In the official records of San Diego’s Juvenile Justice Commission he is known simply as Derrick C. Derrick was 12 years old the first time he appeared in a criminal courtroom, in 1990, wearing county-issued …
April 24, 1997
Thursday, April 24
San Diego's juvenile delinquents — how to treat them
What happens to a spider's body when it dies
Matthew: Do all spiders die with their legs scrunched up in a little ball, or is it just the ones in my house? — Anna, San Diego Anybody’s dead spiders do that leg thing. When …
April 24, 1997
Harry Mathis says he didn't know ESPN's plans to turn La Jolla Shores Bl. into a racetrack
Had it not been for his wife, Harry Mathis says he never would have known about ESPN's plans to use La Jolla Shores Drive for a high-speed X Games skating demonstration - plans that were …
April 24, 1997
Larry Lucchino polls re where to put San Diego Stadium
It was opening day, 1994. I was at the Murph to see if the Padres had sold the toilet seats yet. Management had been unloading players and their contracts, laying off secretaries, rationing office supplies …
April 24, 1997
Ex-KFMB TV editor Carl Sisskind now public relations consultant to the city of San Diego
Ex-KFMB TV editorial director Carl Sisskind has picked up a new gig as a public relations consultant to the city of San Diego, and he's putting a favorable spin on some controversial issues dear to …
April 24, 1997
What happens to all the copies of films after they've run their course
Hey, Matthew: What happens to all the copies of films after they've run their course? Take for instance a movie such as the rereleased Star Wars. It was probably showing in ten theaters in San …
April 24, 1997
Thursday, April 17
Man robs Home Federal in Pacific Beach to see his daughter
"I was 25 years and 6 days old when the police threw me into a jail cell.... I was sentenced by a federal judge to 46 months in federal prison." Sean Legacy robbed a bank …
April 17, 1997
San Diego traded a convention center for libraries
Ocean Beach attorney Lewis Wenzell is one of the plaintiff's lawyers in the Supreme Court case seeking to force a public vote on San Diego's $200 million convention center expansion. He sat down last week …
April 17, 1997
Patrick Daugherty gets his dog
After three weeks I have Baja office up and running, return to San Diego to interview several people for a story. Only motel I can find that takes pets is Motel 6 in El Cajon.
April 17, 1997
Smash and grab in Tijuana's Zona Rio
I shouldn't have been shocked to see the smacked-in passenger side window of my car when I emerged on a Sunday evening from a friend's apartment in Tijuana's Zona Rio area. I knew, after all, …
April 17, 1997
While wife gone, I read Kerouac's On the Road
My wife left me while she still could. A ten-day visit with her family in Kansas City, to see her new nephew and to help a friend in need. Soon she will be too pregnant …
April 17, 1997
Harsh words for Mike McDade and other members of San Diego's port commission
City hall's panic over the state Supreme Court's decision to hear the case for San Diego's right to vote up or down on that $300 million convention center addition continues unabated. Sources say officials are …
April 17, 1997
Thursday, April 10
Older people in downtown San Diego talk about death
The irony of man’s condition,” writes Ernest Becker, “is that the deepest need is to be free of the anxiety JL of death...but it is life itself which awakens it, and so we must shrink …
April 10, 1997
How to get the best shoe shine
Mat mail: I like to shine my shoes. What can I do for the best shine? — Lewis S. Zelenak, Encinitas Hi, Lewis. After a brief discussion, our Screw-Loose Screening Committee, which classifies the incoming …
April 10, 1997
We pumped Gloria full of fluid and saved her lif
RUTH ANN, MY HOUSEMATE AND FELLOW SECOND-YEAR FAMILY PRACTICE RESIDENT, HAD TOLD ME VIRGINIA WASN’T DOING WELL WHEN SHE SIGNED OUT TO ME THAT AFTERNOON IN 1990. THAT EVENING, I GOT THE CALL FROM THE …
April 10, 1997
How to recognize radio spies and revolutionaires
Dear M. A.: While running the dial through the shortwave band, I tripped over something curious. I don’t remember the frequency, but at one spot on the band I heard a female voice endlessly reciting …
April 10, 1997
Why Did They Fire John Coleman?
John Coleman says he can pinpoint the day Rodger Hedgecock turned from being a vocal supporter of the referendum drive to put stadium expansion on the ballot to an ardent critic of those efforts. It …
April 10, 1997
Tom Hom occupies three quarters of what would be "downtown Tecate"
Come September, Tecate's border crossing, the hilly country 43 miles east of San Diego, will get a $10 to $12 million expansion. San Diego entrepreneur Tom Hom hopes this signals the birth of the border …
April 10, 1997
Four San Diego judges own sizable blocks of Qualcomm stock
Qualcomm came out a big winner when Superior Court Judge Anthony Joseph ruled the stadium expansion and its companion Qualcomm naming deal didn't have to go before voters. And so may have some of Joseph's …
April 10, 1997
Anne Lamott's Crooked Little Heart
“We belonged to what was called the Rec Center in Tiburon. It eventually became the Tiburon Peninsula Club. But it was the club where the middle-class people that populated Tiburon when I was a child played.”
April 10, 1997
Thursday, April 3
The San Diego life of a castrated man
I first heard about Tom Blarney from a woman with whom I had worked. She had a friend, she said, who had lost both testicles to cancer. He now took supplemental testosterone shots, and he …
April 3, 1997
Elvira and the scandal of the Santa Fe railroad
Mat: I used to ride along the bike route that goes under the bridges at the I-5 and 52 intersection. Directly under the bridges along the railroad tracks is a sign that says “Elvira.” Was …
April 3, 1997
You don't have to be lawyer to use "Esq"
Dear Matthew Alice: What does Esquire mean after someone’s name? How do you get one? Can I get one? Why is it always a man’s name? I’ve never seen a woman’s name followed by Esquire. …
April 3, 1997
Why San Diego beaches have few shells
Dear Mr. Alice: Please answer these two questions that are keeping me awake nights: 1. Why are there no shells on our local beaches? 2. How come you know everything? — John d’Escondido Which local …
April 3, 1997
The growing Copley mansion, Fox Hole, at 1252 Virginia Way
Construction crews are again hard at work at David Copley's corner of La Jolla, where three years ago they added what the San Diego Union-Tribune at the time called "a many splendored wing" that more …
April 3, 1997
Gang accusation at Bell Junior High in Paradise Hills
A Bell Junior High School student reports to his parents that there has been a riot at school. He further relates that he was jumped, kicked, and beaten by 20 students. The child is African …
April 3, 1997
Charles Manson weighs in on Rancho Santa Fe's Heaven's Gate
NBC went to court last Friday against a Michigan minister the network says reneged on an agreement to sell it exclusive rights to a videotape of the Rancho Santa Fe cult members' final good-byes for …
April 3, 1997
How border with Mexico was set
Dear M.A.: Is it true that the original boundary between the U.S. and Mexico was seven miles north of the present one, and the U.S. “took” the rest? A friend who grew up in Tijuana …
April 3, 1997