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
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Stories by Neal Matthews (RIP)
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The cute boys are at La Jolla Shores
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
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
20-story tower on Sixth tests the limits
How high can Bankers Hill go? A project to build a 20-story residential tower next to the St. Paul’s cathedral on Sixth Avenue between Maple and Nutmeg won praise and criticism from the community Thursday …
May 8, 2023
The Padres pitcher like no other
Eric Show, thinker with a sinker “I know that I sealed my fate by going public about joining the John Birch Society in 1984.1 understand that, and I accept that. I’m not going to be …
November 19, 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
Joe Nicholson flays San Diego's bayside look
Editor: The following feature stories appeared in the interior pages of the Reader in the 1970s and 1980s and have just been converted to digital form. Seaport Village is a Walt-Disney solution Seaport Village is …
September 26, 2022
Mysterious Spanish Village stabbing
Idyllic Spanish Village shaken by mystery stabbing “Then I heard male voices outside on the patio. I didn’t look up because I didn’t want to be noticed. The voices moved left to right. I never …
September 5, 2022
VA Hospital patients tell how they were wounded
Temple of the wounded "The Marines had nothing to do with Agent Orange directly. It’s possible that some Marine groups were out on patrol or in the field, and a spray plane might have flown …
August 1, 2022
The power moves that created Horton Plaza
Whatever Ernie wants "I call it economic feudalism,” she says. Mondot contends that the successful redevelopment of the western portion of downtown, with Hahn’s Horton Plaza shopping mall as its crown jewel, was accomplished at …
July 30, 2022
Imperial Beach horses ride on the sand
You're always the cowboy “I took riding lessons the way some people play golf. I was the only one in my family. I started doing weekend trips. I’ve led pack trips in the Sierras for …
July 25, 2022
They serve San Diegans with legal demands
Leave! Banse turns off onto the University Avenue exit. “There’s nothing people out here have done that I didn’t do when I was young. I’m streetwise. I apply that knowledge. At 32nd and National I …
July 23, 2022
San Diego crime boss gunned down on Lamont St.
How Frank Bompensiero met his fate "Bomp kicked the door shut, Mirabile wrapped his arms around Borgia just as Jimmy dropped the garrote over his head, handing the other end of the rope to Bompensiero. …
July 17, 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
Devil's Peak – a mysterious Baja mountain
The Devil's Peak Other climbers, some of them my mentors, told me about a mysterious mountain in Baja California that had acquired a reputation much larger than its actual size. The mountain was barely over …
July 4, 2022
Promising USD grad kills mom in Pacific Beach
The blood upon his hands “It was a dull, outdated play, but when Mark walked on stage, it came alive. He filled the theater with his presence.” Ehrenfreund congratulated Mark on his performance and continued …
July 3, 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
In the ashes of Kate Sessions' heart
Why the mother of Balboa Park is the mother of us all Sure, there’s a school and park named after her, and careless admirers credit her, rightly or not, with planting any large tree growing …
June 27, 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
Lawyer Sam Spital has most TV ads
Spital's law: Advertise, settle the suit, go to the bank “There are some [attorneys] who are arrogant and think they're at a higher place in life," observes Spital. “They think they deserve to be more …
June 13, 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
Sure, I'll take a violin from San Diego to Poland
The Warsaw connection Suddenly a man about his age stepped from the shadows, introduced himself as Stashik, and took from him the centuries-old Italian violin. At this point, John Ratajkowski might have stepped back an …
June 6, 2022
The city-owned land east of La Jolla disappears
How San Diego lost its pueblo land Most of the 2000-odd acres proposed for sale in 1963 would go to Irvin Kahn’s University City Corporation. Kahn had holdings all over the city’s north, but they …
May 29, 2022
Murder at 63rd and El Cajon Blvd.
American gothic horror By late October they had an apartment at Fortieth Street and Orange Avenue. Early one morning Garrett saw two men at the front door, one of whom was Marck Lambros III, a …
May 22, 2022
3000 hours later – SD Rep's Elephant Man
The town that San Diego would like to forget “San Ysidro’s dead,’’ says an Hispanic banker whose branch is on San Ysidro Boulevard, within sniffing distance of a McDonald’s, a donut shop, the Main Attraction, …
May 15, 2022
San Diego reporters become PR agents
Twist and Shout There are a lot of reasons for reporters to take up public relations. The prospect of making more money is one. A good journeyman at the Union or the Tribune these days …
May 9, 2022
The woman behind the Prophet Vegetarian restaurant, women body builders
Reggae matriarch of San Diego vegetarians “We served Balinese food, like gado-gado. We were into Japanese cooking. We did a lot of tempura.” Near the cash register they sold herbs and — for a while …
May 8, 2022
San Diego boat Gypsy Song lost in Guatemala
Mystery of the Gypsy Song His one overriding desire is to find some shred of evidence that the Gypsy Song did in fact sink. “I just want to put that lady’s mind to rest,” he …
May 1, 2022
San Diego's TV station in Tijuana
Channel 6, our Mexican TV station Channel 39’s cofounder, Larry Shushan, confirms that he and his partners from the outset looked forward eventually to capturing Channel 6’s ABC affiliation. Shushan (who then owned KPRI radio …
April 18, 2022
Little Galapagos – right next to San Diego
Death of an island “There’s not another island off the Pacific coast of North America, including Alaska, that ever evolved five of its own bird species.” points out Bill Everett, a local ornithological consultant and …
April 17, 2022
The venerable Armed Forces YMCA
Downtown's YMCA – doors always open In 1944 alone, almost eight million people came through the front doors. A continual flow of humanity, 22.000 per day, filed through them. “They say it was a sea …
April 11, 2022
TJ's child sales force
Life of a Tijuana street urchin Isabel sells her bouquets for two dollars each, and she gives half of what she makes to her mother. With the rest, “I buy myself something to eat, ” …
April 10, 2022
San Diego's bees and ostriches
The cumulative hiss of thousands of wings Mikolich moves bees to the Imperial Valley, for melon pollination, onion seed pollination, and alfalfa seed pollination. Hives there are usually set under “shades,” shelters that protect them …
April 2, 2022
San Diego pound's soft hearts, local knee industry
Down, Boy “Steady, Yucon, it’s okay boy, calm down now Yucon.” Rich and DeGroot croon. The difficulty of the job registers on both their faces. DeGroot forces most of the barbiturate through the needle and …
March 19, 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