In and out, in and out – it reminds me of my grandmother darning the toe of a sock as the needle came and went, except these are lunch trucks see from far away: white, …

Twin Peaks, a scruffy, boulder-studded promontory rising amid Poway's suburban streets, is less known for its own existence than for the street named after it: Twin Peaks Road. At the close of a warm summer …

About a dozen federally protected endangered species, including the southwestern willow flycatcher and the Laguna Mountains skipper butterfly, live in the Cleveland National Forest, the 424,000-acre woodland preserve that stretches across the rugged backcountry of …

In the wake of the Grand Jury vs. Susan Golding dust-up, some local politicos are going after the Grand Jury in a big way. Steve Peace, a Democratic state senator from Chula Vista, is promising …

Mr. Matthew: Here is a query that has been torturing the curiosity lobe of my poor little brain for months. What, exactly, is brominated vegetable oil, and why do soda companies put it in their …

Hi, Mattster: (Qic) question for ya...What does it mean when they put one of these (sic) in a story? I'm sure I could probably look it up in my local dictionary, but it's more fun …

Under an overcast sky, at 10:30 a.m. two dull explosions—a “rumble like distant thunder” — echoed across San Diego Bay. Steam erupted through the Bennington s deck amidships. Men splayed about, “tossed by the detonation.”

Golding, who was gearing up to run for mayor, played down stories that she was a regular visitor to the prison. She was quoted saying she was "disappointed with her husband and visits him infrequently.”

Hike out to Foster Point in the Laguna Mountains for a great view of the desert floor from a mile-high elevation, and also for a chance to enjoy peace and solitude. Until fairly recently (due …

“They called it ‘The Jungle’ where I lived," says Michelle Hull, now a Spring Valley resident but formerly an Emerald Avenue apartment resident. “You could see people doing drug deals in their cars — my nine-year-old daughter saw that.

Louise Torio doesn't expect to see the glare of stadium spotlights, hear the collective roar of thousands of baseball fans, or sit immobile in downtown traffic for almost three years. Yet she is already worried …

Is José Santiago Healy Loera cut from the same cloth as his grandfather? In 1916, José Santiago Healy, son of Irish immigrants to Mexico, risked his life to truly report the Mexican Revolution. He survived …

She's not exactly a household name, but she's a plaintiff's lawyer with a good if low-profile pedigree. Constance H. Shaner practices law out of the offices of Ravreby, Shaner & Gibson in Carlsbad. Records show …

Dear Matt: Last night I flew back to Lindbergh Field, claimed my bulky luggage, and was stopped on exit by the luggage-claim checker -- officious personnel who insist on seeing your luggage-claim check before they …

Mr. Alice: What is the longest pier in California? I've heard that it is the O.B. municipal fishing pier. -- Orville, Ocean Beach Have some bait stuck in your ear at the time, Orville? Anyway, …

Dear Matthew Alice: Today my boss asked me to fax something to Canada. I didn't have to dial the international code. Why is Canada so special? -- Jamie Reeves, downtown Hey, Matt: This bugs me. …

Robert Decatur Israel was born Thursday, March 23, 1826, in Pittsburgh. Son of a bricklayer — his parents were Scotch-Irish and Pennsylvania Dutch — he came to San Diego as a young man and, from …

The photographer snaps open a small black umbrella, setting up his first shot. His subject is V.S. Ramachandran, M.D., Ph.D., the neuroscientist with an international reputation, who is in his UCSD office, at his desk …

Ed Madruga, who owned the Paramount, recalled, “Two weeks afterwards, the government [took] all the tuna boats. Didn’t ask, just took ’em.” The government painted the whitehulled ships military gray and leased them “until victory.”

Sparsely visited Harry Griffin Park, tucked away in Grossmont Summit where La Mesa and El Cajon adjoin, has for years remained one of East County's well-kept secrets. As the largest park within La Mesa's city …

Have two of San Diego's most prominent environmentalists sold out to NAFTA? Lori Saldaña, ex-chair of the San Diego/Imperial Sierra Club, and Diane Takvorian, Environmental Health Coalition executive director, have both accepted White House appointments …

Conner added nuances in preparation for an imagined television audience. After each game, a one-minute break was established. Teams were allotted three time-outs of two minutes each. A one-and-a-half-hour time cap was placed on each match.

