Helen Redman

I go for a score: male-bonding gambit #502. “I understand” — dig this — “we’ve got something in common. Both of us were 4-F during the Vietnam War.”

“Lifestyle and slice-of-life themes, often written in free-form styles that border on the bizarre.”

Illustration by Margarita Chastikova, Getty Images

In May of 1989, the Los Angeles Times published a profile of Jim Holman and his newspaper, the 17-year-old San Diego Reader. Holman had returned from a year long sabbatical in France two years earlier, a year he spent studying French literature. He also spent it studying the Reader, which he had sent to him overseas, and had decided his teenage creation needed to cut loose a bit. “‘I was amazed how resistant people were to change, to almost any new idea,’” Holman said, “as he sat in a tattered chair in his temporary office, amid newspapers strewn across carpeting with holes hastily patched with duct tape. ‘I think it shows how susceptible any organization is, even if it looks at itself as young and alternative. There is a certain natural conservatism.’” The profile described the change thusly: “Many of the features focus less on news angles and more on lifestyle and slice-of-life themes, often written in free-form styles that border on the bizarre. Sentence structure and basic grammatical forms are often ignored. Perhaps more so than in the past, features are often written in first person, such as Abe Opincar’s recent trip to see a colonic administered in a ‘confessional,’ or regular contributor Judith Moore’s recent first-person search for fleas.” Neither of those stories appear in this issue’s look back on the Reader’s best from 1986 through 1994, but you will find Abe Opincar on the death of his psychiatrist and Judith Moore on San Diego’s best tomato varieties, plus gonzo writer Richard Meltzer on his five days in the Navy, and the confessions of a border coyote. “Very few people really read things,” Holman told the Times. But by that point, he could afford to run adventurous, even outrageous material for those who did. —Matthew Lickona

Bobby Riggs and Jimmy Connors. Riggs may be nearly deaf, but he was always a better talker than a listener anyway.

Great top spin never stops 2.13.86 Steve Sorensen

Maybe it's sad that a sixty-seven-year-old man is still so obsessed with pursuing the clusive image of a "winner," particularly if he's already known such success in his youth. Or maybe his determination is inspiring, maybe Bobby Riggs is the champion of the golden years, bravely refusing to age gracefully.

Slow dirge for Steve and Susan 5.8.86 David Steinman

Sherry Richardson wanted a change in her life, wanted to get away from the States for a while. She had a woman friend in Mexico she could stay with as long as she wanted, so during the early summer of 1984, Richardson, who was thirty-seven at the time, sold her downtown cosmetology shop and laid out the plans for a trip south. She intended to live in Yelapa, a tiny, isolated fishing village in the state of Jalisco, sixteen miles by boat south of Puerto Vallarta.

Escape! 5.15.86 Duong Phuc with Vu Thanh Thuy and Neal Matthews

I can still recall the date, May 19, 1977, because that was Ho Chi Minh’s birthday. The entire camp was taken out to the fields to clear away the elephant grass — to “compete with each other for Uncle Ho’s birthday.” The grass grew head-tall alongside the main road.

Like wind through the canyon 6.5.86 Steve Sorensen

As for me, I was staring up at the magnificent block of white granite that overlooked the head of Canon Tajo. It was as large and impressive as Half Dome in Yosemite, and it could be seen from almost anywhere in the canyon.

Graig Nettles (center): “They want to know what makes me tick, but I don’t want people to know that.”

Photo by Robert Burroughs

Foul territory 7.3.86 Stephen Meyer

"Sports writers have tremendous penis envy" says San Diego Padres catcher Terry Kennedy. “They're envious of our position, and they’re envious of our salaries. Every time they write about us, they rip us.” Kennedy, though he is perhaps the most outspoken critic of sports writers on the Padres ball club, is by no means the only one.

Richard Meltzerr's Navy 7.10.86 Richard Meltzer

Okay. I spent five-six days with the U.S. Navy. It didn't kill me. As “mixed" an encounter as any I've had as a writer, some parts were wretched, ghastly, distressing; others, ethereal, effervescent, exhilarating. Mostly it surprised me at every turn.

