Stories | Feature Stories
Mostly a Jolly Place
By Rosa Jurjevics, Published Oct. 7, 2009
Nathaniel Hawthorne once wrote, of a garden, in his 1854 collection of stories Mosses from an Old Manse: “I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day, and stand in deep contemplation over ...
California in My Rearview Mirror
By Christi Johnson, Published Sept. 30, 2009
I was leaving California, and NOT looking back. Yet, every mile, my eyes returned to the rearview mirror. This was not out of some feeling of nostalgia — it was out of fear. Was he out ...
Unforgettable: Pandemic 1918
By Jeff Smith, Published Sept. 23, 2009
One of the greatest casualties of the First World War was information. A devastating H1N1 influenza virus broke out early in 1918. Even though it originated, some now speculate, in Haskell County, Kansas, the virus became ...
Beach Cruisin' for a Bruisin' By Julie Hagy, Published Sept. 16, 2009
Michael Bolton is following me. In perfect cadence, he belts “When a Man Loves a Woman,” down the boardwalk. Okay, so maybe he’s inside this ... More Comments (41)
Unforgettable: When Sister Aimee Came to Town - Part 2 By Jeff Smith, Published Sept. 16, 2009
She’d send, she proclaimed, “a message from above.” On Thursday, January 27, 1921, evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson stood in the cockpit of a Curtiss JN-4 ... More Post a comment
Unforgettable: When Sister Aimee Came to Town - Part 1 By Jeff Smith, Published Sept. 9, 2009
Kid Smith was disgusted. For three rounds, the iron-jawed middleweight took the fight to Jimmy Meyers, but their bout ended in a draw. After a ... More Comments (4)
Unforgettable: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Dare Part 3 By Jeff Smith, Published Aug. 26, 2009
A SPECULATION. John W. Collins had nothing left. One of San Diego’s most beloved citizens and president of California National Bank, Collins lost his wife ... More Comment (1)
Unforgettable: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Dare Part 2 By Jeff Smith, Published Aug. 19, 2009
THE FALL. On September 1, 1890, while he was in San Francisco on business, John W. Collins’s wife Fannie, daughter Mary, son Johnny, and three ... More Post a comment
Sell It, Trade It, Keep It By Josh Board, Published Aug. 19, 2009
I love autograph stories. When a friend found out I wrote for Autograph Magazine, he told me about a guy he knows who runs an ... More Comments (3)
Unforgettable: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Dare Part I By Jeff Smith, Published Aug. 12, 2009
THE RISE. In 1880, San Diego County had 4961 official residents. By early 1887, an estimated 30,000 newcomers had arrived, with thousands more on the ... More Comments (6)
Unforgettable: A Walk on the Stingaree Side Part 6 By Jeff Smith, Published Aug. 5, 2009
THE RAID. On September 10, 1909, city prosecutor Edgar Luce, chief of police Keno Wilson, and a detective named Smith crossed the Market Street “dead ... More Comments (6)
Unforgettable: A Walk on the Stingaree Side, Part 5 By Jeff Smith, Published July 29, 2009
THE MOST HATED MAN IN SAN DIEGO. From 1910 to 1912, Walter Bellon inspected San Diego’s waterfront, Chinatown, and the Stingaree district for the health ... More Comments (2)
Unforgettable: A Walk on the Stingaree Side, Part 4 By Jeff Smith, Published July 22, 2009
WALTER BELLON. In 1936, Max Miller’s I Cover the Waterfront became a national bestseller. Miller wrote about San Diego’s tough harbor district, its “land sharks” ... More Comments (4)
Unforgettable: A Walk on the Stingaree Side, Part 3 By Jeff Smith, Published July 15, 2009
On February 15, 1898, the Monterey sailed into San Diego Bay. The ship had been at sea for more than a month. The next day ... More Comments (4)
Unforgettable: A Walk on the Stingaree Side, Part 2 By Jeff Smith, Published July 8, 2009
The Cribs. In 1887, a reporter for the San Diego Union grew a beard, wore threadbare duds, and stealth’d through San Diego’s red-light district. He ... More Comment (1)
Unforgettable: A Walk on the Stingaree Side, Part 1 By Jeff Smith, Published July 1, 2009
Let’s take a walk through time. We’re at the southwest corner of Fifth and K, part of the Gaslamp Quarter. At night, lines form under ... More Comment (1)
