The effect of DDT on the Coronados Islands pelicans I’m not sure why the birds on the north island of the Coronados are making such a racket. They're screaming so loudly it seems like the …
June 19, 2023
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Stories by Eleanor Widmer (RIP)
Why the pelican eggs were thin and de-formed
Best surfer to come from Windansea in years
A bump on the head could kill Chris O'Rourke Here at Windansea Beach in La Jolla, surfers prefer the Vespa motor scooter for solo transportation. This is a low, fat motorcycle that you'd be crazy …
June 17, 2023
Eleanor Widmer does deep interview with Michael Copley
Slow fall from Foxhill They lived in a six-bedroom house in La Jolla with an informal as well as a formal dining room, a large library, and several dens, one of which was known as …
November 5, 2022
San Diego cops talk about prostitutes after the Stingaree
San Diego prostitutes after the Stingaree shut down When Guthrie joined the police force back in ’29, his superiors explained to him that sex was “nice and necessary” but needed to be kept quiet. “If …
October 3, 2022
1976 guide to surfspots, poetry, dance bars, Navy slang, where to park
1976 San Diego guide to surfing spots Tamarack, Swami's, Black's, Windansea, Ocean Beach, Needle's Eye, Ralph's, Tijuana Sloughs 1976 San Diego guide to sailing Mission Bay, Navy Sailing Club, Southwestern, Silvergate, Seaforth, Coronado and San …
September 19, 2022
1975 Reader guide to fishing, street theater, public bathrooms
1975 San Diego guide to fishing Freshwater, offshore, deep-sea 1975 San Diego guide to public bathrooms Downtown, night spots, La Jolla 1975 San Diego guide to street theater Where to find them and rules they …
September 18, 2022
1974 Reader guide to gardening, hiking, longest bus rides
1974 San Diego guide to movers and shakers The heavy 35 1974 San Diego guide to alternative schools No knifings, no heroin 1974 San Diego guide to gardening Winter crops and summer crops 1974 San …
September 17, 2022
San Diego – city of shame, University Avenue, roommates from hell, writers write about moms
Roommates from Hell I walked outside to the storage door. I pushed on the door and opened it. I saw the rope around John’s neck and John’s face looking at me. I screamed and ran …
December 5, 2021
San Diego Door, Street Journal, San Diego Magazine
Notes from Underground Most of the paper's staff lived in the Door commune in a Victorian House on Albatross Street that rented for $295 a month. In late 1973 they were asked to move by …
November 6, 2021
Starring roles in the Copley Union-Tribune: James, Helen, Michael, David
I’m Morgan, He’s Cronkite Scholars, particularly Vjaceslav Vsevolodovic Ivanov, director of the Section on Structural Typology of the Institute of Slavic and Balkan Walter Leland Cronkite Studies at the Soviet Academy of Sciences in St. …
October 31, 2021
Herbert Marcuse ends up in lotus land, Ishmael Reed visits Quincy Troupe at UCSD
Angel of the Apocalypse During that long, violent spring of 1968, leftist student leaders around the world began to quote Marcuse and claim his ideas as inspiration to their movements. By June worldwide media had …
July 26, 2021
Buddy of Hemingway, Peron surfaces in Balboa Park, confessions of pot smuggler
Where a job with Time magazine led William Weber Johnson Ernest Hemingway was good company, but his drinking and hard living were difficult to keep up with. Argentinian president Juan Peron was either a tad …
April 4, 2021
Best Reader stories from 1979
Park there, pay here On the afternoon of the All-Star baseball game in July, Evan Jones was standing on top of one of those pedestrian towers that corkscrew up the side of San Diego Stadium. …
November 16, 2019
Best Reader stories from 1978
From Spanish rancho to hard-core Marines In 1942, the Ninth Marine Division marched in and took over what had been the Santa Margarita y Las Flores Ranch. The Second World War had begun and the …
November 10, 2019
Eleanor Widmer and the Reader
Eleanor Widmer reviewed restaurants for the Reader from 1974 through 2000. She wrote occasional feature stories, the most notable of which was "Slow Fall from Foxhill" (an interview with Michael Copley). Widmer was hitchhiking on …
March 23, 2019
Pot smuggler's accident, Belmont Park, Willie Shoemaker, prostitution after Stingaree, truth serum, a family's letters
The Zipper – near death at the Del Mar Fair The Zipper was a new wrinkle on the midway: this big, gleaming apparatus that looked like a gigantic fan belt, with body-hugging cages attached along …
February 3, 2019
Reader writers tell funny stories about dead colleague, Steve Esmedina
Esmo’s phone manner was so hugger-mugger that I could be sitting four feet away and could not make out a single word. For all I could tell, he might have been laying fifty on a pony.