Mystery of the Gypsy Song 8.21.86 Stephen Meyer

It's the fourth of July at 6:30 a.m., and we’re driving down the twenty-seven-mile highway between Tapachula and Puerto Madero. the southernmost port on Mexico’s Pacific Coast. Ken Franke is at the wheel of a red Nissan he rented in Guatemala City. His mission is to find out what happened to the Gypsy Song.

The girls of summer 8.28.86 Judith Moore

Nearly naked in two-piece bathing suits, with flawless, smooth browned bodies that might have been turned and sanded and varnished in advanced woodshop, in trios and pairs, the girls began to drift down the stairs next to Pacific Beach’s Crystal Pier and onto La Jolla Shores’ wide flat beach as early as ten o’clock.

My life of crime 10-9-86 X

At the age of about fifteen, I started stealin' cars and stealin' beer and all that stuff. Well, one night three of us stole a car from the Mobil gas station in Ocean Beach, and we were ridin' around, and coming through Old Town, a police officer pulled up next to us in an unmarked car.

Snakebite 11.5.86 Jeannette DeWyze

Every person in the group had encountered the local vipers on many occasions. One man, Glen Conklin, even liked to catch wild rattlesnakes with his bare hands.

Roberto DePhilippis came to San Diego in the early 1950s with his family, which opened Filippi’s Pizza Grotto on India Street.

Photo by Craig Carlson

Plaza Hotel pool. “That hotel ran at eighty-six percent occupancy from 1976 through the 1980s,” says Buckner. “DePhilippis had a built-in trade of 400 people a day."

Photo by Craig Carlson

Big beef in Mission Valley 11.13.86 Stephen Meyer

At midnight on Friday, April 25, 1986, Robert DeFilippis and about thirty employees, family members, and patrons of the Butcher Shop wielded sledge hammers, knives, shovels, and other implements of destruction, and they annihilated the restaurant.

The wild horses of Coyote Creek 11.20.86 Steve Sorensen

Vern had been chasing wild horses all his life, in Texas, Oklahoma, and now California. There weren’t many wranglers who knew more about the subject of wild horses than he did — and none who knew more about the herd on Coyote Creek.

Welcome to Johnny's 11.26.86 Judith Moore

"I've come down here every morning for twenty-seven years. To this day, I like it. My wife comes in every afternoon. She’s the soup maker and waitress. Only once, for two days, that’s the longest time we were ever closed,” said Dee Binder, owner, with his wife Jeanette, of Johnny’s Cafe, an eatery on the north side of the 300 block of West Broadway.

You can run but you cannot hide 12.4.86 Stephen Meyer

When two Mexican police officers and two FBI agents showed up at his beachfront Playas de Tijuana apartment on October 17, James Gibson had reason to suspect that his attempt to start a new life south of the border had been foiled.

It was a sharp descent off the ridge, over rotten scree, but Schad soon found a sheep trail to the bottom. As he bounded down the canyon side, he shouted back to me Schad’s Rule of Thumb: “I figure I can go anywhere a sheep can go!”

Life on the crest 4.2.87 Steve Sorensen

Jerry Schad once hiked the entire crest of the Santa Rosa Mountains — 40 miles from Highway 74, near Anza, to the Borrego Valley — in two days. Another time he ran from the north rim of the Grand Canyon to the south rim in less than four hours — a record at the time. Yet another time he rode a bicycle from Ocean Beach to Gila Bend, Arizona, in 20 ½ hours.

So what are you looking at? 4.9.87 Bob McPhail

Unlike those whose religious beliefs add spiritual peace to their lives, I found that mine did nothing to assist me in accepting myself or winning the acceptance of others. And as far as my peers were concerned, my condition had worsened. Not only was I fat, I was fat and religious. Not a winning combination with which to enter adolescence.

Thoughts on the passing of a friend 4.30.87 Gene Marine

I was once in a war, a war of which people now in their forties have no memory. It is The War to those of us of a certain age and beyond, but to everyone else.it must be as remote as the First World War — in which my father served — is to me.

