San Diego Police Historical Association

As we drove onto the 163 and took to the Richmond Street exit to Upas, thick black smoke was spreading throughout the sky.

Lately, I’m getting the feeling that I came in at the end. —Tony Soprano, The Sopranos

Illustration by Margarita Chastikova, Getty Images

The Sopranos television series ended its remarkable run in 2007, right around the time when this final batch of the Reader’s best stories from its first 50 years begins. Back then, it was not unusual to publish an issue at over 200 pages, and while readers complained that the paper’s longtime film critic Duncan Shepherd didn’t even seem to like movies — just look at all those black spots! — there were still 15 or so movie ads jammed in alongside his precise and exacting critiques.

When Shepherd retired in 2010 after a 38-year run, we were down to 160 pages and six movie ads, two of them small enough to fit on the screen of your iPhone. Speaking of seismic technological developments: Shepherd’s farewell column dubbed the internet “a brave new universe for some, maybe” before concluding that if “that’s the way of the future, better to get out while the paper is still a paper.”

That was 12 years ago, 10 of which I spent trying to fill just one of Shepherd’s shoes — critic Scott Marks took the other. Scott too is gone from our pages now, alas, another victim of the grim digital arithmetic. But as these entries attest, the Reader is still here — still telling San Diego stories, still answering the question, “What’s San Diego like?” As ever, full versions can be found online — a brave new universe, indeed. But the paper is still a paper, and we aim to keep it that way. We may not be what we once were, but then, who is?

—Matthew Lickona

My life as a mammal 5.11.06 Laura McNeal

The doctor studied the quivering black and white lines on the ultrasound and said it looked like a boy to him. I reminded myself that Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, my father, and my husband had once been boys. Boys could be pensive, bookish, and sweet, like Christopher Robin.

Here comes the bride 6.1.06 Stephen Dobyns and 18 other Reader writers

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 left him hanging. We talked about it until the sun dawned. Easter dinner at his house was uncomfortable.

David Ross: “I would go where people were just heads peeking out of blankets. I called out, 'Anybody need some water?' Well, hands came out. Everybody. Faces I didn't even see.”

Photo by Chris Woo

He loves the people no one wants 10.5.06 John Brizzolara

"It turned out she hadn't had a drink of water in two days. I thought, 'That's it! Water!' I went directly from there to the first 7-Eleven I found, and I bought about 30 or 40 bottles of water. I went back to the bridges and started passing out water."

Dig a little deeper 10.12.06 Thomas Larson

Thompson had been stabbed 55 times in a bedroom of his Emerald Hills home. Not only was blood evidence retained; so, too, were the knives used in the stabbing. Thompson was the owner and publisher of the San Diego Voice and Viewpoint, the only black-oriented daily in the city.

All of us in this house 11.22.06 John Brizzolara

I put the lights on, took the phone from my son. It was his mother on the line, nearing a hysteria tempered by the months of practice she'd had with worse incidents – heartbreakingly bizarre forms of acting out, a suicide attempt with a samurai sword and, finally, the police.

The San Diego fishing industry has relied on one family for over 55 years. The Everingham Brothers Bait Company has three bait barges: one in Mission Bay, one in San Diego Bay, and one up in Dana Point.

Photo by Alan Decker

Heartbreak? That's fishing 11.30.06 Geoff Bouvier

"I've never seen a fish scream. I can't attest to the fact of whether or not they feel pain. But if you read the Bible, you see where mankind is supposed to harvest and use the things of the earth. Now I'm not saying we should go whole hog and pollute and kill everything."

Border angels 12.7.06 Stephen Dobyns

Beginning in January 2002, the Border Angels set up cold-weather stations in Cleveland National Forest in East County, with blankets, sleeping bags, clothing, food, water. In Imperial Valley about 40 water stations are located at the edge of the desert along Route 98 between Calexico and Interstate 8.

Lost boys of Sudan 1.25.07 Bill Manson

"Most of us couldn't swim," says Isaac. "It was really very deep and swollen because of rains. The currents were very, very fast. All the rivers were overflowing. We didn't have boats. There was no bridge. The army started firing guns at us. Artillery, big machine guns."

