PhotosThe unconventional community of San Aliso Creek “What is a bum?” asks Jo, a short, animated, talkative man of thirty whose troubled life has included a stint in prison for possession of illegal drugs, a …
March 25, 2023
McPhail was a reporter for the Oceanside Blade before coming to work for the Reader in the 1980s.
Articles by Bob McPhail (RIP)
San Aliso Creek rest area dwellers
Inside Child Protective Services
Sometimes Child Protective Services works “When I got back to Stepping Stones from Vista Hill, I decided, ‘Okay, this is it.’ All the people there were the only friends I had. I got in drug …
July 11, 2022
Castro's prisoners end up in San Diego with their stories
¡Cuba, sí! He and four compadres left Cuba one night in a twenty-foot boat powered by a five-horsepower motor. The motor quit on the second day of the voyage, and the men drifted, lost, for …
July 2, 2022
The troubled history of USIU
William Rust and the early troubles of USIU Eleven years after a financial crisis forced Rust to sell all of USIU’s worldwide campuses except Scripps Ranch, the president insists that there was no mismanagement at …
June 20, 2022
Lawyer Sam Spital has most TV ads
Spital's law: Advertise, settle the suit, go to the bank “There are some [attorneys] who are arrogant and think they're at a higher place in life," observes Spital. “They think they deserve to be more …
June 13, 2022
Murder at 63rd and El Cajon Blvd.
American gothic horror By late October they had an apartment at Fortieth Street and Orange Avenue. Early one morning Garrett saw two men at the front door, one of whom was Marck Lambros III, a …
May 22, 2022
Beautiful Sweetwater Valley, Herman Baca's National City
Valley Love The Lower Sweetwater Valley has served as a recreational and inspirational resource. One morning I looked up on the levee and saw a colorful line of kindergartners singing to the ducks in the …
February 19, 2022
Utterly alone with abortion, Father Bud Kaicher's court statement, behind Debby Fleming's suicide
Dutiful Daughter After three days, I lost all feeling that something had “happened” to my body. I realized it would be possible to deny that this had ever happened to me, if I chose to …
May 15, 2021
New home ownership, my life as fat boy, Christmas in Tijuana, at Horton Plaza
What on Earth am I Settling For? I let the front yard go and worked on building a fence in back. I got so angry digging postholes in the rain one afternoon that I had …
February 6, 2021