Harry Partch – San Diego's most famous musical rebel Each instrument looks more like a piece of sculpture, yet each is capable of producing the sounds inside of a normal musical sound. They are made …
June 24, 2023
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Stories by Mark Orwoll
San Diego's experimental hobo
Amateur smugglers show up hourly at San Ysidro border crossing
There isn’t a tougher port to work at than San Ysidro There is a switchblade in that car — and a woman with a trembling left breast. The woman of the trembling breast and her …
January 8, 2023
Island Court roommates turn dog abusers
A sad Mission Beach dog story The old woman who owned the apartment building did not know enough to kick out her tenants in the summer, jack up the rent, and lease the apartments to …
October 2, 2022
They work on San Diego's smog
San Diego starting to deal with its smog The natural broom sweeps the smog into the natural dustpan of Alpine. On days when the smog is particularly bad, you can drive east on Interstate 8 …
April 24, 2022
Mercy Hospital's multi-dimensional shrink
Mercy Hospital fires shrink and it helps him “I said. ‘It seems to me that there are two ways we can go. One, we could try the medication (antidepressants) and we can sit and talk, …
April 23, 2022
San Diego night guards, coffin hucksters
Used car dealings When my septuagenarian mother (who knows nothing about automobiles) observed that the floor of the trunk was cracked, that the body had been repainted with two tones of non-matching red, that the …
March 14, 2022
San Diego corporate giants: PSA, Sheraton Hotels, Jack-in-the-Box
Thought for Food Bob Peterson (husband to Mayor Maureen O’Connor) opened his first Jack-in-the-Box restaurant at 63rd Street and El Cajon Boulevard in 1951. Peterson had expanded his chain to include 350 units by the …
June 19, 2021
Traffic lights on Market Street, baseball card nostalgia, Surfer Motel attacked
Why 24th and Market got no traffic light It is an intersection that only God could love. Market and Twenty-fourth streets: its sidewalks are stuck about with telephone poles, shadeless palms, and a few eugenias …
April 11, 2021
Best Reader stories from 1980
On the path of the old ones It’s now ten years, almost to the day, since an amateur archaeologist discovered what seemed to be extraordinarily old stone tools in a canyon above Mission Valley, and …
November 17, 2019
Mark Orwoll and the Reader
Mark Orwoll, international editor for Travel+Leisure magazine, wrote for the Reader in the 1970s and 1980s. Editor's picks of stories Orwoll wrote for the Reader: Raoul Marquis – mayor of India Street People criticize Raoul …
June 2, 2019
San Diego's old trolleys, off season Mission Beach, lost colony of Mission Hills, an abused dog, Surfer Motel attacked, Baseball card obsession
The glories of San Diego's trolley system Buses are rough; the passengers fall down easier. With the streetcars, you knew where they were—smooth starts and stops. They weren’t swaying back and forth—therefore, less accidents. And …
February 2, 2019
How I committed my friend to mental health
In the autumn of our senior year at the university, at the time of Kurt's delirium, we lived in a broad and ample house that was owned by rival gangsters. But this is not a …
February 11, 1982
A sad Mission Beach dog story
Four young men lived together not long ago in Mission Beach. They were all unemployed and got by as best they could on their wits. Consequently, they were always on the verge of bankruptcy. But …
February 19, 1981
PB's Surfer Motel attacked, guard killed
The Surfer Motor Lodge is like any other tacky tourist motel in San Diego. It has tan stucco walls, a swimming pool, and redwood picnic furniture on tiny balconies of the motel’s fifty-two rooms. The …
February 12, 1981
Raoul Marquis – mayor of India Street
People criticize Raoul Marquis for many things They criticize him for being overbearing and authoritarian; for operating the Marquis Public Theater chiefly on government money; for taking advantage of his employees; for running his theater …
December 11, 1980
Pacific Beach's Roxy Theater to become post office
Where once the residents of Pacific Beach bought stamps and mailed packages, they will soon be squeezing tomatoes and weighing bananas. And where once they watched X-rated films or saw rock concerts, they may soon …
November 13, 1980
How PSA grew with San Diego
“I have designed for [the stewardesses] pink micro-miniskirts to be worn with strawberry hot pants and red boots and they're darling." The color scheme caught on, and by November, PSA began changing the color of its airplanes.
October 30, 1980
Look familiar? He was the image of Highlander menswear
Jim Crawford is drinking white wine as it happens again — recognition. It has gotten to the point where he is now used to it. and it no longer bothers him. At bars and restaurants, …
September 18, 1980
Imperial Beach takes action on vandalized pier
There is an island of the coast of Imperial Beach that should not be there. It was once the crossbar section of the municipal T-shaped fishing pier, but fierce storms last winter destroyed the south …
September 11, 1980
Writer spends time on street, in rescue mission, at Hare Krishna temple
The challenge was simple: I would take only the clothes I wore, without a change. I would carry with me no money, nor anything that I might pawn. 1 would stay away from my home …
August 7, 1980
There isn’t a tougher port to work at than San Ysidro
There is a switchblade in that car — and a woman with a trembling left breast. The woman of the trembling breast and her three companions — two young men and another young woman — …
July 3, 1980
Chesapeake is one of Southern California's five biggest fish sellers
Nick Vitalich, Jr. scans the oyster-colored sky for rain. All he wants is a bit more time. Behind him is a pinewood crate attached to a cable and winch, which dangles about four feet off …
May 15, 1980
Newsline's Larry Remer – like Jane Fonda at a Black Panther meeting
Scene: A Friday afternoon business luncheon. Helen Copley, publisher of the San Diego Union and the Evening Tribune , is speaking to 150 members of the San Diego Chamber of Commerce. Time for questions. A …
April 3, 1980
From one accident at NASSCO to another
Gene Nooner's story is really very simple. He has been abused. During the past decade, Nooner was required to undergo thirty-five shock treatments he later discovered were probably unnecessary, became addicted to drugs prescribed by …
March 20, 1980
Poway's Mike Pitzel wants you to understand the trimobius
Like nearly every creative genius before him, Mike Pitzel would like to explain his creation to curious laymen. After all it really is so simple, this Trimobius. Just imagine a Mobius band constructed in a …
March 13, 1980
We Are Family: South Bay's Baptist Communes
Pianist Kevin Cope knocks another tune out of the weathered Gulbransen upright piano, and again the group jumps into song unabashedly, with more hands held above heads and more upward-searching faces. But this time the …
January 17, 1980
True newspaper scoops in San Diego, 1979
The best newspaper reporting doesn't always get the biggest headlines; sometimes a series of stories begins on page seventeen of the financial section and in several months works its way to the front page, while …
December 20, 1979
San Diego characters I met in 1979
People who live back East like to say smugly that their part of the country is saner than ours because all the unbalanced people tend to follow the pull of gravity into Southern California. This, …
December 20, 1979
OB Manifesto
Last Saturday the sun was shining on the 5100 block of Cape May Avenue in Ocean Beach, and Red House at 5113 was in full flower. At the side yard gate, casually dressed visitors (mostly …
November 22, 1979