Where the mail goes when it doesn't get to you 2.1.07 Geoff Bouvier

"The mail carriers and the guys working in the plant gather all this loose stuff inside these green mailboxes whenever they find it," Ferguson-Costa explains. "Like this little bundle with a rubber band on it probably came from a mail carrier's route."

The nothing that is not there and the nothing that is 3.15.07 Geoff Bouvier

"The park's trying to deemphasize the existence of these mud caves," Schad told us. "They've collapsed quite a bit over the years, so the word is that they're not really safe." Um-hmm. The perfect thing to tell people after leading them into a cave.

Judith Moore. If you have never been fat, you may find me and my story repugnant. There's not much I can do about this.

Rosa Jurjevics

23 Reader writers describe the regime of editor Judith Moore 8.16.07

Matt Lickona: She had been published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, the house that published Walker Percy and Flannery O'Connor. She had been reviewed, favorably, in the New York Times. She encouraged me to apply for the NEA myself, telling me that they wouldn't even consider me for a Guggenheim unless I already had the NEA.

We've grown up in paradise 11.9.07 Geoff Bouvier

Growing up, I hated it. Because it offered me very little that excited me. You know, I got to sail, which was cool, but, I mean, as far as exposure to the arts, or people who were highly driven and highly educated, I got a lot of that good stuff in New York, or when I went to Vermont.

Why Tijuana? 11.15.07 Bob McPhail

Osvaldo had come to Tijuana for the same reason as Bertha -- to work. He wore too much cologne and was fastidious about his uniform. It was precisely pressed and fit him as if tailor-made, which, with his close-cropped haircut, gave him a vaguely military look.

Samoans live and die in Oceanside 2.20.08 Geoff Bouvier

"I got into a gang, the Deep Valley Bloods. I was about 13 or 14. And me and my other friend were the youngest out of the whole crowd. The jump-ins were crazy. On Arthur Street, we used to make two lines. And you’d have to run down the middle."

Richard Silberman and Susan Golding, 1984. Even though they were divorced in 1990 after Silberman's conviction in a federal money-laundering case, there are still financial, emotional, and political ties between their families.

Photo by Joe Klein

San Diego Union building, 4th Street, south of Broadway, 1872

The rise and fall of the Copley Press 2.28.08 Matt Potter

David Copley is slimmer since his heart transplant; wearing a black sport coat over an embroidered silk vest, he labors up the airplane’s small stairway as a member of the Jimsair ground squad loads his small rollaway suitcase into the rear hatch.

San Diego’s secret missile-testing sites 4.2.08 Moss Gropen

A moment later, I reached a gated dead end that thwarted my plan to make a round-trip back to Pomerado Road via Beeler Canyon Road; it required a U-turn to get out of this military-industrial ghost town. A jolt of fear coursed through me.

Mohammed. “Follow us,” says Mohammed. We walk down past the Waamo Wireless store to a little station where dozens of guys are taking their shoes off.

If I did that over there, they'd cut my hands off 5.14.08 Bill Manson

If anywhere seems like Little Mogadishu, it’s up on El Cajon around 54th Street. Women in long robes, some with their faces covered. If you know where to look, places pop up with odd names like Coffee Time Daily or Taste of African Cuisine.

Tijuana is the first stop to suicide 8.20.08 Ernie Grimm

Dr. Luis Guerra operates a veterinary practice in Colonia Libertad, a neighborhood that clings to the hills between the river and the border about five miles east of downtown. “What are those veterinary pharmacies doing down there in a tourist area?”

Does the San Diego River still have life in it? 10.22.08 Bill Manson

This San Diego river water is basically runoff from the lawns and cisterns and radiators and factories and gas stations of San Diego, via polluted tributaries like Forester Creek in El Cajon. And we get most of that water from Northern California."