St. Matthew: Gospel truth, please, to settle once and for all, is there an underwater tunnel from the ocean side of Pt. Loma into the bay? Apocryphal tales say yeah, cuz kids dumped dye on …

Dear Matthew: Do French maids really dress like French maids? -- Tony Falde, San Diego Well, yeah, Tony. They tried dressing like deep-sea divers, but it was tough doing floors and windows. In fact, that's …

To: Matthew Alice: I've never been much of a camper, but I've heard that as a trick, the person that falls asleep first has his hand placed in a bucket of warm water, which causes …

Fred Kasch jogs several times a week. If you pass by his house on Edgeware Road in Kensington at the right moment, you might catch a glimpse of him stretching in his driveway, although you …

State Senator Ed Fletcher voted down the first proposed site for county fairgrounds: Crown Point on Mission Bay. Fletcher recommended a 184-acre in the San Dieguito Valley of Del Mar. Fletcher and his family lived in Del Mar.

During the past five years, two new east-west highways have opened up for traffic in the Poway and Santee areas: the Tierrasanta-to-Santee leg of Highway 52 and Scripps Poway Parkway. Both roadways were designed to …

Sometime before I got married, I headed north to L.A. to pay a visit to Jason, a guy I was friends with in high school. He now works as a studio executive at a major …

There's a new paper coming to town. Not to San Diego, Tijuana. And Tijuana already has four regular dailies. Four times what its rich sister-city to the north can boast. As newspaper editors south of …

We had planned a farewell picnic at the Chula Vista Bay. We had ten pounds of carne asada marinating in the refrigerator. The party was for my son, who was moving up north to go to college.

Matthew Alice: Pizza and beer riding on this one. Is a mailbox the property of Uncle Sam, or does it just have to conform to certain standards? Also, is it illegal to put notes, samples, …

Dear Matthew Alice: I walk to work via Ash Street, downtown and recently I noticed that there are single red lights pointing the opposite direction to the flow of traffic. They are mounted on the …

To: Matmail: I enjoy cruising up to Mt. Soledad to watch the tourists freak out when their car alarms sound after they've enjoyed the view and come back to their vehicles. I know to disengage …

I didn’t become an historian and I didn’t become a Cold War researcher. With my father’s encouragement, I spent a long time trying to create a life that wasn’t just being the son of Alger Hiss.

The faint sound through the earphones is like the buzz of a mosquito on the other side of the room when you're trying to sleep. It nags at your attention, keeping you alert. Then, when …

During the first state-wide blackout in mid-January 1942, Dr. Roy Tanaka spoke to a patient on the phone in Japanese. The next morning two FBI agents escorted him to their headquarters at Sixth and Broadway.

Serene Dos Picos County Park, outside Ramona, nestles into East County's sweet-smelling chaparral hillsides like a dewdrop caught in the hollow of a leaf. On a recent weekday visit there, I spotted only a few …

Years ago, when a high school friend talked about wanting to become a lawyer, Susan Brandt-Hawley, an aspiring writer, thought, "How dull." Yet, after graduating Phi Beta Kappa from San Diego State University in 1974, …

At the east end of Otay Mesa, where the business parks and trucking yards give way to open grassland, stands the California Highway Patrol's Otay Mesa Truck Inspection Facility. It's a sort of nouveau-industrial building …

There doesn't seem to be any doubt about where Union-Tribune owner Helen Copley stands on the county grand jury's investigation into Mayor Susan Golding and the money-trading scandal surrounding last year's campaign to build a …

Another prominent San Diego attorney-turned-judge named E.W. Britt built this nine-room Queen Anne and later sold the residence to newspaper magnate W. Scripps, for use as a townhouse while Scripps's Miramar Ranch was under construction.

Matmail: I've noticed lately that something is different with the red lights used in our street signals. Instead of a nice uniform glow (like the yellow and green), the red seems to emit its light …