San Diego's best tomato breeds: Better Boys, Early Girls, Yellow Taxis The ripe round red tomato sitting on the kitchen table is alive and busy. While we are asking, “How shall I eat it?” the …
August 7, 2023
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Stories by Jeannette DeWyze
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Tomato people say that tomatoes have 'no legs'
They make I-15 wider at Miramar Way
Like your road widened, Mister? In the pre-dawn gloaming, the roadbuilding machines are just black shapes lined up beside the southbound lanes of Interstate 15. From the overpass at Miramar Way, only the light from …
July 31, 2023
Old Otay Mesa
Otay before 50,000 homes In 1954 I sat on the school bus every day next to my best friend, Mark Robson. The ride home from Montgomery Elementary School in Otay was a straight shot east …
July 30, 2023
Logan vs. Golden Hill gangs
Huero walks On July 2, 1988, at 2:30 a.m., Rudolpho “Nene” Rios was shot twice in the head while he was in the 2000 block of National Avenue, at Chicano Park. He died two days …
July 24, 2023
Thought about Idaho, settled for Oceanside
Our new garden up on Fire Mountain, in Oceanside, looked like hell I grew up in Southern California suburbia and hated gardening. It was called yard work, which pretty much explains why any kid would …
July 17, 2023
The cute boys are at La Jolla Shores
The girls of summer Right after the Fourth of July, a series of perfect days unrolled across San Diego County beaches. Sun sizzled away the coastal low clouds by no later than eleven, and girls …
July 15, 2023
Anza Borrego rangers spend most of their time observing the human race at its worst
Where demons thrive Like city cops, the BLM rangers spend most of their time observing the human race at its worst. You might think the desert would be a place where you could get away …
July 8, 2023
Bodysurfer zealots – from Tia Juana River mouth to Oceanside championship
Bodysurfers from Oceanside to the IB Pier A little further up the coast from Cartwright and Bye is the hermetic Boomer Beach crowd of La Jolla, with guys like "Dolphin" Don Riley, "Freeway" Dave Freeman, …
July 3, 2023
Florence Chadwick wants to lose 50 pounds
Florence Chadwick in and out of the water Many years earlier, on her return to San Diego from a trip abroad, Chadwick had been greeted by city officials with considerably more pomp - a jubilant …
July 1, 2023
From the Pt. Loma Women's Club to the Spirit on Buenos
He brought punk rock to San Diego The patrons heading into the Spirit club shortly before nine on a recent Saturday night might have thought it peculiar that a large, paint-splattered wooden stepladder would be …
June 26, 2023
Why the pelican eggs were thin and de-formed
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
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
Chula Vista drive-in church strangely intimate
The latest Christian worship fad – in National City In one pickup truck, a teenager has his arm stretched across the seat back. The boy's hand is fondling his girlfriend’s hair, but the girl is …
June 12, 2023
Coinshooters at Pacific Beach are just part of it
San Diego's intrepid metal finders The faint sound through the earphones is like the buzz of a mosquito on the other side of the room when you're trying to sleep. It nags at your attention, …
February 11, 2023
How Chino's vegetables took off
Sugar in your ears Chino didn’t start picking enough corn to sell until more than two weeks after Mother’s Day. A few days after he started harvesting, I met him at 7:00 a.m. near the …
October 15, 2022
Police dogs trained in Rose Canyon
Oceanside police use tougher dogs Lang ordered the man to halt and drop the gun. He kept coming. So the officer set the dog on the man. When Fritz jumped him, the gun went flying …
October 9, 2022
Dennis Conner changed the pace at the San Diego Yacht Club
Dennis Connor's early America' Cup sallies Conner has brought to this corner of the yacht club a work regimen in which the hours are longer and less relenting than those in any garment district sweatshop; …
October 8, 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
White Berkeley math major falls for Tecate drug-addict, woman-beater
When opposites attract In Tecate I cooked over fires, on a camping stove, on a two-burner Mexican propane rig, and with electric “stingers,” as circumstances allowed. I bought cooked food from the other side, we …
September 25, 2022
1977 Reader guide to record stores, overnight bike rights
Record stores Chameleon, Swap-a-Tape, Monty Rockers, Blue Meanie, Arcade, Scratching the Surface, Flipside, Folk Arts Overnight bike rides San Clemente, Lake Elsinore, Julian, Borrego, Tecate Miniature golf La Mesa, Kearny Mesa, Escondido, Del Mar, Pacific …