The spell of verticality on Curlew Street 1.28.09 John Brizzolara

As I approach my former address at the edge of Mission Hills, right where that neighborhood turns into Hillcrest, I am approaching a time machine as surely as if I were walking toward and lifting my hand to knock at the address of H.G. Wells’s Victorian scientist.

The whole world sleeps at my place 5.6.09 Rosa Jurjevics

In California, a menu titled “Couchsearch” informs us that San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco have the most “hosts” (people who let couchsurfers into their homes), each with 1000-plus.

Stay away from Pinto Canyon 6.3.09 Robert Marcos

About an hour later, we came upon them. The cave drawings were stick figures of men, rectangular grids, and most notably, a tall sailing ship, complete with a mast and furled sail. I was unhappy to find a drawing of a sailing ship.

A tour of San Diego alleys 9.16.09 Alex Finlayson

But today this Pacific Beach alley south of Chalcedony is sunny and deserted. Palm fronds clatter softly. Bougainvillea overwhelms low backyard fences. It looks like a stage set of the perfect San Diego morning.

Armando, second from left; Troy, crouching; Shelia and Jackie, second and third from right. "There was no other way to be. It’s in the blood.”

Nuts and bolts 12.2.09 Matt Lickona

He was laid to rest at Singing Hills, it was in a powder blue coffin trimmed with gold — Charger colors. His body was dressed in a jersey honoring his favorite player, Lance Alworth. On his feet, his Charger shoes; on his head, his Charger hat.

Want to to be sent home in pieces? 4.7.10 Laura McNeal

At 3:39 a.m. on January 7, 2007, Columbia Street was almost deserted. Little Italy had been plagued with car burglaries — “It got where you couldn’t drive too many of the streets down there without seeing broken glass in the morning.”

Dorian Hargrove: “My wheels stopped at a crack. I didn't. Flying through the air, I looked at my right hand clutching the leash. That was my last memory before the right side of my forehead met the pavement.”

Broken heart, broken skull 4.21.10 Dorian Hargrove

Five friends and I took the seats at the far end of the narrow bar. It wasn’t much of a celebration, but it was the closest thing to a party I’d been to since I’d fallen from a skateboard and landed in a coma, awaking 19 days later with a piece of my skull missing.

San Diego women who have converted to Islam 9.8.10 Elizabeth Salaam

Once two girls ganged up on her, and one told the other to pull off Safiyah’s hijab. “When I was seven years old, people used to say, ‘Why do you have that?’ They used to question me. They’d say, ‘Take that towel off your head’ and stuff like that.”

Lemon Grove kid Dennis Hopper 10.20.10 David Elliott, Matthew Lickona

He attended Helix High from 1950 to ’54, got himself voted most likely to succeed. And he began acting here — slipping under the shadow of Dorothy Maguire’s wing at the La Jolla Playhouse for The Postman Always Rings Twice, then moving on to Shakespeare at the Old Globe.

Our desperate neighbors 12.1.10 Craig D. Rose

Imperial County economic developers say current 30-plus percentage unemployment rates are a statistical quirk arising from a small population base with a seasonal workforce. Several said the actual unemployment rate is a percentage no higher than the low 20s.

Author Patrick Daugherty at Point Barrow Station in 1983. In winter, the temperature gets down to 30, 40, 50 below zero. One toils at a leisurely pace.

Work 10 weeks, take 10 months off 11.9.11 Patrick Daugherty

Laborers Local 942 of Fairbanks, Alaska. God, that was a sweet deal. Being a union laborer in Alaska, during the 1970s and ’80s, was like nothing else in the world of part-time employment. The position possessed, if you knew where to look, two happy-go-lucky components: minimal toil and big money.

Another rope held strips of freshly killed deer meat.

Cuyamaca pot bust 2-8-12 Chuck Harper

“Harper. What did you find? A couple of plants?” “No, it’s the mother lode — plants as far as we can see.” “I’ll get a bird in the air, and my ground crew will head your way. I’m coming from San Diego. When you hear the chopper, call me on this number and guide me in. Okay?”