The Bible tells me so 5.14.87 Judith Moore

"If you go to church," he said, "sometimes the preacher might get up and say something about abortion or homosexuality. Usually, he won't, because he's afraid he'll run somebody off from his church. I've had a lot of people leave this church because of stands I've taken."

The priority of gardens 6.11.87 Scott Sadil

I grew up in Southern California suburbia and hated gardening. It was called yard work, which pretty much explains why any kid would feel about it as I did. The brunt of the work was in the form of mowing the lawn, edging the lawn, trimming around trees in the lawn, and weeding.

Klan members greeted by hecklers on their march to San Pasqual monument, January 20, 1980. Metzger staged a commemoration of Kit Carson, a man he praised for his valor against Mexican soldiers.

Dave Gatley Los Angeles Times

Undercover Klansman 6.25.87 Jim Berns

Seymour recalls that the decision to accept the Klan assignment was an easy one. In early February of 1979, the thirty-six-year-old reservist applied by mail for Klan membership; and six weeks later, he received a phone call from Tom Metzger, Grand Dragon for the State of California for the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

An encounter with Bill Coulson 8.20.87 Jeannette DeWyze

Coulson and Rogers founded the Center for Studies of the Person in La Jolla, where Rogers presided as chief eminence until his death just this past February. But something happened to Coulson. One day he began to think Rogers had made terrible mistakes.

The way we worked 9.17.87 Steve Sorensen

"I went to a CCC camp [at Cuyamaca Rancho] in November of '37. First they taught me to dig holes."" He said this with a straight face and a sigh, which brought a laugh and a shake of the head from some of the others. ""Finally, I got on the fire crew. In the summer, we'd fight fires, and in the winter, we'd build dams."

Mission over the mountains 10.29.87 Steve Sorensen

By late September, my plan for entering the Chocolate Mountains had developed to the point that my backpack was packed with food, water, maps, and binoculars; my truck was fueled; and I was trying to decide whether I should tell my wife where I was going or if that would only cause her to worry.

Dedication of the Bennington monument, January 1908. The inscription on the obelisk simply notes that it is dedicated to the Bennington's dead and gives the date of the disaster.

San Diego Historical Society-Ticor Collection

Explosion! 11.12.87 Mark Linsky

For dozens of men, however, all worry was over. The sailors stoking the boilers were dead. Dead also were most of those exposed to the blasts of steam that continued to pour from the ruptured boiler and broken pipes throughout the length of the ship.

I shot down Japan's Admiral Yamamoto 1.21.88 Kathleen Beth Mix

The Yamamoto mission was critical to our war effort. In war. soldiers die and that’s just the way it is. As a pilot, it was an impersonal thing for me; almost machine against machine. The only action I regret in the war was in a combat mission when I saw a downed Japanese pilot running along the beach. I dove my plane and strafed him, killing him.

The doctor is dead 2.4.88 Abe Opincar

Such are the conceits of first-world living — they follow you. A late-night call from San Diego slips through a satellite onto the shore of a beleaguered nation with the news of my psychiatrist’s death. My upbringing hadn’t prepared me for this.

Confessions of an illegal alien smuggler 2.25.88 Ray Monroe

A young man I taught how to cross the border from Playas, Tijuana to Imperial Beach got on the wrong bus and wound up back at the border where he was promptly arrested by the “Migra.”

Tijuana mi amor 2.25.88 Abe Opincar

You see a time and a place, and for a while it was everything you knew. Irrevocably. Beyond measure. Zona Norte hasn’t changed. It is still the wild side. Desperate; sure of itself. Dark-skinned guys from the interior still come here for one last sinful evening before crossing to the other side.

"In ’62, ’62 or ’63, he brought in a new group from L.A. called Ike and Tina Turner and their Revue. Well, it knocked my socks off."

