Thirty Years Ago I left San Diego at 1:00 p.m. on the 21st of July for Vancouver, British Columbia. I had been rapping about how much fun I was going to have for so long …

Thirty Years Ago The one guy dragging along his backpack on the floor has an Ocean Beach look about him -- disheveled, sleepy eyes, blissful expression. It turns out that the O.B. guy has spent …

Thirty Years Ago In the San Diego area, the two best-selling imported beers are Heineken and Dos Equis. Dos Equis became a best seller only in the last year or two. While Dos Equis has …

Thirty Years Ago "I'll give you a dolla for the coat." My sidewalk saleswoman instinct is aroused and practically swallowing the stem from the grapes in outrage, I intone, "Look, lady, feel the material. Genuine …

I'd press play on my older brother's boom box, and listen to the Beach Boys' "Surfin' USA." The volume never passed two; I was terrified of discovery by my mother who had a ban on rock music.

Thirty Years Ago Jack Nicholson is heir apparent to the middle-age actor role vacated by the romantic comedians of black-and-white days, the epitome of the lawyer, doctor, journalist, or fugitive from the Mann Act. Jack …

Thirty Years Ago At the other extreme, you find the "modern country-western nightclub," like the Alamo in Clairemont. There's a bowling alley that runs the length of the hall, which advertises a special of three …

'We've played in 64 countries on 6 continents," says Liquid Blue singer/songwriter Scott Stephens. "The Stones have played in 39." I take his word for it. The band does seem to be almost always abroad, …

Thirty Years Ago Attempts by a group of nude bathers to expand the number of swimsuit-optional beaches in San Diego seem headed for some rough waters. Hoping to find more room for a crowd that …

Thirty Years Ago The men at Spanky's stand around sipping drinks, talking about their Porsches, and sizing up the "prospects." At times there's a pretty intense meat-market atmosphere, understandable in a place where most men …

“My nerves were all over the place.”

Thirty Years Ago Several years ago when asked what he thought about rock music, Marxist philosopher Herbert Marcuse replied, "it's impotent violence." At the time I had no idea what he was talking about and …

Thirty Years Ago Not that I'm putting Las Vegas down. Anyone is entitled to a descent into a neoned hell where women dressed in mink coats sit in air-conditioned Cadillacs counting nickels held in Dixie …

Thirty Years Ago I love the fair; flora and fauna, livestock and agriculture...and Don Diego himself, wearing more makeup than the Fairest of the Fair. But as I was saying, there are rabbits. There are …

Thirty Years Ago THIS EERIE MALE still playing long shots, nevertheless would like an eerie female around the house. Special inducement, summer trip to Lake Erie. Truman. -- CLASSIFIEDS: June 26, 1975 Twenty-Five Years Ago …

Thirty Years Ago MALE PROTECTIVE LEAGUE seeks members. Learn from female counterintelligence how to protect against the Disapproving Female hell bent on humbling and humiliating the convenient male. Self-addressed, stamped envelope...for membership application. -- CLASSIFIEDS: …

Thirty Years Ago Marie Callender's used to be a place where you could dine for less than $3, and, if you limit yourself to one and only one item on the sandwich menu, or chili …

Thirty Years Ago But stories about Lifeguard School sounded pretty scary. She heard they made guard candidates jump off the Clam, 35 feet into a shallow surge -- if you timed it right. Thirty-five feet …

Thirty Years Ago Though Carly and Richard insist that historical events have little to do with their religious experience, they explain that if the Guru's mother and brother, who have denounced the Guru [Maharaj Ji] …

Thirty Years Ago By the movie's fade-out, Huyck and Katz settle down to wrenching squirms from the audience (the actors begin to weep tears of blood and to vomit live insects).... A cross-eyed Negro albino …

Thirty Years Ago In each of the camps at Camp Pendleton, there are the bulletin boards. Vietnamese leaving messages for other Vietnamese -- lost friends and relatives -- and notes to "The Employees of IBM," …

I had a bowl of popcorn thrown on me.

Thirty Years Ago For less than most athletic clubs (the Rowing Club is only S10 a month for students and military), one can use the club's boats (7 single wherries, 2 doubles, 2 four-oared; 3 …

Thirty Years Ago I have wasted no time. Tom Laughlin, to synchronize perfectly with the spring reissue of The Trial of Billy Jack, has put the question, "Why are movie critics out of touch with …

Dear Mr. Jackson: I would like to start off by saying how sorry I am about your childhood. I saw it all on VH1’s Michael Jackson program, so I am well versed on how the …

Thirty Years Ago If you witnessed this year's ordeal, you will remember -- you will not easily forget -- Danny Thomas's stricken expression, his beloved nose drooping an inch lower, when he retook the podium …

