I live in Tijuana, SmugglersvilleI was hobbling back from the store with a liter of milk, when I saw three young men sitting on the steps in front of a house in my Tijuana neighborhood. …

More or less sudden mountainsThe rocks in and around San Diego have composed amazing, fiery stories for a very long time. An ancient ocean once covered this county; volcanoes used to spew here; and more …

The woman we never forgetBy Abe Opincar, Amy Gerstler, Barbarella Fokos, Deirdre Lickona, Ernie Grimm, Geoff Bouvier, Jeannette DeWyze, Jeff Smith, Jennifer Ball, Jim Morris, Laura McNeal, Mary Grimm, Matthew Lickona, Patrick Daugherty, RF Jurjevics, …

Did Bin Laden's Brother Live a Secret Life in San Diego?What was Binladen, now 35, heir to a multibillion-dollar Middle Eastern fortune based on construction and Saudi oil, doing in San Diego? And why would …

Bridges of San Diego County I drive the roads of San Diego County with an agenda: You don’t know when you might spot another canyon dancer, a concrete Nureyev. I hike gorges and find them …

Party at the snakes' place The joke is that nobody is from here, because we are on the edge of nowhere, but, sure as snake’s teeth, the right kind of folks will settle just about …

What If We’d Been Named Edward? Patrick Daugherty of Escondido. Patrick lives in a comfortable, suburban ranch house tucked behind a snatch of well-kept lawn. I park, walk up his newly swept concrete driveway, and …

Idyllic Spanish Village shaken by mystery stabbing “Then I heard male voices outside on the patio. I didn’t look up because I didn’t want to be noticed. The voices moved left to right. I never …

A wonderful life in burlesque “She told me, ‘Go over to the theater, knock on the theater door, and ask them if they need any chorus girls.’ The chorus producer came and questioned me, ‘Can …

Orchids and Onions — 20 years later The ’95 jury opened by dubbing 1976 Orchid-winner Rancho Bernardo “the ultimate suburb.” Nicoloff and Collins concurred, calling it “one of the few really successful and well-planned new …

Long-necked bonanza We had reached our first destination, about two miles due west of the San Diego Wild Animal Park, the semirural home of a pediatric dentist who’s been raising ostriches as a sideline for …

A little bit warped and kind of sexy "My clue was Caravaggio. He was thoroughly trounced for using Christ and religious figures in his paintings. He didn’t paint them in the clothing and rooms of …

The Loud Adios I wrote a story about her, called it ‘The Blue Fox.” and decided not to give it to the singles’ magazine. The publisher probably would’ve turned it down. It wasn’t dirty enough …

Hyper-real Artist Andy Lakey, you've seen him on TV. His original paintings can be found in collections including Ray Charles, President Carter, Lee Meriweather, Peter Jennings, the Vatican Art Collection, and museums throughout the world. …

One tough cop "A homosexual murder, I remember that real clear. I was the first person there. They gave him an enema with Clorox, really fouled him up pretty good. Split his body open, his …

Leave! Banse turns off onto the University Avenue exit. “There’s nothing people out here have done that I didn’t do when I was young. I’m streetwise. I apply that knowledge. At 32nd and National I …

We live in a pre-industrial world and we prefer it there “We feel much more comfortable in medieval clothes. Throw on your tunic, your cloak, and your sword, and you’re all set. You feel much …

Show me a sign Arffmann works into the early-morning hours, cleaning the restaurant and preparing the Pearl for the coming day. “Imagine you were having some friends over for dinner,” he says, "and imagine the …

The teacher fails Rossi had us trooping off to the Academy Theater to see Alain Resnais’s La Guerre Est Finie, a pastiche of political correctness and sensuality. The commingling of radlib politics with grainy romance, …

Valley Love The Lower Sweetwater Valley has served as a recreational and inspirational resource. One morning I looked up on the levee and saw a colorful line of kindergartners singing to the ducks in the …

Ship of Fools “She poured wine for all of us. I picked up a glass and raised it in a toast and said, ‘Nostrovia ... Gorbachev... Nostro-via.’ The place erupted. The damn first engineer comes …

We’re the New Wardens "A gray fox is a small animal, so usually the trap breaks their leg bones, and the only thing holding them in the trap is the skin that gets pinched between …

Just Relax and I'll Get Dinner I am stepping through the front door of Andronico’s, my countenance set to grim purpose. Andronico’s is a grocery store, the kind that doesn’t carry 1 variety of pear, …

Decent Life Led by the Ordinary Man I will never forget the time a monsignor from our church, favoring our simple household with a visit, stopped by and in the course of dinner, sat back, …