The unbearable rightness of being Roger Hedgecock 3.24.88 Richard Meltzer

What?! Can this be right? Actual, literal Q & A with R * O * G * E * R H * E * D * G * E * C * O * C * K, who you thought would rather lose his dingus than submit to another, ulp, ordeal by newsprint???

Broken chain 4.7.88 Matt Potter

Edward Wyllis Scripps, the premier newspaper baron of nineteenth-century America, took pen in hand and deprived all but one of his children of the legacy of his vast media empire. By then he was forced to desert Rancho Miramar, the sprawling 2100-acre ranch he had blasted out of the dusty scrub country north of San Diego.

The deadly view from Sunset Cliffs 5.19.88 Carol Bowers

Off-duty sailors and marines saw the landslide, called police, and started digging frantically with their hands. Then Engine 15 of the Ocean Beach Fire Department arrived.

Everybody who's anybody 6.30.88 Judith Moore

Queried as to why he asked Mrs. Jackson to come out of retirement and resume writing. Neil Morgan said. "The thing any community that grows like a rocket needs is roots. And that's in very short supply in San Diego.

Was Ramona real? 9.29.88 Roger Anderson

Ramona was published in 1884 and became almost instantly popular. A kind of Ramona-mania took hold of the country during the 1890s that went a very long way toward giving the region an aura of storied loveliness.

"They'll give a big laminate [decal] for the surfer to put on his surfboard, and if that photo shows up in a magazine and the sponsor's logo can be seen, the surfer receives $150."

Photo by Craig Carlson

The commercialization of surfing 10.20.88 Steve Sorensen

The DuPoint Corporation was looking for a way to market its new nylon clothing material, Catalina saw the new and explosive popularity of surfing as a way to hype its flashy new swimwear. They hired Mike Doyle, then the most popular surfer in the world.

White on white 11.10.88 Abe Opincar

John Metzger: "I learned about the Klan by being at a lot of the socials and meetings. But I think that the only thing that I really registered as a kid was the cross lightings. Now, that was fire — it was impressive."

Speedy claims Lomas, the Law claims Speedy 1.19.89 Rory Perry

The Lomas gang, of which Speedy and Huero are both members, claims this section of the park and the rest of Golden; its territory, which extends from Highway 94 north to the park and from 22nd Street east to 30th Street.

One evening in a life of selling lies 2.9.89 Julian B.

I am going to work Mariners Point, a section of Mission Bay Park in vogue this year with San Diego’s young revelers. The crowd at Mariners was so large and chaotic that I could make one sweep of the point without much chance of discovery.

The blood upon his hands 3.9.89 Sue Garson

He became an altar boy at Saint Brigid’s, joined the Cub Scouts (Mary was den mother). Later, when he entered Saint Augustine High School on Nutmeg Street, he was elected commissioner of athletics.

John Steinbeck IV.

Paul Stachelek

John Steinbeck was my father 3.30.89 John Steinbeck IV

If you look at The Grapes of Wrath, closely, nobody talks like that. It's a big kind of cartoon in the fresco sense of the word, an overdrawn image of the way people might talk.

Taken by a shark 6.15.89 Ed Davies

June 14, 1959, a 33-year-old Convair engineer named Robert Pamperin went skin diving for abalone off La Jolla Cove and was never seen again. A friend later would claim to have witnessed Pamperin being swallowed by a shark.

Survivor 7.27.89 Kurt Snider

Most who’ve seen Bridge on the River Kwai remember the prisoners whistling a tune. Hank Allen, a resident of Lakeside, often heard Australian prisoners of war whistle the “Colonel Bogey March" during his own time as a POW.

Till death do us part 11.16,89 Jeannette DeWyze

Betty Broderick wanted to tell the story of their divorce and the injustice because of her ex-husband’s influence within the legal community. Reporters want to interview her, now that Dan and his second wife are dead and Betty is under arrest for their murder.

The unlikely rescue 1.11.90 Joe Applegate

Mike Carrasco returned to the outcropping at 10:30 and called about for his father. His concern grew, and around noon, Mike drove eight miles down to Lake Henshaw for help in finding his father.

