At Times It Was Like Shared Music, at Times Like a Skin Graft or Root Canal — Stephen Dobyns I do at a coffin sale — Dorothy Stewart A Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Cake …
June 1, 2006
News & Stories
Reader writers tell of great wedding moments and minor disasters
Poodle in a Backpack
No one's ever asked me about my wedding before. Have I even thought about it? I don't think so. Not recently, anyway. I was a bride? I have to squeeze my brain like a grapefruit …
June 1, 2006
Two Guys in a Room
I was nervous in the final minutes before my wedding, but not for the usual reasons. I was 22, young, but I had known Deirdre since I was 18 and dated her since I was …
June 1, 2006
What about the IUD?
Everyone should be married — once, I think, just as everyone should be fat — once. I am lucky in that I have very little at all bad to say about my one experience with …
June 1, 2006
A Road Trip with Nuptials
We didn't elope in the traditional sense, Annelies and me. No ladder up to her window in the middle of the night. We borrowed her dad's car and left after breakfast. We were married over …
June 1, 2006
King Kong Meets Godzilla
I was 19, Mike was 21, and it was still early enough in the '60s that "The Sixties" had barely begun. My high school sweetie foolishly introduced me to his "brilliant friend" the summer before …
June 1, 2006
When a Man Loves a Man, Why Not Hire a Preacher?
Yes. Steven and I had a wedding. A real celebration of not only our relationship but also a big thank-you to all those close friends and family who gave us support and encouragement. I suppose …
June 1, 2006
A Song with the Word Love in It
I made my husband Ernie wait three days for an answer to his marriage proposal. I had traveled to be with him for Easter, and he proposed after the midnight vigil Mass, April 1995. I …
June 1, 2006
Do I Look Like I Have Original Sin to You?
Two interesting pieces of information about myself, each of which is 100 percent true: 1) My first Holy Communion was at the second wedding ceremony of my only marriage, and 2) My only religious confession …
June 1, 2006
A Look That Could Banish Shadows
Saying "I do" was the easy part. There used to be this redwood church, A-frame, about halfway between Los Gatos and Santa Cruz on Highway 17: some rough-hewn pews, but no altar, no icons, just …
June 1, 2006
By the Tips of Her Red Leather Boots
I was wearing nothing but a red plaid pajama top when Bryan proposed to me. He was so many things that my wild, hippie family was not: gentle, legally employed, and in therapy. I adored …
June 1, 2006
She Wouldn't Crawl on Her Belly for a Monk
"William, do you take this woman, Lita..." Ah, the Reverend Jones. It's 6:30, Saturday evening, August 21, 1982. I'm standing in front of 35 friends here in the old Authors' Lounge of the Oriental Hotel, …
June 1, 2006
Loops Like Pillows
"Never say never," I thought to myself as I slid into my wedding dress in early May of '96. It wasn't that I had once supposed I would never get married. I was 25, in …
June 1, 2006
Serial Marrier
I first got married at 21. I didn't intend to get married. One evening my girlfriend led the conversation into a general discussion of the institution of marriage, and the next thing I knew we …
June 1, 2006
Hitler Loved Him
On September 15, 1962, Ellen and I got married. She was 22 and I was 26. Standing at the altar, I was thrilled as she walked up the aisle with her father to the strains …
June 1, 2006
Before PETA Protests
The evening after our wedding Kevin and I sat on my — I mean our — vintage mauve velvet sofa and ate Kentucky Fried Chicken. This was before I was a vegetarian, before I knew …
June 1, 2006
Steered Back to Mary
"I probably shouldn't have stayed up so late," I thought as I paced back and forth in the little sacristy at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Ridgefield, Connecticut, nervously flipping the long tail of my …
June 1, 2006
A Ben & Jerry's ice cream cake comes to mind
Happy weddings are all alike; every unhappy wedding is unhappy in its own way. I've been married three times. My first and third were both happy, and startlingly alike. Both took place within a few …
June 1, 2006
Temecula Fruit
'I think as our vineyards mature, we'll buy less and less from out of the area.'
Cartoon Portrait
'Hergé projected everything he wanted to be onto his characters. How different the artist is from his creation is what I found to be the most interesting [about the film]," says Phillip Gay, department chair …
June 1, 2006
I am one of these unfortunate children. Weep for me.
Something about Friday, quitting time at work, is much like Christmas morning as a kid. Of course, nothing will compare with that, but the comparison stands in the sense of pleasant, pleasureful possibilities about to …
June 1, 2006
Three Slushees, Two Pools, One Old Lady
A party I went to in Clairemont had trouble written all over it. The host had a live band in a residential area, and he took down the fence separating his house from his neighbor's …
June 1, 2006
999 Revisited, with a Latte in Vegas
Hello: I received a phone call on my cell phone from 999-999-9999. They kept calling and calling, and for a while I only got dead air when I answered. However once when I answered a …
June 1, 2006
Beer Rap
Dear Matt: In my college days it was "common knowledge" that a sharp rap on a cold beer would "reinfuse" the carbonation and prevent the foam and spray when the can was opened. Any truth …
June 1, 2006
View San Antonio Falls at Mount Baldy, before summer's heat renders it dry.
