Foul territory “If I’m talking to some writers and Bloom comes up to listen — end of conversation,’’ says pitcher Rich Gossage. “His name rhymes with gloom,’’ says third baseman Graig Nettles. “His whole life …

The Home-going Working with a corpse, he says, doesn’t bother him. But it has never become just another routine. “If it gets that common to you, you should leave it. I treat it as if …

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 …

Shocking facts and horrifying history of Tijuana sewage In Tijuana maybe 50 percent of the houses have sewer connections. In those that don’t, the residents use outhouses or primitive septic tanks or they relieve themselves …

Duncan Shepherd flashback Alert the Guinness folks! Duncan Shepherd’s passive-aggressive, backasswards Mr. Mxyzpkik’s — Google it, kids — “praise” (Movie Reviews) for the Stanley Kubrick classic 2001 (which Mr. Shepherd actually awards four stars, while …

Somewhere Between Death and the Border “I ran over to pick the suitcase up and, yeah, Eddie was laying there, face down in this pool of blood in the sand about a foot across, laying …

Like your road widened, Mister? Roads like Old Highway 80, east of San Diego, were paved with concrete; but after the war, asphalt paving was perfected. Asphalt is cheaper to lay down, which is why …

The vote is in the mail “Willie Brown is my number-one customer in politics, but I’m a Republican through and through. I’m also a businessman with 45 families to feed, and I think that anyone …

The unlikely rescue Shane heard a noise and stopped. It was a voice, unintelligible. Mike stopped too. “Tony!” they called together. They heard an answer and followed it up to where the hunter had come …

Why men hit their wives "She was following me around the house nagging, shrieking. You could have heard her a mile away. I was going, ‘What do you want from me?’ She stood in front …

Phoenix without apologies The heat is horrible — that’s why we went there, to find out, first hand, why half of Phoenix seems to descend upon San Diego in the summertime. But Phoenicians can cope, …

If God didn't love pigeons, He wouldn't have given them wings In the 45 minutes it took to get from Solana Beach to San Diego, he presented an overview of the history of homing pigeons, …

Slabs of Persia “We succeed, like the Koreans, because of the indestructible family unit, which makes a certain kind of economic growth possible. Take the carpet shops. Without families they’d disappear. But carpet stores keep …

Valedictorians twenty years later “Probably most people who have kids would say that their ultimate thing would have something to do with their kids. But if you don’t have kids, you really have to think …

Brief Eden We didn’t see too much of the man in trailer number eight, who was supposed to be a Federale, except for the times when he would step out onto his wooden deck and …

Baja's tough-love drug rehab “My best friend’s parents paid $10,000 to send him to a place in Arizona, which he went to for a month. He came back, and the next day he woke up …

Overstimulated at Comic In all due respect (“WonderCon ‚“ The way Comic-Con used to be,” Neighborhood News, March 30).... 1) San Diego Comic Con International owns Wondercon. 2) Most conventions these days are going to …

Balboa Park museums do surgery on masterpieces “At this point, I have removed the old discolored varnish and the old inpainting that no longer matched, but there is a residual varnish down within the interstices …

The cumulative hiss of thousands of wings In some years, when the desert flowers are blooming, Alan Mikolich takes his bees into the Borrego desert. But the heat can be a problem. He sets out …

Spuck speaks I wish to clarify an erroneous point in Don Bauder’s article regarding San Diego Opera’s selection of David Bennett as General Director (“Opera turns to time-tested titles,” City Lights, March 21). The article …

What's wrong with Frank? Lita bursts into tears. Frankie’s her beloved eldest son by her first marriage. The one she dedicated to God the day he was bom, throwing all her marbles into her Roman …

An unhampered look at Carlsbad's Army Navy Academy “If I ask ’em, Are you using drugs? they will admit it. Even without me ordering a test. Because they think my information’s better than it really …

It started the Encinitas drug scene When I was 18, I robbed a gas station with a ski mask on, so I already had that under my belt. I went into another room and started …

A raw, wild, reckless San Diego In 1947 competitors would have included Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. If comparisons are to be made Wade and Miller’s crime novels are much more like Hammett’s in their …

California Jew returns to the source He began to read anything and everything he could about religion and religious experience, books by Hindus, Catholics, Jews, and Moslems, books of Western and non-Westem cosmology; books by …