September 20, 2001
Student Steve
During the early ’70s, the war in Vietnam created upheaval at universities across the country. ucsd, where I taught, was no exception. Dissenters organized rallies in Revelle Plaza, committees of students met with deans to …
September 20, 2001
29 Reader writers on their fathers
To commemorate Father's Day, this issue contains a collection of reflections from Reader writers about their fathers: The Last Tag Sale — Jeanne Schinto An Air of Exoticism — Duncan Shepherd Kinder Than I Would …
June 15, 2000
The Man Who Loved to Dress Women
“Never put a rat on your back.” I was five years old, hurtling through the subway station in New York, on the way to the garment district with my father when he gave me my …
June 15, 2000
Willie Shoemaker at Del Mar, strong in wheelchair
It’s Friday morning, August 19. Although I’m dressed in a Chanel-style blue-and-white suit, I’m not wearing an apron as I heap two inches of chopped liver on fresh egg bread. The sandwich is for Bill …
September 22, 1994
I plowed through The Interpretation of Dreams when I was 14
I read my first novel at the age of seven, after which the printed word became my obsession. In the ghetto where we lived, the public library was endowed by Andrew Carnegie; to get to …
December 20, 1990
Eleanor Widmer finds a late-night restaurant where she can sing
I don’t know whether insomnia is programmed in the DNA, but my grandmother, my father, and I all had sleeping problems. From earliest childhood, say by the age of five, I would wake in the …
July 5, 1990
Reader writers: the story I wanted to write... but didn't
Sandy and a girlfriend had gone into a liquor store, robbed the clerk, They locked the clerk in a walk-in cooler. Sandy started feeling bad about the guy. She went back and let him out.
October 5, 1989
Frederick's in Solana Beach – entrees are the glory
Late the other afternoon, I was walking my dog down what should have been a deserted street when I saw a pickup truck filled with teen-agers advancing. The road was officially closed because of damage …
April 14, 1983
San Diego restaurants, 1980
I find New Year's Eve one of the most depressing nights of the year. So much emphasis is placed on forced gaiety, on the ritual of seeing the old year out, on sentimentality; it's more …
December 18, 1980
1979: San Diego's year in review
Rape of the Earth Medal of Dishonor The year's most infamous award goes to the voters of San Diego, a majority of whom agreed to exchange 39 acres of prime canyonland in Balboa Park for …
December 20, 1979
Encounters With Carl Rogers
Everyone in the room was divorced or separated, except for one woman who explained how and why she and her husband didn't communicate. The man on the floor said he liked her and felt good about her.
August 9, 1979
John Vietor, founder of San Diego Magazine
“It has been brought to my attention by numerous friends that in the November issue there was scant mention of my contribution to San Diego Magazine
March 15, 1979
The cooks behind Georgia's and L'Escargot plus Art Bolic
My grandmother’s restaurant, Manya’s, failed in New York during the Depression. She had to contend not only with the economic disaster that beset most diners, but with the rise of cafeterias where those with money …
August 10, 1978
Estrangement of Michael Copley from the San Diego Union-Tribune's Helen Copley
On the days when the family station wagon wasn't available, he was deposited at the first grade in Miss Balmer's School (later named La Jolla Country Day) by a chauffeur driving a Cadillac limousine. As …
July 6, 1978
1977 San Diego guide to restaurants with a view
Physically, San Diego is one of the most glamorous cities in the country. Landscapes and seascapes abound, and thanks to the absence of traditional seasons, we rarely have to fear that the fickle elements will …
October 6, 1977
The 1962 Tropic of Cancer trial in San Diego - and its aftermath
I had to defend all the notorious passages. Suddenly, Gutfleisch switched to yet another attack: “Would you allow your son to read such stuff?” I shot back, “How can he when he’s only six years old?"
March 3, 1977
1976 San Diego guide to elegant restaurants
Poshness in restaurants depends on all-over elegance: in the preparation of the food and the attitude of the menu; in the presentation of the food and wine, that is, the service; and in the physical …
October 7, 1976
1974 San Diego guide to moderately cheap eats
This guide is intended to stimulate your curiosity as well as your taste buds. In geographical area, it ranges from Tijuana to Carlsbad: in experience, from a two table dining room to a “factory”, and …
October 10, 1974
1974 San Diego guide to restaurant reviews
The Paprika “Think of Hungarian cuisine and you think of sour cream, soups, and liquid-plenty stews, more ways of cooking cabbage than anyone could think possible, and dumplings, and hot noodle desserts, and light fairy-fragile …
October 10, 1974