At the top of my list of must-have hardware-store cooking gear -- along with an inexpensive Microplane and a blowtorch -- is a simple ball of string. Or at least it’s my favorite until Thomas ...

The great big $8,250 ball of Haussner’s string has become the instant cornerstone of the Antique Man’s collection of weird and wonderful oddities — “because it is, in fact, Baltimore.” ...

Haussner’s may be gone, but its jumbo ball of string rolls on. And it’s for sale — though, at 825 pounds, it might take a modern-day Sisyphus to move it. Exterior of The Antique Man ...

One of those vivid vignettes came rushing back from my subconscious Wednesday when I glanced at a picture in the paper of a ball of string 20 feet in diameter. Instantly, I was 7 years old ...