The 428 Hidden Steps of La Mesa go up one side of the hill and down the other through a pleasant, old neighborhood. Start at the corner of Normal Avenue and Windsor Drive.

I wanted to know why Sanford Goodkin never became a developer. He said, "The question usually is asked, ‘If you’re so goddamned smart. Goodkin, how come you’re not a builder?’" His glib, smart-alecky retort is, …

She won’t like it, but what the hell. Let’s start with the question of whether Tanja Winter is a Communist. "Communism is not even relevant!” she protests. “It’s not an issue.” But it’s not as …

MILLIONS OF DOLLARS HAVE FLOWED FROM THE SAN DIEGO Community College District into a shadowy, local, private foundation over the past half-dozen years. As this has occurred, one man has served as head of both …

This is the story of how we, the good people of San Diego County, got Steven Miller. On January' 23, 1986, Superior Court Judge David Gill decided that Miller had inserted his finger into the …

I know this: if ever I go crazy — stark raving psychotic, you know, hearing voices, fending off hallucinations — I would rather be at Hanbledeya than anywhere else. If I ever become so alienated …

Join me for some voyeurism; we will see people emotionally naked. The best place I have ever found to do this (on a casual basis) is in San Diego’s divorce court. What goes on there …

Actions of the “facilitators” from La Jolla led to the destruction of that religious school system. Immaculate Heart College ceased to exist a few years later; the American Film Institute now owns the buildings that the college once occupied.

MANY PEOPLE LOVE BULLFIGHTING. BUT JOSE RODRIGUEZ OLIVAS'S llove of bullfighting is extraordinary. For almost forty years. Rodriguez has been Tijuana’s chief bullfight doctor, and in that role, he has studied the myriad ways in …

Enter for a while into the home of Sadanand Singh. At first you may think that this is one of the most serene abodes in the city. It’s not a fancy house, but it’s set …

Russell adds that he thinks knowing which stock to buy is not difficult. “I think that point’s overdone. If the market’s right, it’s really no problem picking stocks. You can buy a good mutual fund.

These large first-floor rooms at the Hotel del Coronado overlooking the tennis courts and picturesque beach are some of the most expensive in San Diego. And they’re a mess. The bedding in them is rumpled; …

Toward the end of Governor Jerry Brown’s administration, UC salaries had sunk to the bottom third of the list — a development that faculty members say made recruiting much more difficult, particularly in the engineering school.

One of the eeriest forests in the world is located just a mile or two from the center of San Diego. Very few people enter it, though there is one safe, and convenient way to …

If you had to pick a group of people to pit against a large, deadly rattlesnake, the men and women who drove south into the Baja wilderness last June would have been a good choice. …

There’s a difference between knowing the secret of true love and using that knowledge to find true love. I’ve been told the secret, and to my surprise, it came from some of the professional matchmakers …

Meet the most remarkable person at city hall, and find out why she makes certain public officials wish they could repeal the First Amendment.

Terri Welch’s job is to sell the San Diego Zoo, and one recent morning in a posh New York City hotel, she was ready for action. Welch, who is a very good looking woman of …

Flash back a few years. We are about to witness an act of what appears to be extraordinary masochism. Terry Sheldon is standing out on West Point Loma Boulevard, looking at twenty acres of marshland. …

If you can imagine, for a moment, how Dennis Conner must have felt two and a half years ago, it will help you to understand one of the greatest ironies in sporting history. On September …

In the dark hour before dawn one recent Tuesday morning, Jim Owens was thinking about the fog. Stars shone clearly overhead here in San Diego, obscured only by a ragtag army of cloud fragments scurrying …

Anyone who's ever thought of running a grocery store ought to know there's a way to do so without investing any money. This is possible at the Ocean Beach People’s Food Store, located just off …

Almost exactly five years ago, a reporter from a Del Mar weekly newspaper wrote a story about one of the primitive camps hidden away in the North County underbrush where the illegal aliens live. There …

One recent morning when I arrived at Sister Maggie Yee’s home in Tijuana, she had just put her foot through the floor. She was laughing about this. The house, set in Colonia Altamira about a …

Lately it’s been difficult to find a seat in the lobby of the Livingston-Wheeler Medical Clinic in Point Loma. Across the country news stories have begun appearing about the elderly medical doctor in San Diego …

On the sands at the Children’s Pool in La Jolla, Debbie Murphy is kneeling next to a pile of very expensive bathing suits. At her side stand two young women, each quite tall and shapely, …

The company has had trouble with the Kaypro 10, a more expensive computer that can store up to 3000 pages of text, compared to the 200 pages in the memory of the first Kaypro model.

