Board up and go"What had happened was one of the SANDAG tow truck drivers had stopped to help this fellow and the guy had shot him. Four or five or six times. A Marine saw …
September 25, 2023
Back to profile
Stories by Shari McCullough
Mercy Air's intrepid pilots
The first Afghan wave, San Diego's true Okies
The Silk Road Ends in San Diego “One of the Russians said, ‘Treat these [Russians] and kill these [Afghans].’ The other doctor said, 'How can I do that?’ The Russian said, 'Like this!’ and he …
February 6, 2022
Your mom has cancer, your love is in prison, the difficulty of twins
Mom's Cancer A comic exorcises Bryan Fies’s demons. If your mom were diagnosed with cancer, how would you deal with it? Comic creator Brian Fies decided to use sequential art to help cope and deal …
November 1, 2020
What restaurant staffs eat, Eleanor Widmer, how far San Diego's food comes
What Insiders Eat Restaurant staff gab and gobble. Travis Murphy, also a cook, planned the staff’s daily dinner. At Nine-Ten, he said, the hardest part of arranging the staff meal, also called the “family meal,” …
October 18, 2020
Orchid zealots, brave beekeepers, pit bulls not so bad, vicious seagulls, San Diego birds surveyed, a cactus will take a bullet
Hive Mentality Beekeeping runs in families. “The book said to call the fire department and tell them you’ll take swarms. That’s what I did. I got the swarms.” By Shari McCullough, Sept. 16, 2004 | …
September 27, 2020
San Diego lovers and families
When Your Love is Locked Up During the two days that the jury deliberated, the rest of the world seemed on freeze-frame, and I spoke with no one besides Dee's mom. We spent the time …
July 25, 2020
What San Diego restaurant staffs eat, dumpster diving for dinner
What Insiders Eat Travis Murphy, also a cook, planned the staff’s daily dinner. At Nine-Ten, he said, the hardest part of arranging the staff meal, also called the “family meal,” was “to find something to …
July 4, 2020
Life of a warden at Otay Mesa's Donovan prison
Robert Hernandez presides over a psychological war zone. At Donovan correctional facility, where Hernandez is warden, every move his officers make is watched by inmates; every word they say is overheard. "Nothing," said one officer, …
March 24, 2005
San Diego's emergency medical pilots tell hair-raising stories
"It was my first training flight with Mercy Air," says J.P. Wilson, a large, white-haired man. "I had gone through the ground school, and I was scheduled to fly with Jeff Emery. I got here …
December 2, 2004
How San Diego beekeepers deal with the African strain upon us
I love honey. I love honey! Like the bears. All day long my coffee has honey instead of sugar. My cereal has honey. My toast, honey on it. Always honey." David Rojas of San Marcos …
September 16, 2004
Intimate conversations with San Diego twins
"A lot of people ask, 'What is it like sharing the same physical attributes?' I always look at my brother and I think that's what people think of me. We'll be going out, and I'll …
September 2, 2004
When You Come to the United States You Think You Find Money on the Ground
Landlords are raising their rent by $100 here, $200 there. About 70 per cent of the Somalis would live in Little Mogadishu, but now you see some in La Mesa, Lemon Grove, Southeast San Diego.
August 26, 2004
Walkers get more room on San Diego sidewalks
WE REALLY HAVE, from a pedestrian's point of view, two kinds of places in San Diego," said Stephan Vance of the San Diego Association of Governments. "There's the older urban core that was built around …
Samoan culture in San Diego fades away
"Our people are healthy," Tevesi Fa'apouli says, "but they're big. They eat good. Especially our old folks. We eat taro, povi masima, fish. The generation we raise over here doesn't have the appetite for that."
August 5, 2004
What San Diego's restaurant workers eat off the menu
Food = joy…guilt…anger…pain…nurturing… friendship…hatred…the way you look and feel.… Food = everything you can imagine. — Susan Powter Tim Klepeis, the chef at Adams Avenue Grill, spoke hesitatingly at first. “I think the greatest reward …
January 22, 2004
80 percent of San Diego's manicurists are Vietnamese
“I believe in Buddha. I have a Buddha who is always smiling. Every morning when I come early, I drink coffee and ask him, ‘Buddha, make me lucky today.’ ” Tuanh (Ann) Nguyen, manager of …
August 14, 2003
Dear God, What Do You Want Us to Do?
Valley Center growers are feeling the financial squeeze caused by the Mexican fruit fly infestation discovered in November 2002. Lisa Schostag, a third-generation farmer and a native Californian, farms land within the quarantine area. "The …
May 22, 2003
It's Hard to Move When You're 92
'They call it America's finest city, but I don't call it that," barked Ernie Abbit, a 72-year-old lessee at De Anza Harbor Resort. Abbit, president of the homeowners association, is agitated. Without the city's intervention, …
February 27, 2003