Nathan Fletcher's untold stories 5.23.12 Matt Potter

By December 2001, Fletcher, at the age of 25, was recruiting congressional candidates for the upcoming 2002 mid-year elections. “What we’re looking for is people to give the Republican perspective on the issues and stand with President Bush.”

Charles Kaufman, owner of Bread & Cie, worked at Buckeye Bakery in Atlanta; the Firehouse Bakery in Alexandria, Virginia; Grace Baking in Berkeley; La Brea Bakery in Los Angeles.

B movies and bread 7.4.12 Maryann Castronovo

Charles Kaufman, owner of Bread & Cie, assists the staff in taking orders while telling jokes. At 62, he moves nimbly around his bakery. Kaufman looks distinguished, despite an REI outfit and Merrill Walkabouts. He swears he “never intended to be a bread-maker.”

Twelve Tribes in Vista 1.2.13 Dorian Hargrove

The Yellow Deli men, young and old, have beards and their hair is tied back into ponytails. The women resemble the Amish. They’re bare-faced. Their hair is long, tied back in ponytails. They wear homemade long-sleeved blouses with dresses that flow to their ankles.

San Diego State's growing contempt for undergrads 3.27.13 Joe Deegan

SDSU lost only 97 staff (that figure includes administrators) from 2004/05 to the present, while the loss of faculty (including adjuncts) in the same time period was 465.

Pala tribe cuts dissident members 6.5.13 Siobhan Braun

All 164 disenrolled members are relatives of the late Margarita Brittain, a woman whose lineage has long been questioned by tribal members. The Pala Band of Mission Indians’ tribal constitution states that in order to be a member, 1/16 Pala blood is necessary.

Naked and alone in the ocean at night 4.9.14 Dave Good

Robinson and Wade found the victim floating face down a couple of hundred yards off the coast in line of sight of the Point Loma Nazarene athletic field. It was a woman. Except for a few bracelets, rings, and a butterfly tattoo, she was nude.

Murphy Canyon mystery 7.2.14 Joe Deegan

“That’s him,” shouted the woman in the Walmart parking lot near Aero Drive. Jeffrey Saikali felt a car bump him in the back of the legs. “I swept my arm around and pounded once on the hood of the car,” he says. “Just then, the woman jumped on me from behind.”

Tiki said to hell with it. Let's party.

Bali Hai – product of the 1950s tiki culture 10-22-14 Matt Potter

Political luminaries of the day who dropped by included Richard Nixon and his vice president Spiro T. Agnew. Nixon’s friend and San Diego’s version of Daddy Warbucks, the infamous financier C. Arnholt Smith, who later did time for crimes of banking, was also a regular.

Udo was gone 11.12.14 MaryAnn Castronovo

Edwards was hit first. Udo was hit second. Then Scharf was hit. Edwards and Scharf hit the pavement. Udo was thrown from his bike. His body slammed into the post of the guardrail, flipped over, and landed a short distance down the dirt slope. He was unconscious.

One in the gut, one in the head 1.21.15 Eva Knott

The Soviet immigrant explained why he did not show his gun to the man who was approaching him on his Encinitas property. “No, that would be against the law,” Michael Vilkin said in his heavy Russian accent. “The sheriff deputies told me, ‘Do not brandish the weapon.’”

When my family came to the U.S. in 1991, I was in the second grade. I knew three sentences that I strung together as a stock response: “How are you? I’m fine. I’m from Vietnam.”

That feeling of being the servile colonial subject eager to impress 3.11.15 Tam Hoang

It’s not that I don’t have a connection to my Vietnamese-ness or that I’m some sort of self-hater in the Amy Tan sense. It’s that the Vietnam War kind of screwed everything up. It deprived us first-generation immigrants of a holistic awareness of our identities.

99% of what we catch we throw back 4.8.15 Siobhan Braun

The closure that affects Medak the most is the Swami’s State Marine Conservation Area. "I think it’s probably costing us somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 percent of what we’d catch for the entire year. That is a big hit on our income."