Dots on the map 2.22.90 Roger Anderson

A drive along Old Highway 80 takes you through a string of towns — Guatay, Buckman Springs, La Posta, Live Oak Springs, Boulevard, Bankhead Springs, and Jacumba — past clusters of houses, ranches, gas stations, post offices, cafés, and trailer parks.

A spear in the dirt 3.8.90 John Brizzolara

By 4:30 a.m., I am a little desperate. No one will take me on. Later, a foreman tells me that it’s very rare that gringos seek out this work. When they do, they’re invariably crazy, union activists, or both, and most contractors avoid them.

This classic ensemble theater has been achieved at the price of ensemble everything, where members can't get away from work or each other. During one two-year period, four couples at or near the center of the company went through divorces.

Byron Pepper

Everybody onstage for the forgiveness and reconciliation number 3.18.90 Joe Applegate

Lamb's Players is not in the same league as the Old Globe, the La Jolla Playhouse, and the San Diego Rep, with their out-of-town guest artists and subsidized summer seasons. But it has come to be regarded as one of the best locals.

I ran drugs for Uncle Sam 4.5.90 Neal Matthews

He says he didn’t cut side deals with drug runners, so he didn’t make a lot of money. Why didn’t he? “Sheer stupidity on my part. Looking back on it, I sometimes wish I’d taken the money like a lot of these damn mercenaries.”

Jorge Hank finally talks 5.10.90 Neal Matthews

By the time El Gato was murdered and two of Hank's security men were charged with the crime, Hank was already experiencing some personal and professional difficulties.

Little room 6.14.90 Abe Opincar

"They shoved my shirt in my mouth so I wouldn’t scream very loud, and I was tied really tight to the chair so I couldn’t move.... They attached electrical cables to me."

Real Seal 8.2.90 Bill Salisbury

Rick Trani, the Annapolis graduate, got hit by a claymore. Lost his legs. But he made it back to the hospital at Bien Hoa. Then he died when they gave him the wrong blood. I try to remember Rick before we went to Ranger school, the Rung Sat, and the Delta.

Famous San Diegans recite poetry 10.18.90 Sue Greenberg

A number of San Diegans were called on the telephone and asked to recite, on the spur of the moment, any poem they might know by heart. Some were up to the task; Laura Buxton didn't miss a beat. Michael Davidson immediately launched into Middle English; Jim Sills rattled off "Invictus" with dramatic flair. But a few struggled and were allowed to call back.

As we round Pt. Loma 11.21.90 Joe Applegate

He shipped out of Boston, spent 18 months loading ships with cowhides taken from the wild California coast, and narrated his adventure in Two Years Before The Mast. Richard Henry Dana Jr. was revisiting San Diego.

Quentin and Ruth with Diana in Hong Kong, 1938

San Diego man hunted pandas for Roosevelts 11.29.90 Michael Kiefer

They sighted a giant panda emerging from a hollow spruce tree on a snow-covered mountainside. They shot simultaneously, or so they claimed, and brought the animal down. (Quentin Young dismisses their claim.)

The Hale blinks 12.13.90 Neal Matthews

Skeptics believe in 20 years Palomar will go the way of Mt. Wilson in Los Angeles. For the last five years, the Mt. Wilson telescope, which began operation in 1917, has been shut down because of light pollution.

Whatever I'm reading is what I like best 12.20.90 Judith Moore

I have stretched out on the couch — a plumpish well-lit haven upholstered with rough, nubby cotton, ivory in color. In the kitchen the man I love shuts and opens and shuts the oven door. He's baking brownies. I can smell the chocolate.

Class wars 1.17.91 Brae Canlen

Most public high school instructors in the San Diego Unified School District deals with 150 kids a day in need of some kind of attention. “Even the sales clerks in Macy’s wait on less people than that,’’comments one instructor.

Peace be still 4.18.91 Kathy Miller

My mother removed herself by degrees from our middle-class tract house, our neighborhood's PTA housewives and welders and four-wheel-drive clubs. She founded a local chapter of NOW, began reading Psychology Today and Ms.

