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 Ray Westberg (RIP)
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
From San Diego's Camp Elliot to bloody Tarawa
San Diego recruit fought in bloodiest 76 hours of World War II – Tarawa "They assured us that we were going to hit the Japs with the heaviest naval gunfire in the history of the …
December 10, 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
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
San Diego Hell's Angels, truck kills bicyclist near Pringle and Kettner
Where the Bikes Are I noticed one guy playing pool using a broom as a cue. He looked as if he might have been an extra in a movie with a title like Chainsaw Rapists …
December 12, 2021
Navy corpsman on the Mekong, black unrest on the Kitty Hawk, best Vietnam books
Escape! Then he emptied out the bag before us. Two small cans and some plastic sacks with lump sugar, salt, and sesame seeds fell to the ground. Glancing around, I could see that all my …
December 11, 2021
Subs off Imperial Beach, Yamamoto's killer, a kid in WWII San Diego
Lie Down in Darkness The submarine had been discovered by two San Diego State students who were financing their educations by salvaging objects. They had located S-37 about 300 yards off the coast and in …
September 20, 2021
Army-Navy Academy, wine experts behind doors, castrated man's life
An unhampered look at Carlsbad's Army Navy Academy "Unlike the upper-school cadets, these boys will break down and cry, a lot. They don’t want other boys to see ’em cry, ’cause it’s not macho. But …
August 29, 2021
Wholesome and off-beat homeschooling, Helix High football, Mission Bay High reunion
The Only Kid at Whitebread Central Who Listened to Danzig Many people have asked me why I’m not in school, and when I explain that I am on home study, they want to know why. …
May 1, 2021
Chocolate Mountains bombing spoils, MCRD Museum, Marine helo drivers
Operation Desert Spoils More than 20 different kinds of leaflets were dropped by American soldiers onto Iraqi lines. Countering Saddam Hussein's claims that the allies would torture captured soldiers, the leaflets promised Iraqi soldiers good …
February 8, 2021
Hilltop High reunion on plane from Bien Hoa, General Krulak in Vietnam with three sons, everybody still says Saigon
When It’s Over When I was there in Vietnam, toward the end, I wanted only to get home again alive. I prayed to God and promised him that I would believe in him and tell …
January 11, 2021
Best Reader stories from 1995
I've got Perry Mason on board! In early 1960, the man who created Perry Mason was introduced to an Imperial Beach resident named Francisco Muñoz. Erle Stanley Gardner had many friends, and he particularly liked …
January 11, 2020
Best Reader stories from 1993
In time for the morning glass For a few years back in the '60s, Mike Doyle was the hottest surfer in the world. With an unusual combination of power on big waves and stylistic grace …
January 4, 2020
Best Reader stories from 1991
Satan chasers San Diego has many experts in the field of Satanism who say the county is a hotbed of Satanic activity. The hidden canyons of the back country, Ramona, Santee, Escondido, even Oceanside, are …
December 28, 2019
Best Reader stories from 1990
The Hale blinks Twilight has ebbed to a fringe of lapis on the western horizon, and the stars spin slowly as the dome of the 200-inch Hale telescope on Palomar Mountain blinks awake. Bob Thicksten, …
December 22, 2019
Ray Westberg and the Reader
Westberg, a Vietnam veteran and a high school wrestling coach from Ellensburg, Washington, was recruited to write for the Reader by editor Judith Moore, who had lived in Ellensburg as a young housewife. Westberg died …
May 5, 2019
They went from MCRD to Vietnam – Khe Sanh, Con Thien, Dewey Canyon – and finally San Diego
A lot of them — the kids, I mean — went to boot camp, came out of boot camp, got on an airplane to Vietnam, and went straight to the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone). One such …
November 6, 1997
An unhampered look at Carlsbad's Army Navy Academy
Societies have often tried to whip their young into adulthood with calculated brutality. Yet even this, intolerable as it is, probably causes less pain — and may even give rise to less brutality in the …
March 6, 1997
From San Diego to Vietnam the second time
There is no more vile, despicable thing in nature than the man who runs from his demons. — Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad Some people wear everything on their sleeves, they’d run naked through a …
August 31, 1995
San Diego medical examiners examine the grossness of dead bodies
Boyer’s and Bailey’s bodies lay quiet in the sun; time hadn’t passed for muscles to stiffen, and limbs were still limp. Bailey — six or seven holes in his neck and torso — had gurgled …
August 11, 1994
San Diego recruit fought in bloodiest 76 hours of World War II – Tarawa
"What I saw ... was, I am certain, one of the greatest works of devastation wrought by man. Words are not adequate to describe what I saw on this island of less than a square …
November 18, 1993
Fight a bad rep at Morse High School
“One of our students, a tenth-grade boy, committed suicide right after New Year’s. On that first Friday back, a 15-year-old boy collapsed on the P.E. field — an aneurysm or stroke — and lost his breathing capacity.”
July 30, 1992
Breakdown in trust between San Diego motorists and bicyclists
Standing on Pringle Street near Kettner Boulevard, looking up a precipitous grade of snaking asphalt, I tried to imagine Freddie Hafner's thoughts - aged 41 — one second before his death. Dressed in purple mesh …
November 14, 1991
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
San Diego Marine reservists tell Kuwait stories
The Naval and Marine Corps Reserve Center on Pomerado Road is a large cube of brick. Inside, Marines and sailors hustle and bustle, and the atmosphere is casual. A young woman Marine takes me to …
July 25, 1991
All over La Jolla's VA hospital
It dominates the hill like some neo-Roman rebuild of an ancient Greek acropolis, covers it, a dozen crossed layers of cream-colored cake and tinted glass. Across a spreading slope below, spangles of sunlight bounce through …
May 30, 1991
Lord of the Flies in Vietnam
Lucid rays beaming down pencil thin through holes in the canvas, pierce the dim and give to the dead air an aura of nebulous presence — a macabre reminder, or perhaps visitation, by disembodied spirit. …
December 20, 1990
Camp Pendleton and those stationed there
"This is the only Marine base in the United States where ship-to-shore operations can be practiced. The Marines are an amphibious assault force. Well, then — how should we practice this trade of ours? We have to have this area."
November 8, 1990
MCRD - Hell on Pacific Highway
Like everything else, though, mail had its own element of terror. We had all written home imploring family and friends not to send packages or "treats” of any kind, and yet they sent the stuff anyway.
June 21, 1990
The meaning of Iwo Jima
Harnessed to the inside wall of the cargo plane by nylon webbing. I note the absence of an M-16 between my knees. If not for that. I'd think we were circling Da Nang. Loosening my …
September 7, 1989