Stories of Mom 5.8.15 Ian Anderson and seven other Reader writers

My mom really taught me how to move. Not just the nuts and bolts — wrapping up dishware and filling cardboard boxes packed with Kraft paper or foam peanuts — but the mentality. The daring.

Keep out 6.17.15 Thom Senzee

Marien banned Kuczewski from the gliderport on November 9, 2014. That was when Marien decided that Kuczewski was so hazardous and menacing that, in addition to prohibiting him from using the gliderport or coming back to the park for one year, he would also get a restraining order.

Nico tried to get out 6.24.15 Eva Knott

There is one gang that claims the town of Fallbrook; the Varrio Fallbrook Locos. “I was probably, like, 13 or 14. It was just the crowd I hung out with.” Nico said that after some years he went through the ritual of being jumped into the gang.

Bob Taylor

American Dream, Deering Banjos, Taylor Guitars, Go Guitars 7.1.15 Siobhan Braun

In May of 1970 in Lemon Grove's American Dream Musical Instrument Manufacturing Radding trained a legion of luthiers. Radding would later sell his American Dream shop to Kurt Listug, Steve Schimmer, and Bob Taylor for $2400, which turned into Taylor Guitars.

Dangerous bike spots 9.23.15 Dryw Keltz

The Sunset Cliffs, Nimitz, end of 8 freeway cluster is pretty bad. Going Southbound is okay but going Northbound is incredibly dangerous. The cycling lane ends...and everybody is trying to get onto the 8, and it’s impossible for a cyclist to actually change lanes.

The Union-Tribune's favorite cop 10.21.15 Matt Potter

“The Police Department has dismissed tickets for Police Chief Bill Kolender’s wife and son; Asst. Police Chief Bob Burgreen’s daughter and some of Kolender’s friends, among them KSDO radio sportscaster Ron Reina.”

I teach war 11.11.2015 Tam Hoang

I teach tenth and eleventh grade English at Coronado High School. One of the books on the reading list was Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, about the Vietnam War told through vignettes. Cool deal, I thought. It’s about Vietnam. I’m Vietnamese.

2011 Otay Mesa drug tunnel

<a href="https://www.dvidshub.net/">Ron Rogers</a>

Sinaloa cartel tunnels are infrastructural marvels 12.16.15 Monte Reel

These days, most of Sinaloa’s supertunnels are used to ferry drugs across the border, from Garita de Otay, an industrial neighborhood in northern Tijuana, to Otay Mesa, a similar area in southern San Diego. Otay Mesa, which is bounded on the north by Brown Field Municipal Airport and on the south by Mexico.

9-11 terrorists lived in Clairemont and Lemon Grove 9.7.16 H.G. Reza

The 9/11 attacks could have been derailed in San Diego, had the CIA not spiked a memo alerting the FBI about an Al Qaeda terrorist who was coming to the United States and ended up living here in 2000.

At least ten inches from tail tip to coronet, she glowed in majestic awesomeness.

Neal Matthews

Dreams of Glorietta Bay seahorses 12.21.16 Neal Matthews

This was February 27, 2014, and I’d been searching for a seahorse almost daily since the previous summer. I swim in Glorietta Bay, located eight miles from the mouth of San Diego Bay, between the Coronado Golf Course and the Naval Amphibious Base, wearing fins and a mask and snorkel, and I always carry a compact underwater camera.

The trails don't end in Bonita 3.1.17 Jonah Valdez

I live in my childhood home, which sits within one of the large housing tracts of Bonita. Our house overlooks the southern portion of Bonita Long Canyon, which lends its name to our housing tract. The canyon branches from the Sweetwater Valley and stretches for three miles.

Patrick Seibt — trail name Texaspoo — hikes the Pacific Crest Trail. He’s also completed the Appalachian and Continental Divide trails for a total of 7900 miles.

Craig Giffen

Trail angels, 6.14.17 Dave Good

“What people don’t realize is that 2500 to 3500 people travel to San Diego April through May to hike the PCT.” The April — May launch is about waiting out the bad weather on the Pacific Crest Trail to the north, meaning, the relative condition of the snow pack.