Blood on the Pomegranate Tree By Laila Zahedi, Published June 17, 2009
I remember it was noon on a warm and sunny day. The air smelled of food, dust, gun powder, and smoke, just like every day. ... More Comment (1)
You Can So Eat Well in San Diego By Ambrose Martin, Published June 17, 2009
This is Ambrose Martin. Rich food makes me gassy. Juvenile? Sure. But it’s not like I ever intended it to see print. For the two ... More Comments (2)
My Delicious Ed-ucation By Ed Bedford, Published June 17, 2009
When Judith Moore suggested that because my buddy Hank and I were eating mostly cheapo street food anyway, why not write about it, I thought, ... More Comments (2)
It’s Hard to Eat With a Paper Bag Over My Head By Naomi Wise, Published June 17, 2009
I arrived in San Diego nine years ago, a well-spoiled food snob coming down (pun intended) from San Francisco like the culinary marshal sent in ... More Comments (11)
Marbles By Erica Malouf, Published March 11, 2009
Former marbles champion Zang Duong, 34, stands in a recessed area of cement, where white pop-up tents shade five round tables covered in felt. The ... More Comments (6)
Operation 20 By Cami Adair, Published March 4, 2009
It’s dark and I’ve been sitting in this grocery store parking lot in Allied Gardens for half an hour. I continuously scan the lot, looking ... More Post a comment
Head South for No-Frills Dentistry By David Patrone, Published Jan. 21, 2009
I saw them up ahead, blatantly assessing the border traffic coming into Mexico, four older teens who looked tough enough to leave alone and a ... More Comments (4)
Backyard Bow-Hunting in La Jolla By Bill Keen, Published Jan. 14, 2009
I live in La Jolla, once a scrub-covered area of sandstone hills and arroyos, now covered with homes that, come a half inch of rain ... More Comments (4)
What Poor Writers Like By John Brizzolara, Published Jan. 7, 2009
“…White people are obsessed with being in the right neighborhood and the Internet is no exception.” The above is from a popular blogsite called “Stuff ... More Post a comment
Tinsel on a Palm Tree By John Brizzolara, Published Dec. 23, 2008
Christmas is on my mind. As a season in San Diego it is to me as cruel as April was to the poet T.S. Eliot. ... More Post a comment
New Virus Killer at the Zoo By Matt Potter, Published Dec. 17, 2008
When a 12-year-old polar bear at the San Diego Zoo died of unknown causes a year ago last July, a team of investigators, led by ... More Post a comment
Saved by Commander Bell By Al Bell, Published Dec. 3, 2008
An old nautical joke is that the difference between a fairy tale and a sea story is that the former begins “Once upon a time…” ... More Post a comment
Can We Create New Life? By Jonathan Parkinson, Published Nov. 25, 2008
Across the boulevard from the fountains of Balboa Park, there’s a splash of color that catches my eye: the 2500-odd flowers of the park’s rose ... More Post a comment
I Feel My Liver Donor's Presence By John Brizzolara, Published Nov. 12, 2008
“I had a feeling that something was wrong for a long time.” Fifty-six-year-old David Clark says as he lies recovering at a friend’s home from ... More Post a comment
Five Years on the Street By Tom Hunter, Published Oct. 29, 2008
I was up north for 26 years. I came back to San Diego by invitation from an ex-wife. Two of my grown sons were in ... More Comments (2)
Time to Walk the Goat By Rosa Jurjevics, Published Oct. 15, 2008
Both Scott Carhart and Helen Flaster are undoubtedly animal people. Their family pets number 26: seven dogs, seven cats, three horses, two goats, two tortoises, ... More Post a comment
Heroin Chronicles By John Brizzolara, Published Oct. 1, 2008
I arrived in San Diego on the 4th of July, 1979, on a Greyhound bus I had boarded in Louisville Kentucky after two previous bus ... More Comment (1)
The Friendship Hotel By John Brizzolara, Published Sept. 17, 2008
“Everybody in the hotel read The Little Dog Laughed, everybody; a story to make you die holding the page and it wasn’t about a dog, ... More Post a comment
Unforgettable: On Love and Loneliness in Long-Ago San Diego By Jeff Smith, Published Sept. 10, 2008