Thirty Years Ago One of the first guys we meet is a "popcorn" (small time) pimp lounging in a doorway north of Fifth and Market. He wants to know if Mike knows any white girls …

Thirty Years Ago BABY: Let's live once more in velvet and winding staircases. We'll get our diamonds somehow. Tequilla.... P.S. Not you, Tony. RETIRED CHIEF executive of international banking cartel, bored with women and yachting, …

Thirty Years Ago The taxpayers of San Diego pay Mayor Pete Wilson the middlin' wage of $20,000 a year. Some say we get a lot for our money. Everybody would agree on one bargain, though: …

Twenty-Five Years Ago There is a bulletin board, after a fashion, on the front door to Ashley's Market on Paseo Delicias, the main street in Rancho Santa Fe. Next to the five-by-seven-inch card advertising the …

Thirty Years Ago I saw the miracle today, the one at the Israelite Church of God in Christ on 32nd and L Street.... When the newscasters explained that the miracle on 32nd Street, the image …

Thirty Years Ago Word was out that Blood on the Tracks was Dylan's return home to serious stuff away from the karma clichés and kitsch he indulged in for kicks.... To me, sequestered in Clairemont …

Thirty Years Ago Who among your readership knows enough about such obscure references as a "vacant Tunisian landscape" or "Hawks's (movie) His Girl Friday of 1940" or the "genteel fiction of Eudora Welty" to make …

Thirty Years Ago All I wanted to do was see Taj Mahal in concert again, and I figured at a college campus it would be a pretty easygoing experience. Outside the gym at San Diego …

Thirty Years Ago Dear Matthew: Would you be able to find out what our city officials get paid? The members of our city council did indeed get a raise, from $5,000 to $12,000 annually. Our …

Thirty Years Ago I believe that it was in the autumn of the year 1973 that word reached our Society of the existence of certain remarkable works of hydraulic engineering, or the ruins thereof, to …

Thirty Years Ago My estranged wife Dot and I, along with our two young sons David and Andy, boarded her old Chevy station wagon at 2:30 a.m. one cold January morning to see the famous …

Abraham Lim, a senior at Mt. Carmel High School, arrived in San Diego from New York in May 2003. How has your lifestyle changed? “When I first came to San Diego, I was actually extremely …

By Athena Shlemon, Owner/Chef, Abbey's Real Texas Bar-B-Q — Mira Mesa I'm a rice person. Rice and beans are my favorite things to eat. I mix them up and eat them together. Anybody can make …

Byzantium 2607 Congress Street, Old Town 619-497-1848 10:00 a.m.-5:30 p.m., closed Mondays This is the place to go for small quantities of reasonably priced burial amber or antique white agate from Africa. Two blocks away …

Best Afghan Khyber Pass 521 University Avenue, Hillcrest 619.294.7579 Best After-Hours Club Club Montage 2028 Hancock Street, Midway 619.294.9590 Best American Corvette Diner 3946 Fifth Avenue, Hillcrest 619.542.1001 Best Antique Store Ocean Beach Antique Mall …

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.

Jimmy wasn’t through with us yet. Still stunned from having our furniture ripped off, we started getting shutoff notices for everything. Seems we had trusted Jimmy to collect the money for the utilities and pay them.

Reader Writers' Faves Worn, Solid, Absolute — Mary Lang Staying Power — Paul Krueger Babbittry — Joe Daley Hillerman’s Climb — Colin Flaherty Macabre Reminder — Ray Westberg My Adult Card — Eleanor Widmer Not …

Dangerous woman Kali, tie Hindu goddess, las been grossly maligned by Hollywood. Consequently, tie mention of her name among polite company most often conjures distasteful fancies of turbaned murder cults, devil worship. Yet she is …

The guy in the middle rack next to mine was hard-timing it, sleeping 15 to 18 hours. This was standard among tweakers who had gotten busted after a five- or six-day binge of no sleep.

FIRST AWARD WINNER Morgan Rutberg Age 11 Fuerte Elementary School El Cajon I don’t know why, but for some strange reason I walked through the empty streets of downtown San Diego, my destiny not chosen. …

FIRST AWARD WINNER Kevin Alexander Age 16 Mission Bay High School San Diego I had experienced many of them in my eleven-year history of life, but I knew there was something beyond these gestures of …

Stout shoulders slump under the weight of 1983: war in Chad, war in Afghanistan, war in El Salvador, war in Grenada, war in Lebanon, war in Nicaragua. Mass murderers roam the highways, an airliner is …

SECOND AWARD $250 Paul Cleary Del Mar TEN YEARS AFTER CLASS It was July 5, 1980, and about 150 self-conscious people drank and mingled at the Moose Club in Oneida, New York, for the ten-year …