Raoul Marquis – mayor of India Street Marquis was into the “penicillin culture’’ of theater, in which theater thrives on itself and expands; the more it is produced, the more it will be produced. And …

Squandered taxes Why am I supporting Proposition 6, the gas tax Repeal initiative (“GOP gov. candidate Cox was major donor of gas tax repeal,” News Ticker, July 13)? It galls me that the state government …

The blood upon his hands In May of 1979, while he was a teaching assistant at UCSD’s drama department, he won the role of Agamemnon in Orestes! Orestes!, an adaptation of the ancient Greek tragedy. …

Men's summer swimsuit issue "I feel really good in a swimsuit. I could look better. I used to look a little better, more in shape. But then, you know, kids, job, the passage of time. …

Farewell to Don Bauder Best wishes for health & happiness in retirement(“Farewell to a professional love,” News Ticker, September 17). I have enjoyed your columns ever since you arrived in San Diego. You always ‘called …

A bump on the head could kill Chris O'Rourke One in three persons survives Hodgkin's disease, but O'Rourke's chances appear not to be that good, because his case was discovered in its advanced stages. he's …

The unbearable rightness of being Roger Hedgecock I could try it on as a character study, say; a little third-person warmup, workout; a final stretching exercise before switching (forever) to fiction. The heart of darkness …

Diss not Donald Trump Just reading the review of the blackkklansman (“BlacKkKlansman,” Movie Reviews). Real classy. Why do you have to diss the president? I think he’s doing a pretty good job. So sad. Mike …

Soil, water, light, and money “If you grow chrysanthemums in your garden, they’ll always bloom in the fall,” he explains. “Here we artificially manipulate them to make them bloom according to our schedule. Our biggest …

Members of the Keyboard Nash and I and some 3000 other people subscribe ($8 per month, $3 per hour) to The WELL, a four-year-old computer conferencing system. Such a system permits an individual to sit …

Fuchida’s journey I first met Stu Hedley (“Grenades, rockets, bombs, machine gun fire in San Diegans’ ears,” Cover Story, August 29). some time in the early 2000s on/around Pearl Harbor Day when my wife and …

There's trouble down the runway “For the runways alone you need a hunk of flat ground two miles long and half a mile wide. It should have enough acreage to accommodate terminal and parking, and …

You are looking at a free man “The sea boundary of the Soviet Union in the Far East was known to me. I knew that . . . Japan is far, and North Korea extradites …

Builders’ fire sale Its all about money and property taxes!( “San Diego builds itself into danger”, Neighborhood News, August 24) To continue to build after half of the state of California has burned, do we …

The long arm of ABSCAM reaches San Diego At 5:15 the morning after his return to San Diego, the phone rang in Gulve’s home. At the other end of the line the emir’s familiar voice …

Gimme shelter: all this for a cot and a meal Someone wrapped a newspaper around one ceiling light fixture to dim the glare. I took a top bunk. Removed my hat and sneakers, otherwise stretched …

One member would later be mocked on Mystery Science Theater 3000

The short career of Gary Puckett and the Union Gap It was the following spring that Puckett and his band reached the pinnacle. “Young Girl,” written by Jerry Fuller, was released in February of 1968 …

P.S., your car is gone “Our guy finds [another] wrecked Datsun 4X4 in a junkyard, changes over all the numbers from it to the one he found in the canyon. But when he took it …

Reality gap? When Mr. Joe Deegan approached one of the parents about doing a write-up (“Power Surge San Diego’s impressive girls,” City Lights, August 8) on this team it was with the understanding that it …

Watches and rings and people and things Pawning, generally, is something other than a lopsided contest between loansharks and the destitute. Most of Smith’s customers, he says ninety percent of them, come back to redeem …

Del Mar's horse vet Jack Jocoy has seen it all With that big break — caring for a Derby winner — Jocoy’s career began to soar, other trainers reasoning that if Jocoy took care of …

An author speaks over the noise In response to the letters regarding my story “Airport Noise - From La Mesa to La Jolla” (Cover Stories, August 1): The FAA and San Diego have the ability …

Not with a flood but with a trickle The city’s per capita consumption of 192 gallons a day in fiscal 1981 is well above the national average of 170. Every day 17 million gallons of …

Free to move about in noise While I sympathize with residents who have been frustrated dealing with the FAA on this issue, (“Airport Noise - from La Mesa to La Jolla,” Cover Stories, August 1) …

Aboard the Blueback "Our people need to know what the bad guys are going to sound like — if they ever become bad guys .... Excuse me,” Fargo says suddenly. “Chief, do you smell smoke?” …

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 …

@media screen and (max-width:479px) { .image-float.half-width, .image-float.third-width, .image-float.fourth-width { width: 100%; } } Tom Sullivan: "Somebody's gotta be the orchestra director." Photo by Dave Allen Like your road widened, Mister? Roads like Old Highway 80, …

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 …