from Sept. 25 through Oct. 30.

WHERE: Durham's Main Library, 300 N. Roxboro St., Third Floor Conference Room

DESCRIPTION: Learn how to gather basic genealogical information, interpret records and overcome roadblocks, organize and write your family history, get the most out of internet resources, and use local, regional and national repositories.

Some wild creatures inhabit the Bull City, and not all of them walk on two legs.

This nice account of a recent night nature hike through the Ellerbe Creek Watershed 17-Acre Preserve, in the heart of the city, was posted by Diana Davis on the Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association web site, www.ellerbecreek.org. We think it deserves a wider audience.

About two dozen brave souls showed up just before dusk at the Ellerbe Creek Watershed 17-Acre Preserve for our September nature hike. We were treated to a wonderful chorus of singing insects throughout our whole hike. The cicadas were the loudest, with several distinct species calling but the crickets and katydids chimed in to add their calls to the mix.

Spotted near Brightleaf Square on the side of a white pickup truck was a hand-painted sign reading:

Middle-class

Hard-working white

Gun-owning male

in his 50s for OBAMA

The Durham Bulls Baseball Club and Durham's downtown post office will dedicate a new commemorative first-class postal stamp this month in honor of America's favorite pastime.

Special guests at the dedication on Aug. 28 include acting Durham Postmaster Tom Pollard, Bulls mascot Wool E. Bull, Bulls Vice President George Habel and Clay Council, a 71-year old All-Star Home Run Derby batting practice pitcher.

Council recently pitched in the All-Star Home Run Derby, throwing to Josh Hamilton, a Texas Ranger outfielder and record-setting home run hitter in the competition.

Durham is about to become the Best Place to Look at a Spittoon Collection.

The State Historic Sites Division has agreed to purchase a collection of 282 brass, glass and porcelain spittoons from Connecticut collector Jim Kinner, for display at the Duke Homestead State Historic Site. The price was $6,700, about half the collection's market value, the state agency said in a press release Monday.

The acquisition will make the Duke Homestead's collection the nation's largest.  

Spittoons became necessary pieces of furniture in the 19th Century when numerous men and women adopted the habit of chewing tobacco or dipping snuff, a more powdery form of the weed. The result was saliva too nasty to swallow — and spitting on the floor was considered bad form.

I logged on this morning to see the baby robins on the Duke University Office of News and Communications Webcam (see yesterday's post titled "Animal Planet, eat your heart out.")

Fortunately for them, they've learned to flap their little wings. Unfortunately for the 100-plus viewers who tuned in yesterday to watch them, they've moved somewhere out of the Webcam's view.

Their closest observers were kind enough to post this notice in the birds' nest: "Birds have flown away."

He's on vacation this week. Otherwise, you can be sure Eric Ferreri would post here about his interesting and entertaining story on street names that appears in today's N&O.

So please take this opportunity to tell us about street names in Durham that strike your fancy. Have you ever noticed the little slice of Greece right off N.C. 55? Athens Avenue is right next to Crete Drive. I've also always been tickled by Riddle Road.

As noted in this 2005 column by Durham historian (and Durham News columnist) Jim Wise, some folks even use street names to send a little message — as in Trinity Park, when Brodie Leonidas Duke, son of Washington Duke, named what is now known as Gregson Street "Hated" to take a stab at rival George Washington Watts.

Reading street maps from east to west, you learned that "Watts Hated Duke."

The Scrap Exchange is hosting a giant clothing swap from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday on the CCB Plaza.

The event will feature free activities and live music. The Scrap Exchange, Durham's creative re-use center, will set up stations for altering clothes and they'll also provide materials for participants to make and take home birthday hats.

To participate, bring your unwanted clothes and swap with others to find or create something new.

The Scene of the Crime Rovers, the official Scrap Exchange marching band, will start to play at 7 p.m.

At dusk, there will be live music and a mixed-media audio/visual collaboration by the Triangle Sound Painting Orchestra and Jim Kellough. This performance will begin as the sun starts to set and will continue until around 9:30.

Call the the Scrap Exchange with questions at 688-6960. The event is sponsored by Durham Parks and Recreation.