Mary had a little lamb a la Tchaikovsky
Garrett Harris 10:11 p.m., May 23
Stories for July 2002
Saturday, July 27
Parting Shots
When Cox Arena hosted several high school graduation ceremonies on Friday, June 14, members of the graduating classes had their pictures flashed on the central marquee over the arena floor. Lincoln High School had a ...
Geography 92037
For years, uppity La Jollans have talked about divorcing themselves from the hoi polloi of San Diego by seceding from the city and creating their own. Now the Orange County Register has done it for ...
Thursday, July 25
Broken Promises
When then–Superior Court judge Dick Murphy was running for mayor in the fall of 2000, he made ethics his number-one campaign theme. It seemed like the perfect antidote to the Valerie Stallings influence-buying scandal and ...
What's so great about the Black Sea?
Hey, Matt!: Are all the local beaches equally cloudy on any given day? Or do I have a better chance of actually seeing the sun at PB instead of Del Mar? Could you send the ...
Pols Milk 92067
When it was announced last month that America's richest community, measured by average per capita income, was Rancho Santa Fe, a flurry of stories appeared in the national media, most of which spun the woodsy ...
Pain Solidarity
In New York, they're debating what sort of memorial to build on the six-acre site where the World Trade Center once stood. Three thousand miles away, in Tijuana, one such memorial of the attacks of ...
Murphy's outlaw
Around San Diego's city hall, the more things change, the more they stay the same. It's been almost 17 years since Mike Turk, a Pacific Beach builder and business partner of then-mayor Roger Hedgecock, testified ...
Visit the site of the fictional MASH 4077th tent hospital in Malibu Creek State Park.
It's been said that the number of people on a wilderness trail diminishes in proportion to the square of the distance and the cube of the elevation gain from the nearest road. Perhaps that explains ...
Thursday, July 18
Sidewalk Employment Agency
Squads of men in denim, flannel, and baseball caps with the names Oscar de la Hoya, Budweiser, Corona, John Deere, and Jack Daniel’s, as well as whole phrases: Mi Vida es un Madre, shuffle with ...
Help me get to Europe by boat.
Hi, Matt: I am a fearful flyer, and I heard there are ships that you can take from the West Coast through Panama and on to the East Coast and Europe, which is where I ...
A Thanksgiving dilemma.
Matthew: I've got two calendars. One says Thanksgiving this year is November 28. The other says it's November 21. Which is right? The calendar that says it's November 21 this year says it's on November ...
Fires Move Faster than Firefighters
San Diego is not immune to the kinds of fires that have devastated Arizona and Colorado. Richard Hawkins, the chief of fire aviation management for the Cleveland National Forest, believes the potential exists here for ...
Kids in Blue Berets
It's illegal for a child under 16 to work in Mexico. Doubtless, the law was passed to prevent the exploitation of children and to keep kids in school. But sometimes the law denies children from ...
La Jolla's Hoosier honey
As the scandal on Wall Street spreads, both Democrats and Republicans are trying to make political hay. But, in San Diego at least, it seems that some prominent Democrats have been the biggest players in ...
Thread your way around the giant boulders of Ramona's Cobbleback Peak better known as Mount Woodson.
Indians called it Mountain of Moonlit Rocks, an appropriate name for a landmark visible, even at night, over great distances. Later settlers dubbed it Cobbleback Peak, a name utterly descriptive of its rugged, boulder-strewn slopes. ...
Thursday, July 11
Birds Squared
A steer skeleton lay in the dry creek bed. Tom extracted a tooth from its skull and handed it to me like a picked flower. Its roots were long and brown, so desiccated they looked ...
What's That White Gook When I Cook Fish?
Dear Matthew Alice: What is that white gook that rises to the surface when you cook fish? -- Elaine Boyd, the net Ewwww. Grandma Alice says the white gook is melted collagen, perhaps a little ...
The guy who designed Central Park, did he design Balboa Park?
Hey, Matt: Is it true that Balboa Park was designed by the same dude that designed Central Park in New York? -- Paul Broadway, San Diego Common misconception. Well, maybe not common, since most people ...
Noon, midnight, AM, PM, what's the deal?
Hey, Matt: Why are people still messing up AM and PM in terms of noon and midnight? -- Anup, the net So what are you saying--noon is AM? Noon is PM? Noon is neither. Noon ...
Knife-care tips from Grandma Alice
Matt: Long-time reader, first-time writer. I watch too much foodtv and have often heard that to keep your knife sharp, you should slice green peppers and such from the inside, not the skin side. It ...
Gringos Do Their Thing with Our Boys
Tucked behind a Toyo Tires shop, where Tijuana's Centro and Rio zones meet, stands a boys' home operated by Desarollo Integral de la Familia (integral development of the family). Better known by the acronym DIF ...
Signs of corruption
With San Diego City Council elections coming up in the fall, city officials continue in secret settlement negotiations with two billboard companies that have filed a federal lawsuit to void a municipal ordinance restricting liquor ...
Hike the Idlehour Descent; lose 4000 feet as you trek down the front face of the San Gabriel Mountains toward Pasadena
The "Idlehour Descent" -- not really an idle descent at all -- is a one-way, 11-mile, mostly downhill hike through ever-changing terrain in the San Gabriel Mountains above Altadena and Pasadena. The name "Idlehour" comes ...
Wednesday, July 3
Hands in the Dirt and Heaven in the Mouth
There’s a reason why Italian cooking is one of the world’s great cuisines, and it doesn’t have much to do with four-star chefs, innovative cooking techniques, or secret ingredients. The reason can be summed up ...
Who's the lady buried under the San Diego Freeway?
Dear Matthew Alice: In Rex Reed's People Are Crazy Here, in the chapter on Alfred Hitchcock he writes, "His favorite people in history are Lizzie Borden, Jack the Ripper, and a man who murdered his ...
We Did Not Want a Monstrosity
Out in Jamul, about a mile past the Simpson's nursery complex, just past the fire station, and before the small town gives way to open grassland, a cluster of prefabricated and trailer homes crown a ...
A cancer on the market
These days it's called Rebecca and John Moores UCSD Cancer Center, in honor of a $20 million pledge that Padres owner and UC regent Moores made at the height of his power and influence in ...
Discover East San Diego's Chollas Lake, a shady place for summer walking and jogging.
Right off the 94 Freeway in San Diego's Oak Park neighborhood, a dense grove of eucalyptus trees conceals one of the more pleasant oases of the inner city: Chollas Lake Park. On any warm, summer ...