MISS VICTORIA’S IN LOVE On Friday, June 13, 1856, Maurice Franklin invited Victoria Jacobs to join him for a picnic. Even though 17-year-old Victoria suffered ... More Comments (3)
Unforgettable: Liberty By Jeff Smith, Published Sept. 3, 2008
LIBERTY: SCENES FROM SAN DIEGO’S SHORE-LEAVE HISTORY DANA TOURS SAN DIEGO “A sailor’s liberty is for a day,” writes Richard Henry Dana in Two Years ... More Post a comment
We'll See No More of Giants By John Brizzolara, Published Sept. 3, 2008
By now, huge portions of San Diego’s literate and book-buying public know that Chuck Valverde, owner of Wahrenbrock’s Book House on Broadway, downtown, died on ... More Comments (4)
If He Goes, I Go Too By Jim Eichel, Published Sept. 3, 2008
It seemed as if everyone who worked at our local hospital knew Jake. A self-proclaimed “recovered hater of doctors,” he became a fixture, volunteering in ... More Comments (2)
Unforgettable: American Icarus III By Jeff Smith, Published Aug. 27, 2008
AMERICAN ICARUS: LINCOLN BEACHEY LOOPS THE LOOP (Part Three) “Aviators are not born like poets,” said Lincoln Beachey, who claimed that anyone could fly a ... More Comment (1)
Life Under the Flight Path By Rosa Jurjevics, Published Aug. 20, 2008
On average, Lindbergh Field (also known as San Diego International Airport) performs 620 operations a day: 310 departures and 310 arrivals. All 620 of these ... More Post a comment
Unforgettable: American Icarus II By Jeff Smith, Published Aug. 20, 2008
AMERICAN ICARUS: BEACHEY COMES TO SAN DIEGO (Part Two) “Death was always my opponent,” said Lincoln Beachey at a celebration in his honor, “and I ... More Comments (2)
Pretty in PB By Maggie Young, Published Aug. 13, 2008
I'm wearing a denim skirt that shows off my legs, the one part of my body I actually like. I'm doing my best to walk ... More Comment (1)
Beach Booze Banter By Josh Board, Published Aug. 13, 2008
"January 9, 2008, is a day that will live in infamy," says Terry Brickman, a beachgoer I talk to in early April about the day ... More Comments (6)
Unforgettable: American Icarus By Jeff Smith, Published Aug. 13, 2008
AMERICAN ICARUS: LINCOLN BEACHEY LOOPS THE LOOP (Part One) Lincoln Beachey was one of America's first superstars. By 1915, the daredevil stunt pilot had performed ... More Comments (7)
Unforgettable: The American Invasion By Jeff Smith, Published July 30, 2008
THE AMERICAN INVASION: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF APOLINARIA LORENZANA (Part Six) On July 29, 1848, the USS Cyane navigated through the thick kelp outside ... More Post a comment
Unforgettable: Rampage By Jeff Smith, Published July 23, 2008
RAMPAGE: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF APOLINARIA LORENZANA (Part Five) Apolinaria Lorenzana lived for around 90 years. Born in Mexico City in the early 1790s, ... More Post a comment
She Really Was a Fashion Plate By Laura McNeal, Published July 23, 2008
In 1930, the San Diego yellow pages were as yellow as an egg yolk, the white pages listed the occupation of every customer, and the ... More Post a comment
Unforgettable: La Beata: The Sisters’ Sad Fate By Jeff Smith, Published July 16, 2008
LA BEATA: THE SISTERS' SAD FATE (Part Four) By the time she was 45, Apolinaria Lorenzana had nursed numerous cases of syphilis at the San ... More Comment (1)
What a Drag It Is... By John Brizzolara, Published July 16, 2008
“We’re 52%!” the sign read. It was being held aloft by a very young man with unkempt hair grown past his ears and a sparse ... More Comment (1)
Unforgettable: The Jamul Incident By Jeff Smith, Published July 9, 2008
THE JAMUL INCIDENT: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF APOLINARIA LORENZANA (Part Three) In the spring of 1837, Apolinaria Lorenzana left her duties at the mission ... More Post a comment
Unforgettable: La Beata By Jeff Smith, Published July 2, 2008
LA BEATA: THE LIVES AND TIMES OF APOLINARIA LORENZANA (Part Two) September 1, 1834: the Mexican brigantine Natalia makes an unscheduled entry into San Diego ... More Post a comment
Unforgettable: La Beata By Jeff Smith, Published June 25, 2008
LA BEATA: THE LIVES AND TIMES OF APOLINARIA LORENZANA (Part One) In the spring of 1878, Thomas Savage went to Santa Barbara to record recollections ... More Comment (1)
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