Grunioneers 7.5.17 Noah J.D. DesRosiers

I beg them for cooking instructions. Do they plan on gutting them? Or perhaps chopping off their heads? Tunk assures me they ate them whole. Weren’t they concerned about the bones? “You just need more time for frying, then the bones become crispy! Maybe ten minutes.”

Standing orders 7.12.17 Kevin Eyer

The area off the coast of Japan where the USS Fitzgerald collision took place on June 17 is more wide open than Tokyo Wan itself, but dozens of ships are approaching at any time, all heading for a very narrow entrance channel, all on tight schedules.

Camp Pendleton: A hell of a place to grow up 8,2,17 Ian Anderson

Taps plays every night, on just about every American military installation in the world, while the American flag is lowered and folded up to be put away for the night. This meant the sun was going down and practice was over for our youth soccer team, the Lasers.

“Mostly I come down here when I want to get high and eat some Hodad’s.”

Photo by Matthew Suárez

Ocean Beach — seven blocks surrounded by reality 9.6.17 Joe Miravalle

OBceans are easy to spot. Many men sport long beards and long hair with tie-dye tank tops or other alternative-style T-shirts, and many females wear psychedelic-patterned yoga pants, crystal pendants, loose blouses, and ocean-blue maxi-skirts.

Scripps Ranch — cows gone, rattlers remain 11.8.17 Moss Gropen

“We were looking for a family-oriented community; we didn’t want something that was all built up. Although the first residents arrived in 1969, it was still very rural. The Swim & Racquet Club had already been built, but where the Vons shopping center is today there were two large trailers where we bought our groceries."

I have named her Abbey, because her height and elegance, and her flying buttress roots, call to mind Westminster Abbey.

Photo by Matthew Suárez

Top 10 trees of Balboa Park 11.22.17 Elizabeth Salaam

These evergreen trees are native to the Canary Islands of Spain and have a fissured red-brown bark that looks almost like puzzle pieces. They are huge and awe-inspiring. According to Kim, these eight evergreens were planted somewhere around March/April of 1906, and the tallest of them is approaching 120 feet.

Spruce Street suspension bridge. “You almost kissed Mommy here.”

Photo by Matthew Suárez

Spruce Street suspension bridge brings out demented thoughts 11.29.17 Thom Hofman

“You almost kissed Mommy here.” “You’re right, Jayde. Good memory.” It’s part of our family’s history, long-ago nights and places. There were warm coats and upturned collars and the same eucalyptus trees Jayde and I currently regard, only moon-illumined. The skyway had been empty and fingers brushed shyly; on our first date, my lips had grazed my wife’s neck.

I believe Nathan Page is in heaven 3.28.18 H.G. Reza

His depression was compounded by alienation. He accused friends of not supporting him in his internecine dispute with the San Diego Unified School District over the rights of his disabled students.

The fall of Horton Plaza 6.27.18 Matt Potter

“Westfield’s complete disinterest in maintaining Horton Plaza was demonstrated when it did not bother to decorate the mall for the holiday season in 2017,” asserts Jimbo’s.

The microclimates of Highway 79 8.15.18 Mary Holman

Two botanists are showing me Highway 79, because it passes through some of the most diverse areas in San Diego County, a county that is the most diverse in the United States.

Mission Hills visitor to Vietnam sucked into MIA search 10.3.18 H.G. Reza

Antonio Palma felt something or someone was driving him to visit Vietnam. His St. Christopher medal had been stolen weeks earlier after a day of surfing. He settled on buying a replacement in Saigon.

Adam Parfrey had a big mop of black hair and looked rather like Orson Welles in The Lady from Shanghai.

Adam Parfrey goes to the Zoo 10.17.18 Meg Burns

Famous publisher Adam Parfrey once lived just off Lincoln Boulevard, slightly east of Venice and just over the line in Santa Monica. Twenty years ago I used to see him in the local coffeehouse.

