Thirty Years Ago I, a beaten, dejected, frustrated cross-country bicycle rider was calling it quits. What had begun as a five-week, 2300-mile solo bicycle trip from Pacific Beach to Milwaukee, Wisconsin was ending after only 3-1/2 days at milepost 45 on Arizona's Interstate 10 -- 106 miles west of Phoenix. -- "SURRENDER AT MILEPOST 45," Tom Raabe, October 30, 1975

Twenty-Five Years Ago Eleanor Glitherow, sitting in her third-floor office of headquarters and smoking cigarettes, says the familyhood never dissipated from 30 years ago when the airline had one leased DC-3. "A lot of the new people acted like working for PSA was just another job to them," she says. "It was hard to get through to them. But I don't care what anyone says, we're still a family. When we began to furlough the employees because of the strike, I saw 30 girls in accounting going out in tears because they were laid off, and they were saying, "Thanks for letting us work here." -- "TALES OF AN AIRLINE," Mark Orwoll, October 30, 1980

Twenty Years Ago Nora listened to my theory about the location of the soul of the city. On the day that Nora stood looking out the kitchen window, asking me if this was where the soul of San Diego was, I had to tell her no. It wasn't in Kensington. Nor was it in Clairemont or College Heights or Talmadge Park. North Park and Hillcrest I eliminated after experiencing them through Tom. Tom was looking for the soul of the city too. He chose to live in North Park because he believed that the transience of that neighborhood epitomized the transience of San Diego. But San Diego was becoming too big to reflect only the nature of the unsettled. -- "THE SOUL OF SAN DIEGO," Glen Wallace, October 31, 1985

Fifteen Years Ago Hi, howya, come in, lemme show ya something. From a tan glueless envelope, 1-1/2" square, the kind used for storing stamps, he removes a speck of hard white paint no larger than a fennel seed. I peeled this off of "Guernica," you know, the Picasso painting, the big one? Museum of Modern Art, New York. I waited till the guard was turned away, then I went up and -- lookit this. Robert Rauschenberg, y'know his assemb, those construction things? It's from that great one with the stuffed goat and tire, nobody guards art-things like that, not well, a clump of goathair, I just pulled it off. An' lookit this art-thing... -- "CANVAS CITY HERE I COME," Richard Meltzer, November 1, 1990

Ten Years Ago "They say suicide," she murmured, blowing smoke in the cleft of her menu, "is misdirected anger -- anger turned toward self. I think I'm going to externalize my anger at a dozen raw oysters, even if they get their revenge by giving me large skin lesions."The champagne arrived. It was icy.

"You know," Nicole continued, running a lacquered crimson nail around the rim of her champagne flute, "the last time I externalized my anger at some raw oysters was at the Ocean Terrace at George's at the Cove in La Jolla. They were dry. Dry as croutons." -- REVIEW: "PAGAN PLEASURE," Max Nash, October 26, 1995

Five Years Ago Dear Aunt Trudy,

My husband is perfect. He does the dishes, takes out the garbage, washes the dog, does his own laundry. There's this one thing about him that drives me crazy -- he eats my food. He finishes everything on his plate in about one second and then starts working on mine. He begins slowly, with a string bean or a piece of lettuce, but before long, he's got a chicken leg (my favorite part) and the super crispy french fries I saved for last. -- ASK AUNT TRUDY, October 26, 2000