A son by any other name 6.20.91 Matt Potter

Helen and her mother bought a small house on 54th Street. Helen married her boss, Jim Copley, and David Hunt became David Copley, who would grow up to be president of the Copley newspaper chain, heir-apparent to a troubled dynasty.

Royal Food Mart. Old black-and-white photos from Agua Caliente and cigarette ads from advertising's Social Register period ("Mrs. Alison Boyer — another Camel enthusiast") round out the decor.

Paul Stachelek

On the noir side of town 6.27,91 Adam Parfrey and others

These places are stubborn totems of our city's pre-suburban past. These are scenes where Raymond Chandler would have lingered, a Southern California James M. Cain would have written home to Baltimore about.

Don't pitch your tent on San Clemente Island 8.22.91 Steve SorensenUntil the mid-1800s, San Clemente Island had not been inhabited by any land mammal (except for humans) larger than a fox. The island’s fragile plants had evolved without pressure from hoofed herbivores of any kind.

Like your road widened, Mister? 9.5.91 Neal MatthewsIn San Diego County, a few medium-size jobs remain, such as completion of the seven-mile stretch of state route 52 between Tierrasanta and Santee and the nine-mile route 56 connection between I-5 and I-15 through Carmel Valley.

The hermits of Ghost Mountain 10.17.91 Jeannette DeWyze

To choose this place for a home, to try to survive here month after month, year after year, building a mud-walled shelter, conceiving children, raising them up from infancy, for most people, would be unthinkable.

I just smoked a Camel and watched him die 10.24.91 Linton RobinsonAs a tank for violent criminals and repeat offenders, about a third murderers, 6D was a lot calmer, more respectful environment than those gladiator schools full of little rat-pack gangbangers.

The diva of Grossmont 11.7.91 Richard W. Amero

Madame Ernestine Schumann-Heink began her opera career modestly in Austria at age 15, but by the time she moved her family to San Diego, at 48, she was one of the most famous and revered women of her time, revered women of her time.

Rebels without an engine 11.14.91 Ray Westberg

Standing on Pringle Street near Kettner Boulevard, looking up a precipitous grade of snaking asphalt, I tried to imagine Freddie Hafner's thoughts - aged 41 — one second before his death. At 45 miles an hour, Freddie swerves, loses control -bam!

O we sail the oceans blue and our amphipod's a cutie 11.27.91 John Brizzolara

Our departure from the end of Rosecrans has been delayed. Aristides Yayanos, who leads a scientific team from UCSD Scripps Institution of Oceanography, has had difficulty locating a forklift for his fiberglass shed full of research equipment.

Satan chasers 12.5.91 Mary Lang

San Diego has many experts who say the county is a hotbed of Satanic activity. The hidden canyons of the back country, Ramona, Santee, Escondido, even Oceanside, are said to be riddled with ritual sites of devil worshippers.

Landing on Harbor Drive. High tension electrical lines and the San Diego Trolley’s power lines crisscross the area.

Photo by Robert Burroughs

They jump at night 2.20.92 Nick DiGiovanni

Fences surrounding construction sites are rickety. I roll into a shadow, willing the clamor to subside. A security guard stands 20 yards away watching the girls walk by on Broadway. He doesn't hear me. A real Pinkerton man.

Goon squad in Hell Week 3.12.92 Bill Salisbury

Sometimes trainees do die, or come close, during their 25-week ordeal. But you seldom learn much about this unless you are in the Teams and drink at bars like McP’s in Coronado or the Far East Rock in IB.

C. Arnholt Smith in his own words 3.19.92 Linda Nevin, Neal Matthews

Smith held political influence unmatchable today. The San Diego Union once declared him “Mr. San Diego of the Century.” But in the early 1970s, Smith’s empire collapsed. He eventually spent a year in jail

San Diego's first schoolmarm 4.9.92 Jeannette DeWyze

The story of Mary Chase Walker is recounted often at the schoolhouse in Old Town. Students are told that Walker got married and for that reason had to quit her job. The teachers believe this. But it isn’t true.