Neal Matthews' photos of San Diego sea creatures 3.8.19 Neal Matthews

As I swam out in Glorietta Bay, a stand-up paddleboarder warned me that he’d seen odd-looking jellyfish. I swam over and was astounded to find a Surfing owes a lot to Bajalarge, polka-dotted, short-tailed jelly.

Surfing owes a lot to Baja 4.17.19 Chris Ahrens

In the 1950s, California surfers rode San Miguel, 3-M’s, Stacks, and K-38. Just as often, however, the bread crumb trail ended at Tijuana’s Long Bar, where Butch “Mister Pipeline” Van Artsdalen, “Pal” Al Nelson, Pat Curren ruled the roost.

Reader writer concludes he is his father's son 6.12.19 Matthew Lickona

I saved the audiobook of Michael Brendan Daugherty’s memoir My Father Left Me Ireland: An American Son’s Search for Home for the end-of-semester drive to Berkeley to pick up my own son from college.

Maybe those bones are my son 6.19.19 H.G. Reza

I began following Peters’ case in 1988 when I worked at the Los Angeles Times. His disappearance attracted media attention because of rumors that a satanic cult was involved. I talked to his friends, cops, tweekers, devil worshipers and other human detritus found on El Cajon’s streets.

San Diego book clubs – what's the point? 10.2.19 Tam Hoang

It’s a cool summer afternoon in a small South Park living room. Hamilton’s is a few blocks away. Drinks options include Sierra Nevada or Plenty for All Pilsner. Everyone has tattoos. For the first time, I am alarmed at my own uninked skin. Thigh tattoos are a thing? Since when?

Patrol agents help a writer rescue Biggie 4.15.20 Marty Graham

For nearly a year, the patrol agents fed her so well that she didn’t have to hunt or scavenge. When she wasn’t at her usual spot, I’d ask the agent of the day about her. If he didn’t know me, he’d say he didn’t know anything about any dog.

Reverse Zonies 5.27.20 Mike Madriaga

Jake moved from south San Diego to Tempe, the home of Arizona State University. “I work full time and I get minimum wage: $11 per hour,” he said. “I am more than able to afford living out here, even between food, gas and everything.

At about the 40-minute mark of Gonzalez’s three hour-plus live clip, he approaches the Starbucks on the corner of Ash Street as a person wearing a black ski mask smashes the coffee shop’s freshly tagged windows.

Facebook

Arturo Gonzalez suffers with BLM protestors 6.17.20 Mike Madriaga

At about the 40-minute mark of Gonzalez’s three hour-plus clip, he approaches the Starbucks on the corner of Ash just as a person wearing a black ski mask smashes the coffee shop’s freshly tagged windows. “Y’all seen that, right?” he asks his 13,000-plus viewers.

Bad trip 1.27.21 Matthew Suarez

We arrived at Punta Final Saturday at dawn after an arduous seven-hour trip. We left Tecate before midnight after packing the green Durango with camping gear and a shit ton of beer. The driver, a 22-year-old named Gerardo, kept himself awake with a baggie of cocaine.

Anti-fascists turn fascist 2.24.21 Eric Bartl

A man and his Rottweiler were on a routine walk when, as they passed the Baja Beach Café at Thomas Avenue, the dog let out a bark.

Out in front of them, on the boardwalk and alongside the beach, was a crowd of people brandishing weapons.

A bridge too few 3.17.21 Dryw Keltz

When Max Lenail arrived at the river crossing area, heading south, near the end of a long run at close to 2 pm, he was left with a tough decision. He had started his run near the Visitor Center, and now found himself on the other side of a violent river. He had to somehow cross to the other side to get back to his car.

The Ugly Old Goat had planned and paid for the whole event using ten Bitcoins. He thought it was apropos, seeing as his initial investment in Bitcoin had been to purchase ten coins.

Photograph by Matthew Suárez

Casa Crypto 10.6.21 Shirley Jones

“I don’t think we should mention that we were at a Bitcoin conference,” whispers Trey as the Border Patrol agents search my car. I shrug, because I don’t think it matters. Bitcoiners are so paranoid. But I am a people pleaser, so when the agent asks why I was in Mexico, I say, “For vacation.”