Children's Hospital gave AIDS to hemophiliacs So even after talking with Hartman, I still cannot get a date for when my sons were first tested. The only thing that I have in concrete, from Steven’s …

Some Women You Want to Hate Lt. Weinpel knew Ms. Smith was the girl for him. “From then on, it was just a matter of how am I going to finance the ring?” The lieutenant, …

Orchids and Onions — 20 years later “You could actually turn off Highway 80 at various points and go to the farms. Mission Valley Center was the one thing that changed the whole character of …

TeeJay — Back To The Way It Used To Be At Cali-Max, T-bone steaks were selling for 90 cents a pound, compared to American prices of about $1.88. Filet mignon, when bought uncut, costs around …

Ocean Beach prices in Baja Between Tijuana and Rosarito, semi-upscale, gated communities catering to American ex-pats and retirees line the Baja coast. One of these communities, San Antonio del Mar, has been the subject of …

Rest in Peace, Boss Lady Anilee Griffin, known to many punk and metal musicians as the tattooed music lover who hired bands at Hensley’s Flying Elephant in Carlsbad, Brick by Brick in Bay Park, and …

San Diego's Porn Studios Fourteen women, ranging in age from 18 through 22, including one still in high school, may have felt like stars when they walked into the Hard Rock Hotel and the Kimptbn's …

San Diego beekeepers know all the flowering plants One time, Mikolich says, he got a call from a friend, a commercial beekeeper whose helper had driven a truckload of hives off a road and then …

Bridge over troubled lingo In talking about the silver-haired man he should have spoken of his “constitutional,” not his “constitution” (although I imagined it benefitted from the outing). Dale Rodebaugh Kensington The United States grabbed …

Bruce Henderson— stadium prophet "Every time they raise ticket prices it gives them more and more money to do what? To buy what they hope is a better and better team. The council will have …

The Sport with No Clock Mexican baseball, like the Mexican economy, is just a half-step ahead of the creditors. The precipitous decline of the peso against the dollar has virtually destroyed the league’s ability to …

Cars that are lemons The assumption that most of us bring to the table when buying or selling a car, new or used, is that we will be defrauded, which is usually the case. One …

Set a needle on my heart and play those songs of love and pain My record collection is a minefield of potential pain: stacks of Ray Charles, Robert Johnson, Otis Redding, Elmore James, Muddy Waters, …

War! “Automobile headlights were painted out except for tiny slits. You could see cars oncoming, but the driver couldn’t see. Panic would occur when people thought attack was under way. Then if a light was …

Broderick vs. Broderick But when Judge Howatt’s decision to bar the press and public was challenged by the Reader's attorney at a January 5 hearing, Betty Broderick reversed herself and told the judge that the …

It’s a Gas During the war, Bob recalls, "A-card owners got four gallons of gas a week. We had tires ordered when the business opened, but when the war came, they put them all in …

Shipyard blues "With all the stuff you say these guys have to endure at NASSCO, anyone would believe the place is hell. But I don't understand what all these queers thought they were getting into. …

The whole area was the city dump They chose St. Martin as their patron saint, the señora explains, because he was a friend of to the poor — because he was black and they too …

Coyote — king of the smugglers You can catch a bus on Beyer Street or the trolley at the Iris Street station, avoiding the “Migra” around the congested central San Ysidro area. Stay out of …

Was the WPA a Boondoggle or Saving Grace? It's hard to look around San Diego and not see evidence of the WPA: the city library, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the dredging of Mission Bay (and …

Copley, Morgan Depositions Show Loose Reins at Tribune Copley maintained she makes it a policy not to attend any board meetings. When an attorney asked, "Under what circumstances would [Morgan] discuss with you matters that …

The Partch Reverberations The instruments are in varying states of sickness and health. While some can be replaced – improved even, as is the case with the New Boo built by local composer Cris Forster …

Surfboard Shapers Eaton didn't invent the Bonzer, but is responsible for its refinement. It is a strangely old-fashioned board (in the sense that Chuck Berry is old-fashioned), yet as different from conventional surfboards as the …

The Little World That Almost Was “I was dressed in my ‘Little Lord Fauntleroy’ suit, and playing with K.T.’s dog (Theosophists are fond of using their leader’s initials). Suddenly, I looked up and said ‘I …

Preserving the Masters One day when he was on the top of the scaffolding in one comer of the hall, he came upon an inscription on a battle flag. It read, cerca trova — he …