For hours after dawn there is nothing visible but the gray sky and the wide, gray sea. At evening yesterday the swell from the northeast settled in at around five feet, “finally made up its …
July 10, 1980
Back to profile
Stories by Gordon Smith
< Newer stories
Older stories >
Guadalupe, 250 miles south of San Diego, eaten away by goats
Escaped from Vietnam to San Diego. Now what?
In the afternoon I sometimes see her riding a bicycle down the alley behind my house. If the weather is warm she wears loose-fitting brown slacks and a blouse, but I have seen her on …
June 5, 1980
End of subsidies for San Diego buses
If you’re looking around the San Diego area for a camper shell for a pickup truck, it’s hard to avoid going to El Cajon. El Cajon has the greatest concentration of camper shell dealers in …
April 24, 1980
Pre-historic man in San Diego much earlier than we thought
It is a long skull by anthropological standards, in fact almost elliptical, and it has an unusually heavy jaw. The teeth are yellowed with age, and were somehow ground down during their owner’s lifetime, probably …
March 13, 1980
The Marstons of San Diego
“One of my grandfathers came to San Diego as the honorary German consul and the representative of a steamship line. I don’t think very many people come here representing shipping lines any more, and I …
February 7, 1980
The Cleveland National Forest is no wilderness
San Diego County’s back roads wind through hills overgrown with chaparral a thick cover of brush that stands in most places no higher than the average person. Here and there boulders lie nakedly in the …
January 10, 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
The Sundesert mistake
In the lobby of the San Diego Gas and Electric Company’s main office building in downtown San Diego, people come and go across the black stone floor. A receptionist stands behind a long metal desk, …
November 8, 1979
Who Gets Burned?
Some eighty people responded to the Harbison Canyon blaze, including county volunteers, U.S. Forest Service personnel, thirty inmates from the county's honor camps at La Cima and Moreno.
September 20, 1979
Where best to put San Diego sewage
Dick King knows what time everyone in San Diego wakes up in the morning. Approximately, at least. King is the city’s director of water and sewer utilities, and he knows that people tend to use …
September 13, 1979
Rangers vs. the buggies in the Algodones Dunes
The wind picks up; here and there sand drifts across the blacktop like wisps of cloud. On either side of the highway the dunes extend to the horizon, tan, impassive giants with sparse scrub clinging …
July 5, 1979
Gulf Atomic pursues fusion at Torrey Pines
It’s like building a house or a bridge, insists Tihiro Ohkawa. He sits at a conference table in his office at General Atomic’s Torrey Pines complex, drawing from time to time on a briar pipe. …
March 22, 1979
Mission Beach off season
From a distance she looked younger, or maybe it just seemed that a girl on roller skates at three in the afternoon would be in her late teens, at the most. She wore a plaid …
March 1, 1979
Gringos who play for Tijuana's Potros
Four o'clock on a Tuesday afternoon in late December, and the stands of Tijuana's new baseball stadium are deserted except for a few kids chasing each other through the rows of empty seats. Sunlight still …
January 25, 1979
40 percent of U.S. avocados come from San Diego
From nearly every hilltop in Fallbrook, Escondido, or Vista they can be seen: grove after grove of avocado trees, like rows of leafy green towers stretching away into the distance. This peculiar green fruit from …
January 11, 1979
Terns – from Batiquitos Lagoon to the border
The dirt road leads west from Nineteenth Street in Imperial Beach, about a quarter mile of rough, bumpy driving that ends at a small turn-around. Ahead lies a cultivated field, but a path curves around …
October 5, 1978
The afterlife of Olympian Mike Stamm
The 1972 photograph shows three members of the U.S.Olympic swim team shortly after they received gold medals for the medley relay. Seated on the shoulders of his teammates is Mark Spitz, eyes cast downward, arms …
September 21, 1978
Boogie boards got their start in Carlsbad
For the last seven weeks the Morey Boogie Board Division of the Kransco manufacturing company has occupied a squarish tan building in one of Oceanside's new industrial parks, a mile or two east on the …
August 24, 1978
How Florida Canyon has survived
At night Florida Canyon is a forbidding, lonely place. In spite of the nearness of lighted tennis courts at Morley Field, and the cars cruising by regularly on Florida Drive, it's easy to imagine you …
July 27, 1978
Padre John D'Acquisto struck me out twice
One night during the summer of 1973, John D’Acquisto was pitching for the Phoenix Giants in a game against the Salt Lake City Angels. The game was being played in Salt Lake City, and the …
March 23, 1978