Silver Mazda kills four on San Pasqual Road sidewalk 11.17.21 Eva Knott

By 8:21, Williams was driving in her silver 2014 Mazda 3. She used her phone to play a song off YouTube: D-Lo’s “Double Dutch” featuring Sleepy D. At 8:25, she sent a chat message to someone named Brian.

Changing of the guard – first place writing contest winner 3.2.22 Jake Peterson

Unexpected violence at the San Diego Zoo. When people found out I worked security at the world famous San Diego Zoo, they asked: “What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen?” It wasn’t until my last night of employment that I was able to give them a good story.

Bad car-ma 3.16.22 Siobhan Braun

Only 19 days into 2022, I managed both to contract Omicron and have my car stolen. When I attempted to pinpoint the origin of my terrible car-ma, the only thing I could come up with was the cashmere scarf I had picked up off the ground at the San Diego Airport back in December. It did not belong to me.

We want a thing we cannot have 4.6.22 Adam Gnade

Ernest Hemingway wrote that sometimes you need to leave a place before you can write about it. I left San Diego half a lifetime ago, but I’ve been writing about it ever since. Which is to say, part of me never left.

Suns out, tongues out? Author Thomas K. Arnold (fourth from left) judging the 1986 Miss Mission Beach bikini contest with 91X's Rob Tonkin (second from left) and consultant Joel Stevens (seated, right, with hat).

Photograph courtesy Thomas K. Arnold

Mission Beach – good enough the way it was 5.4.22 Thomas K. Arnold

Alcohol was banned from the Mission Beach Boardwalk, while drinking on the beach was temporarily outlawed between 8 pm and 8 am. “It really cleaned it up,” says Hamel. “It was unbelievable what a difference it made.

Michelle Wyatt murder solved with genetic genealogy 6.1.22 Thomas K. Arnold

Patterson and his team were able to interview two of John Patrick Hogan’s relatives. The sisters told detectives that Hogan attended Santana High School and ran with the druggie crowd. He got his girlfriend pregnant while they were still in high school and wound up marrying her.

La Mesa as marijuana Mecca 6.15.22 Stockdale and Broadus

The Editor, packed bowl surely in hand, sent word that he wanted me to look into the matter. He imagined a simple research assignment into this apparently atypical accumulation.

Mid-pose, an energetic goat named Pixie jumps on my back.

Photograph by Siobhan Braun

Ramona round-up 6.22.22 Siobhan Braun

There is a four-acre property with a three-bedroom, two-bath home for $595,200. “Let’s buy it!” I urge my husband. “We can get a couple of donkeys and a few of those hipster Highland cows.” “You can barely manage our dogs, and we both hate yardwork,” he says.

Which San Diego newspaperman did John Glenn get to spike the astronaut sex story? 6.29.22 David Smollar

On September 19,1959, six of America’s first spacemen settled in at the Kona Kai Club on San Diego’s palm-bedecked Shelter Island for a week designed to feature the Atlas rocket that would blast their Mercury capsule into orbit. Their days involved technical seminars and motivational talks at the vast Convair-Astronautics missile factory in Kearny Mesa.

Invaders from Vermont Street bridge knock on our door 7.20.22 Ian Anderson

He’d been saying something, but it took me a moment to process exactly what. So when he repeated himself, he shouted. “Call me a taxi? Yellow cab? Will you call me a yellow cab? I lost my phone over….”

As we drove onto the 163 and took to the Richmond Street exit to Upas, thick black smoke was spreading throughout the sky.

San Diego Police Historical Association

Cub reporter for L.A. Times gets Page One break with PSA crash story 9.22.22 David Smollar

Having spent many days around Morley Field as a kid, I was able to direct Lachman along the side streets to the south of the crash site, taking Upas to Herman to Thorn to Felton to Myrtle — correctly assuming that those little-trafficked thoroughfares would be the last to be blocked off.