Never Die They used birth control until Jeffry finished three years of chiropractic school, passed his preceptorship, and established a practice in San Diego. Then, in their mid-30s, with “it’s now or never” nagging them, …
June 20, 2020
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Stories by Fred Moramarco (RIP)
Poignant human drama in San Diego
Best Reader stories from 2003
The white mask On Saturday, September 6, 1958, Marilyn Monroe and the 175-person company of Some Like It Hot arrived at the Hotel del Coronado to begin location shots, after filming in Hollywood the previous …
February 8, 2020
Elegy for Kenneth Koch
d. July 6, 2002 It seems too crazy, like one of your mad, funny poems, that you’re not with us anymore, not here to point out the thisness of things, like mountains, circuses, and fresh …
February 13, 2013
My Last Love
for Clarissa My last love leapt into my life like a trapeze artist, flying across the air, arms outstretched, reaching toward me and I caught her, giving the crowd a scare. I took her quickly …
March 14, 2012
La Costa, Del Mar, Valley Center, Talmadge, Ramona, San Ysidro, Lemon Grove, City Heights, University City, Mission Beach, Julian, Carmel Valley, Scripps Ranch, East Lake, Linda Vista, Serra Mesa
Where I live, no major high-volume road cuts apart the 'hood. People can cross the street without becoming dead. The amoeba-shaped Balboa Park Municipal Golf Course and grid-busting canyons have made a rabbit warren of the streets.
December 30, 2004
Largely white Bankers Hill
Bankers Hill. The name has a regal sound to it. Bankers Hill has been called "Pill Hill" for its many doctors' offices and "Gill Hill" for Irving Gill, who built the historic residences that grace …
December 30, 2004
Neighborhood: small towns of San Diego
I see Asian gang cars some nights, in a long caravan down the Mira Mesa Boulevard. They meet at In-N-Out Burger before heading off for illegal street races on Kearny Villa Road or in Sorrento Valley.
December 24, 2003
Hillcrest
I’ve watched a great many changes take place in Hillcrest over the years. At this point in my life it’s a neighborhood of ghosts. I’ve been through a few relationships there, and each had certain …
December 24, 2003
SDSU prof asks, What do women want?
It's been nearly a century since Freud asked his famous question about the nature of female desire, and very few men that I know are any closer to an answer than Freud was. In the …
October 2, 2003
Four-five glasses of Chardonnay in Point Loma and – a DUI
I’m at a party in Point Loma celebrating the successful conclusion of a literary event that took a great deal of time and effort to put together. Everyone involved is letting go after months of …
January 2, 2003
San Diego an ideal place for Italians to garden like the old country
There’s a reason why Italian cooking is one of the world’s great cuisines, and it doesn’t have much to do with four-star chefs, innovative cooking techniques, or secret ingredients. The reason can be summed up …
July 3, 2002
The Bookseller Who Came in From the Cold
"There’s hardly anything you can think about that somebody hasn’t written a book on. They often come out of dissertation topics: books on The Diseases of Mites or The Mammalian Ear, from Cornell University Press, which we have."
September 21, 2000
The Man who Turned Fact into Fiction
"There were five canneries on Harbor Drive. I ended up on a fish boat for about seven years because they were paying pretty good money, but Larry never worked as a fisherman. He was too intellectual for that."
September 7, 2000
The novel about San Diego Little Italy: Lorenzo Madalena's Confetti for Gino
Read about author Lorenzo Madalena. Gino DeMarino nervously jerked his gray-visored fishing cap over his eyes, rubbed his hard palms over faded navy dungarees, and for the tenth time slapped the spokes of the wheel …
September 7, 2000
Monica Lewinsky, Bill Clinton – take your cue from Walt Whitman
A few weeks ago, Tony Perry, a reporter for the L.A. Times who knows I love Walt Whitman's poetry, called me on the telephone. "What would Whitman make of the fact," he asked, "that Bill …
March 12, 1998
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
Howard Cosell, Happy Bowie Kuhn, Pee Wee Reese, Ray Kroc – at San Diego All-Star game
I would place major league baseball’s All-Star game about fifth or sixth on a ranked list of American sports classics, following the World Series, the football bowl games (including the pseudo-classic, overhyped Super Bowl), the …
July 20, 1978