This is a mystery story, starring Theresa Clague, the elderly lady from Chula Vista who has spent the last four months in the Tijuana penitentiary and who remains there today. One of the most intriguing …

Surely one of the grimmest visions of the future is that which sees us all eventually no longer eating food, but instead consuming capsules that will supply us with the precise amount of necessary nutrients. …

The next time you spend fifty or sixty dollars at a Safeway or trudge from one shopping center to another comparing clothing prices, take my advice: don’t think about Albert Nelson. If you work hard …

Dick Farson told me recently that he has grown to prefer communicating with people via computers, rather than face-to-face. It was the kind of statement I wouldn’t think twice about, had it come from anyone …

About those tomatoes in your salad: somebody in downtown San Diego got up very, very early in the morning so you could eat them fresh tonight. Jon Maniscalco had just parked his Porsche 924 and …

Just how smelly are thirteen acres of raw sewage? Soon, very soon, we shall find out. Next Monday a federal agency is planning to start building an open pond for raw sewage just over the …

All is not tranquil at the San Diego Yacht Club. The appearances are deceiving. In the last few weeks, I’ve been frequenting the club and I can report that it often appears to be the …

If Bob Bussard is right, the following things will happen, perhaps within a half dozen years: 1) People on earth will be able to stop worrying about energy shortages. Forever. 2) Interplanetary space travel at …

At least the folks at the Southland Corporation are persistent. Various Ocean Beach residents recall that in the last decade Southland has tried three or four times to build a 7-Eleven store in Ocean Beach, …

She was given the names of three psychiatrists. It didn’t really matter which name she selected, so she chose Zane Parzen simply because she liked the sound of his. It wasn’t a life-and-death decision; she …

Cleve Backster’s lab associate had already taken some living cells from inside my mouth and put them in a tiny glass test tube. Into the tube, he had placed silver wire electrodes connected to a …

Sean used to go to school, but he stopped more than two and a half years ago, toward the end of the fifth grade. Since then, for the most part, he hasn’t done anything that …

Invariably, she is hot, her discomfort compounded by being, trussed up in a heavy, constrictive suit. She is far from San Diego, from her husband and seven-year-old son. In a moment, men will come for …

Lane Hauck, standing at the console of the video game called Eliminator, jabs his four control buttons. He is carrying on a conversation with a bystander, and at the same time his illuminated score is …

Suppose you had a job in which you received two or three calls a day from people imploring you to travel around the world at their expense. One morning, for example, you might get a …

On one of the mountains northeast of Escondido lives a kindly old man who has spent his life searching for the secret of eternal youth. In the course of his seventy-four years, he has circled …

Ludwig Von Mises. the late Austrian economist and defender of untrammeled capitalism, refused to debate his theories publicly. He was convinced it isn’t possible to explain the free market’s subtle workings in a few minutes; …

In the preface to his widely publicized "true story," Fast Times at Ridgemont High, author Cameron Crowe states that he changed the names of his characters and altered superficial details in the book's juicy account …

Brenda Balthazar knew she was in for an experience that would make her want to sink her fingers into her hair and tug on it in frustration. She was about to receive a haircut from …

Let us begin by introducing you to Patrick Mulcahy, one of the many Americans who own factories in Tijuana, and by posing this question: Is Mulcahy a creative, international soul who’s fighting ignorance and poverty? …

It’s been a year and a half since Yurii Aleksandrovich Vetokhin leapt off a Russian cruise ship in the middle of the night and swam for twenty hours through the shark-filled Moluccan Sea. It’s been …

On the evening of May 23rd, the occasion of the 1981 Mr. and Ms. California bodybuilding contest, I stood concealed behind the side curtains of Mandeville Auditorium at UCSD. In the center of the stage …

I won’t say that this isn’t any way to run a restaurant. Maybe it is. But I’m sure this isn’t the way most restaurants are run. I’m in the lobby of the Prophet International Vegetarian …