Michael Reagan's out in the cold again 4.16.92 John Brizzolara

"We had just everybody you’ve ever seen from those days when we had parties. I opened the front door one night, and in came Marilyn Monroe. I’d just seen her in the famous [Life magazine] velvet nude shot that day."

Die free! Bataan Death March survivor 4.23.92 Leon Beck, Neal Matthews

I found two gallon cans. We carried them several days until we got so hungry we had to open them with a bayonet. One was a gallon can of beets, and the other was a gallon can of ketchup. That’s what 30 men ate for six days.

Today Walter Keane lives alone in a rented La Jolla cottage, a rheumy-eyed and arthritic 76 years old.

The saucer-eye orphans have lost their father 5.14.92 Adam Parfrey

For more than 30 years, ex-realtor Walter Keane sold himself as the progenitor of the Keane kid. But as a result of several acrimonious trials, Walter’s ex-wife Margaret has been judged the true and lawful originator.

Spud Murphy's Boxing Gym 7.9.46 Patrick Daugherty

In here, it could be 1949. One thinks of the movie The Champion, starring Kirk Douglas. Or it could be 1976 with Rocky Balboa in South Philly. This place smells of a boxing gym, which means sweat and plaster.

The Frontier they want us to forget 9.10.92 Margot Sheehan

The Frontier Homes Housing Project — 3500 “temporary” dwellings constructed in 1944. One of the largest developments of its kind ever built in the USA — Designed to last for two years and enduring (parts of it, at least) for 20.

Lie down in darkness 9,10,92 Bob Owens

The night sea off the coast of La Jolla was smothered in fog on December 18, 1917, and in those pre-sonar days the American submarine F-1 had no way of knowing that she was on a collision course with her sister ship.

Mechanical man 10.1.92 John Brizzolara

“But that lonely Maytag repairman thing? That’s funny. I was a Maytag dealer for four years, and it was one of the busiest times of my life. It's not that Maytags break down a lot, it’s just that there are a lot of them out there."

Wave gangsters 11.5.92 Hoyt Smith

Except perhaps for Malibu Beach, Windansea was the epicenter of California surf culture during this golden age of surfing. Many who surfed Windansea in the 1950s had already left to pioneer big-wave riding on the North Shore of Oahu.

Lost roads of San Diego 11.5.92 Margot Sheehan

In the early 1940s, the city wanted to build a Washington Street extension through Mission Hills to the Pacific Highway. The locals balked at the notion or a new highway cutting the neighborhood in two.

Mother Teresa, Tijuana, 1990. While Mother Teresa was in Tijuana, lots of new volunteers from the States came down.

Photo by Sandy Huffaker, Jr.

Mother Teresa's Tijuana legacy 1.7.93 Ken Kuhlken

The Missionary Fathers of Charity live about a half mile from the Terminal Central de Autobuses. The colonias that surround the seminary are called Marua and Arenal. Out behind the bus terminal is a large swampy pond.

Born to kill 3.18.93 Jeannette DeWyze

One of the most famous bullfighters working in Spain today, recently stepped into a small, stone-walled ring on a ranch not far from Tecate. Two veteran Mexican matadors accompanied him, as did two promising Mexican novices.

Labyrinth of the radiant city 6.2.93 David Rioux

Traveling north on foot from that section of San Diego called Little Italy. My destination is Balboa Park. My goal is to seek out and live among San Diego’s homeless. Another goal is truth. The one absolute.

Baseball will humble you 7.1.93 Patrick Daugherty

"Ted Williams says, ‘Come here, mark on that wall. Where you think my knees are?’ And I do and he goes over and stands next to my mark. ‘Now, you fucking pitch on that goddamn mark.’ ‘Yes, sir!’"

San Diego's best tomato breeds 7.8.93 Judith Moore

Pat Welsh plants Early Girl tomatoes for a June crop, then for August, Celebrity and Better Boy. “I always grow Better Boy,” she says. “That’s the one I like best. For a smaller, cherry type, I grow Sweet 100."