San Antonio Canyon, a yawning gap in the towering San Gabriel Mountains, serves as the main gateway to the third highest mountain mass in Southern California -- Mount San Antonio, or Old Baldy. At 10,064 …
June 1, 2006
Back In The Hunt
Last week I had lunch (lunch being a burger and a beer) with a woman I've known since the 1970s. She's a civil attorney now, seven years divorced, and is thinking about rejoining the hunt …
June 1, 2006
The Reader's Eye on Television
Social pressure is about the worst kick to the ghoulies that a man in his prime can take. Rowland McCowan would tell you that himself if he were still around. You can be charging ahead …
June 1, 2006
Red Weather
Red Weather by Pauls Toutonghi. Shaye Areheart Books, 2006, $23, 246 pages. Yuri Balodis, the hero of Red Weather is an exile from a country he's never seen. He's never been there, yet it dominates …
June 1, 2006
I Do at a Coffin Sale
I used to say that you could get married when you ran out of things to do. So we got engaged after two rounds of Long Island ice teas at Carlos Murphy's bar on a …
June 1, 2006
Two Fans in Tibet
'Now, with the Internet being where it is, there's little that a record label can actually do for you," says Jamie, a jazz violinist, composer, label owner, and multimedia artist. "The Internet gives you world …
June 1, 2006
Bethel Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Church, Stockton
The hard rat-a-tat of the drums set the beat for the choir as they processed into the high-ceilinged church. Swaying, bouncing, and clapping, they mounted the stage and sang out in a near-shout over the …
June 1, 2006
Poked, Prodded, and Probed
The trouble about always trying to preserve the health of the body is that it is so difficult to do without destroying the health of the mind. -- G.K. Chesterton "Did you fast?" The seated …
June 1, 2006
Jeremy Menning in Providence, Rhode Island
Are You Still There, God? I am not getting married in a church. I guess that is fitting seeing that I have not practiced formalized religion in over a decade. I was raised attending a …
June 1, 2006
Golf Putters
My beloved husband Patrick spent many teenage years on the golf course. He played for four dollars after school and caddied on weekends at a high-end country club near his house. Caddying made him spending …
June 1, 2006
At times it was like shared music, at times like a skin graft or a root canal
Chunks of ice rode the whitecaps as the Nantucket ferry steamed out of the harbor in Woods Hole and into the Atlantic. The March wind had driven Isabel into the warmth of the cabin, while …
June 1, 2006
When Former Unbroken Vocalist
When former Unbroken vocalist Dave Claiburn left San Diego for the Midwest, he had no idea how much he'd miss the city he called home from 1991--1994, or three of the greatest years of his …
June 1, 2006
Hardcore Punker
Hardcore punker Sam Ilich now knows that the excessive punk lifestyle has its limits. "After I lost my home and my marriage [in 2000], after a decade of destroying clubs and fights and turning down …
June 1, 2006
Following the Lead Set By
Following the lead set by Jared Leto, Keanu Reeves, and Russell Crowe, Adam Brody of Fox TV's OC launched his career as a touring rocker last week at the Jumping Turtle. His four-man band Big …
June 1, 2006
Live Irish Music
Live Irish music has done well for Ned Giblin. It's been packing his Carlsbad restaurant and café Tom Giblin's (named after his late father) for six years. The Irish food/music/Guinness formula worked for him as …
June 1, 2006
For Years, It Was Called
"For years, it was called the KSON Flatbed Show," says Steve Nichols of the mobile soundstage he's renamed the Rolling Radio Show. "Al Turner at KSON drove it, but after he lost his vocal cords …
June 1, 2006
Peers Battle in Rancho Santa Fe
San Diego's old financial scandals never seem to die. Decades after the principals have gone to the hoosegow and been released, the muck keeps rising to the surface. An example is Whispering Palms, a residential …
June 1, 2006
Trolley Crimes Surge
The year 2005 saw a significant increase in arrests and incidents for the San Diego Trolley system. According to a report obtained from the Metropolitan Transit System, the agency that runs the trolley, serious crimes, …
June 1, 2006
Stonewall
How hard is it to get information out of San Diego State University? Very, says attorney Anne Brunkow, an opponent of the school's plan to build 540 units of faculty housing and a hotel in …
June 1, 2006
Moonbeams
Oakland mayor Jerry Brown, the ex-governor and former presidential candidate now regarded as favored to capture the Democratic nomination for state attorney general in next week's primary, has been picking up sizable support from some …
June 1, 2006
Bail Out
With less than a week to go until the June 6 primary, last-minute money continues to roll into local campaign coffers. Among the more notable contributors, Rancho Santa Fe's Robert Spencer Douglass. Douglass owned the …
June 1, 2006
Sprouted Again
“Feeling sick? Try Israel’s Tonic! Garlic, ginger, cayenne pepper, lemon, apple, beet, and carrot."
June 1, 2006