September 24, 2022
Serious Christian gets through the Akiki trial
Inside Faith Chapel and through the Akiki trial I wanted to jump up and shout the truth, that several thousand people go to Faith Chapel, and lots of them might believe in literal demons, while …
September 4, 2022
Guillermo Gomez-Pena gets McArthur award
Just who does he think he is? Two San Diegans won MacArthurs in 1991, Gomez-Pena and UCSD philosopher and neuroscientist Patricia Smith Churchland, and the San Diego Union-Tribune’s initial announcement of the prizes was straightforward …
September 3, 2022
A cold eye on San Diego architects 20 years ago
Orchids and Onions — 20 years later The ’95 jury opened by dubbing 1976 Orchid-winner Rancho Bernardo “the ultimate suburb.” Nicoloff and Collins concurred, calling it “one of the few really successful and well-planned new …
August 27, 2022
San Diego's ostrich ranchers
Long-necked bonanza We had reached our first destination, about two miles due west of the San Diego Wild Animal Park, the semirural home of a pediatric dentist who’s been raising ostriches as a sideline for …
August 22, 2022
Realist art by David Baze
A little bit warped and kind of sexy "My clue was Caravaggio. He was thoroughly trounced for using Christ and religious figures in his paintings. He didn’t paint them in the clothing and rooms of …
August 21, 2022
World War II Tijuana
The Loud Adios I wrote a story about her, called it ‘The Blue Fox.” and decided not to give it to the singles’ magazine. The publisher probably would’ve turned it down. It wasn’t dirty enough …
August 20, 2022
San Diegans on getting revenge
Revenge I used to work on a morning show for Magic 102, a former classic rock station here in San Diego. I usually got to work before the other DJs, and I’d spend a few …
August 14, 2022
La Jollan Andy Lakey's hyper real art
Hyper-real Artist Andy Lakey, you've seen him on TV. His original paintings can be found in collections including Ray Charles, President Carter, Lee Meriweather, Peter Jennings, the Vatican Art Collection, and museums throughout the world. …
August 7, 2022
Surf legend Mike Doyle steals board design from Encinitas
Mike Doyle Bud Browne asked him to be the star of the movie he was filming that winter, of course Mike agreed, and later, when it was shown in civic auditoriums back in California, Mike …
July 24, 2022
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
San Diego Community College shadow money
The chancellor's private plans Burchard had become dismayed with the conduct of Peed and the trustees. “The more I got involved, the more I perused Peed’s documents, it became pretty apparent how he was operating …
July 10, 2022
I hike the San Diego River from its source
River run The river twists and winds even more. I’m trying to go south by heading east, then west. There are places where walking down the river is the only way to go — on …
July 9, 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
Bitten by rattler deep in Baja mountains
Snakebite Bob recalls, “I was getting pretty good mouthfuls of blood for a while, then everything seemed to coagulate.” Less than three minutes had elapsed since the time of the bite. He substituted the waist …
June 19, 2022
Cops, sailors, topless dancers eat at Johnny's Cafe
Welcome to Johnny's "I asked myself, ‘Why can’t I do this? It ain’t all that complicated.’ The first order was this young sailor who wanted French toast. I said to myself, ‘I know how to …
June 12, 2022
San Diego dialysis wars
Pumping ire “It’s like starting out in a race that you thought was going to be a hundred yards long, and it turns out to be a marathon,” says Fox. “But we were angry at …
June 11, 2022
How cool Elon swimsuits were
Soaked In swimsuits There's something incongruous about a national trend-setting taking place within the Elon building in downtown San Diego. It’s a faded hulk of a place built as a public works project during the …
June 5, 2022
Successful Indian man loses family in Pan Am flight
Return flight There were men, several uniformed men, screaming, waving guns, ordering everyone to freeze. Somehow they had managed to sneak onto the airfield, then had leaped out and clambered up the entry ramp, weapons …
June 4, 2022
Albert Arffmann grooms La Jolla's streets
Show me a sign Arffmann works into the early-morning hours, cleaning the restaurant and preparing the Pearl for the coming day. “Imagine you were having some friends over for dinner,” he says, "and imagine the …
May 30, 2022
Fred Schaubelt – San Diego City Council's burr under saddle
San Diego will never see another city councilman like Fred Schnaubelt “The interesting thing about being a [government] planner is that you have to be a socialist,” Schnaubelt continued mildly. Among his audience one could …
May 28, 2022