The impossible shore 10.7.93 Larry Siems

The bow of the To Ching No. 212 looks like the nose of a fighter who should have quit sooner. Pinned between a 60-meter patrullero and the Ensenada Naval Pier, she’s no longer a danger. Mexico officially seized the ship, its crew, and 254 undocumented Chinese passengers.

Eating people is the ultimate control 10.14.93 John Brizzolara

At 11:00 p.m., the bad boys — among a handful of not-very-good-in-the-first-place boys — of San Diego’s punk scene take the stage like a patrol of long-range reconnaissance grunts seizing a hot landing zone.

Tarawa 11.88.93 Ray Westberg

I enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1942, at the Federal Building on Market and 12th Street. From there I was dispatched to MCRD. The training program in boot camp, because of the war, was reduced from 12 weeks.

In those days we parked our cars on Highway 101, then walked through Swami's big vegetable garden to a rickety old stairway that led down the bluff to the beach.

In time for the morning glass 12.2.93 Mike Doyle, Steve Sorensen

I saw that filmmakers Bud Browne and Bruce Brown were there showing their movies, and Dick Dale and the Deltones were there playing surf music. Tom Morey had a booth at the trade show, too, so I went over to say hello.

San Diego Texas 1.27.94 Abe Opincar

What's most important to remember about San Diego, other than its scrub, is its sky. It is a big, Luminous sky that seems to shimmer. Nobody knows why. Perhaps it's the moisture from the nearby gulf that causes it.

Far from the enormous past 3.31.94 Bill Manson

"When the Khmer Rouge came for me in the morning, they had to tear me away from them, screaming. I hung on to my mother’s legs till they ripped me away. When they got me back, they tied me to the post like an animal.”

Chinese hiding under a rock in Baja 5.6.94 Frank Chin

So when I ask people in the Imperial Valley and Mexicali and Tijuana about the toad, I don’t want to be alone. I’ll get my friend Pok-chi to ask about the toad. The question will sound a lot better in Chinese.

She likes the topiary to be a surprise — Peter Rabbit jumping through the bushes. Agatha gives a picture to a nursery in Mission Hills. A craftsman in Tijuana makes the frame of heavy-gauge wire.

San Diego's secret gardens 6.2.94 Robert Gluck

Why palms and cycads? “They’re permanent. The begonias are like a candy fix. The bromeliads are the same. Temporary plants. But palms and cycads can be generations old. Cycads were here with the dinosaurs — the oldest living plants.

Roommates from Hell 6.16.94 Elayne Ketcher

My high school girlfriend Carolee became a constant visitor at our place. Soon she was having Rick work on her car and often borrowed his. She asked questions about what kind of lover he was and about his likes and dislikes.

Ramona the, Ramona now 7.14.94 Sharon Doubiago

Ramona: land of the car wreck. I have lived in many remote small towns since, accessible only by two-lane mountain roads I know these towns do not have the car accidents or fatalities that Ramona has. Or had. Why?

Dear Dick 7.28.94 Matt Potter

In your campaigning, I certainly hope that you will not overlook San Diego. I believe I can swing a lot of the votes into your column. However, I feel it is imperative that you include this city on your schedule.

Spanish Village shaken by mystery stabbing 8.4.94 Bill Manson

“Then I heard male voices outside on the patio. I didn’t look up. The voices moved left to right. I never looked up. The sounds went back around the right side of the Potters’ Guild. A few minutes later I heard a fight starting up."

Bridges of San Diego County 9.15.94 Peter Jensen

I drive the roads of San Diego County with an agenda: You don’t know when you might spot another canyon dancer, a concrete Nureyev. I hike gorges and find them in places called Goat Canyon and Pine Valley Creek.

San Diego's flamenco sub-culture 10.13.94 Frank Chin

“The girls that were from Mexicali, performing at the feria, they came last year and saw what our club was doing, and they were going, ‘Wow! We’ve never seen anything like this! We wanta come!’"