Ground Cover One of the Brazilian peppers, a 20-foot umbrella of lacy foliage, blocks an exit sign for Genesee Avenue. “Look at that sign. Kind of hard to see what it says, isn’t it? You’ve …
July 18, 2021
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Stories by Linda Nevin (RIP)
San Diego's highway landscaping, how to beat avocado thieves
Best Reader stories from 1992
Notes from Underground San Diego's Free Press (later renamed the Street Journal) was defunct by the end of 1970; the San Diego Door came and went with the Nixon Presidency, 1968 to August 1974.The O.B. …
December 29, 2019
Still Life with Dad
Linda Nevin was an editor and writer for the Reader for over 30 years. She wrote — as Matthew Alice — the Straight from the Hip column for over 20 years, until mid-2012. The following …
February 27, 2013
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
Del Dios
No one’s seen Hodgee lately. Some hoped that as Lake Hodges disappeared, the monster would have fewer places to hide. That one day they’d be watching the sunrise from their quiet porches and suddenly catch …
December 24, 2003
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
Stumble, Stumble, Thump, Crash
“I remember exactly when I met Steve. It was at the annual Reader Christmas party in 1976, at the old location of the Athens Market restaurant. That was when they announced that I was the …
September 20, 2001
Blubbo vs the Kaypro
I’d see Steve most often when the Reader was in its original home, a splintery firetrap at the corner of State and Market Streets. After the Reader moved out, the Marine Corps used the raggedy …
September 20, 2001
Ellen Phillips and Robin Brailsford's public art on Dairy Mart Road
To help pay for San Diego’s first publicly commissioned outdoor sculpture, a small bronze statue in honor of Ellen Scripps, the mayor asked schoolchildren to donate their pennies to the purchase fund. Now, 80 years …
March 15, 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 300-Million Dollar Bouquet
“We’re the number-one nursery county in the nation. The acreage hasn’t gone down. If an acre disappears on the coast, it pops up somewhere else; for instance. It’s now San Marcos, Twin Oaks Valley, Fallbrook, Valley Center.”
May 18, 2000
San Diego: America's Mail-Theft Capital
"It started in 1991 and peaked in ’94. We identified two major mail-theft gangs in ’95, and by ’98 every blue collection box in the four-county area, 7500 of them, had a new locking mechanism.”
January 27, 2000
Camera One Canine Actors, on 30th Street in North Park
Turn the knob, open the screen door… Wham! A roiling ball of shelties hurtles against it and slams it shut. Yipyipyipyipyipyip! Jumpjumpjump. Yip. Yip. Jumpjumpjump. Yip! “Scat, Jazz, Riff. Hey, guys. Quiet down.” Yip. Yurp. …
December 16, 1999
One in seven people in the U.S. can't locate their own country on a map.
"Most of the maps in America are not readable. The writing is so small. Thomas Brothers is on the better side, but Rand McNally, for example, the printing is just too small.”
June 24, 1999
San Diego's passionate macadamia community
The cultivation of macs in San Diego County goes back to the 1940s. “There are several old individual trees around. The oldest I’m aware of is in Coronado. The first commercial grove in Southern California was planted in Oceanside.”
February 18, 1999
San Diego's Mexicans who dragged at Paradise Valley Road and went on to Bonneville
Along the south side of Paradise Valley Road, from the mesatop by Bell Junior High School, waves of rooftops undulate down to the shore of the hazy blue bay. The area is graded, developed, and …
January 14, 1999
The Santee and the Dolphin — cars engineered in San Diego
You can take the boy out of the car, but sometimes you just can’t get the car out of the boy. Especially if he grew up in the ’50s and ’60s, the hot rod and …
November 25, 1998
San Diegans try art therapy
Marie can't really remember when it began. Her memory is hazy about the earliest days of her hospitalization. She only only knows that at some point, one of the perpetually smiling volunteers gave her white …
November 12, 1998
San Diego chapter of the House Rabbit Society sets me straight
Each throw rug is neatly rolled into a sausage. The small gray rabbit dozes in a fluffy lump under a rattan plant stand, a half-lidded sleep, alert for any coyote that might leap from behind …
September 17, 1998
San Diego's attempt at eco-tourism
It's a fact. Tourists will pay good money to visit Imperial Beach to go birding in the cold morning mist at the Tijuana River Estuary. They'll come from Europe to Poway to climb Mt. Woodson's …
September 10, 1998
Aileen Mellott and Baja's Flying Samaritans
The wind was blowing hard, and the dust started to swirl up. I dropped down to 200 feet and probably was within minutes of Ensenada airport when the weather closed in and everything suddenly went blank.
July 9, 1998
Samoans gather in National City and explain backgound
“When the tattoo is finally done, you wait for a minute for the pain to go down, then you yell. You blast up. You’re finished! You feel like you want to break everything around."
February 12, 1998
Sunfresh Floral in a small valley in northern San Marcos
“And it’s important that the roses be picked at just the right point. It’s different for each variety, but if you pick them too early, when they’re not opened up enough, they’ll never open.”
September 4, 1997
What Do You Grow to Replace Avocados?
The sign on Steve Olson's office door says Olson Avocado Management. The logo on his jacket reads Olson Firewood. When you work in agriculture, you have to stay flexible. "Groves we planted 10, 20 years …
February 20, 1997
University Avenue: From Washington Street to La Mesa Boulevard
“This used to be a beautiful place,” says Jonnie. “A family part of town. Nice people lived here. That all changed with the Vietnam War, 1975. People from war places started coming in, big-time.”
February 23, 1995
C. Arnholt Smith, part two
Kroc got on the phone and in a very high-pitched voice he said, “Mommy, I bought us a baseball team today.” There was a long silence, but I imagine what she said to him.
March 26, 1992
C. Arnholt Smith, in his own words – part 1
I don’t know why we expanded like this. I guess I’m a damn fool and like to work and create things. We had to have jobs, industry. San Diego wasn’t like Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh Steel.
March 19, 1992
Reader writers write about first day of school
Mr. Van Winkle asked the Student Council Reps, to indicate to the classes that if they can convince him through sound logical arguments that they should ride skateboards to school that he will reconsider his position.
September 12, 1991
Books: Sandra Dijkstra, what teachers read, play scripts, baseball, airplane books
I’m Talking Monster Books Amy had a title on this book. She called it Wind and Water. She was using the theme of the I Ching. I looked at these synopses of the stories, and …
April 26, 1990
Why there are no good football books
"They nip, top, wallop, trounce, rout, down, subdue, smash, drub, paste, trip, crush, curb, whitewash, erase, bop, slam, batter, check, hammer, pop. wham, clout, and blank the visitors. Or they zero them. They jolt them…."