Out Here in the Middle of Nowhere “Before, gangs were racially segregated, so you had the Mexicans, the blacks, the Aryan Brotherhood, and so on. Now, the Bloods and all are recruiting across the racial …

The Skin of Their Teeth Where are the best food bargains in downtown San Diego? Five-pound packages of nonfat milk powder can be purchased at the S and F store located at 15th and G …

In Case They Attack “I’ve been melancholy. It made me very sad. Deep-down sad. I realized immediately that our lives would never be the same again. “We’ve never had war on our shores. And I’ve …

Dots on the Map Bankhead Springs is wholly owned by Helen, an 87-year-old woman who purchased it m 1939 with her husband Alvan. (The place is named after Senator John Hollis Bankhead of Arizona, who …

The Evil I Do Not Intend Dravecky raised some eyebrows that month when he appeared with Eric Show and Mark Thurmond at a John Birch Society booth at the Del Mar Fair. Back home in …

Nurse’s Log Eugene Johnson — by far the sickest person on this shift. We check his I.V., which has again infiltrated. Since even 11:00, his condition has deteriorated. He is barely breathing, and his blood …

How Alex Spanos Made Off with the Police Building Fund “Yeah, that’s right, they’re going to steal the money for Alex’s Chargers training field from the cops’ pueblo land fund. A big chunk of their …

Push Comes to Shove: Life on San Diego's Few and Mighty Tugboats “We’d come out here at low tide, bring the working hands out to the job, they’d work off the boat. We moved the …

Embalmed Angel Teer says that he started smoking sherm when he was 16. "I used it a lot. I used a lot of drugs, but the older you get, the less fun it gets. Smoking …

Tour De France, We Hardly Knew Ye Lance Armstrong has carried the Tour de France on his shoulders and brought it into the living rooms of meat-eating, red-blooded American sports consumers. Sadly, this is Armstrong's …

Sweat Cuisine "Let's say you have a banquet. Chicken Kiev and vegetables and potatoes, 600 people. An hour before the banquet starts, you find out it's down to 500. You've got 100 leftover half-cooked chickens, …

The chicken or the ego? Are chickens the proper enterprise for the modern family? Let’s get real about this right now. Chickens teach us about husbandry, domesticity, and death. The sole caveat to raising your …

Lakeside's Big Man There are roughly six million boys between the ages of 16 and 18 living in the United States. There are approximately 26,400 high schools and close to that number of starting centers …

Mommy, why are they shooting at us again? The Tijuana state of mind known as “the psychosis.” “I don’t take my kids to the park anymore on Sundays,” says Luís, a young Tijuana father of …

Lakeside's Big Man There are roughly six million boys between the ages of 16 and 18 living in the United States. There are approximately 26,400 high schools and close to that number of starting centers …

Complete public sleeping ban Imperial Beach has banned camping or sleeping in public with an ordinance that reaches into every last corner, from pavement to median, "including but not limited to dirt or landscaped areas." …

Mommy, why are they shooting at us again? “I don’t take my kids to the park anymore on Sundays,” says Luís, a young Tijuana father of three — eight- and six-year-old sons, and a five-year-old …

Dad was a bum Mike Elliott’s father disappeared when he was 13 years old. Not disappeared as in vanished mysteriously. Disappeared as in left and never came back. Some 27 years later, on a rainy …

How San Diegans reacted to 9-11 “Where were you when the World Trade Center was hit?” “At home.” “And you happened to have the TV on?” “No, my little sister called. She woke me up …

A little bit east of Eden When I was living in Los Angeles years ago, a door-to-door solicitor pitching San Diego vacations and tours showed me a brochure of local attractions. Included on the list …

A quiet street and an old hotel Jacumba is a kind of living ghost town out in southeast San Diego County, on the Mexican border, in what’s called, the Mountain Empire district. It has come …

Patrick Daugherty was the author of the weekly Sporting Box column since 1995. He died April 20, 2016. He wrote for the Berkeley Monthly before the Reader. Editor's picks of Daugherty's Reader stories: The low-budget …

"Ran into Tin Cup at the Four Mile. He rode in on the Union Pacific a couple days ago.” I laugh, “He’s still train-hopping? The man is a champion.” I have an old Nevada friend …

Beds: 5 Baths: 9 Current Owner: David Batchelder Asking Price: $29,000,000 The bluff-top estate at 100 Stratford Court in Del Mar offers prospective buyers nearly 6000 square feet of living area in a just-completed “coastal …

Fresh Start I've stepped out of the darkened cave — or, more precisely, have exited the animal den known in another life as my living room, to stroll in fresh air and reconnect my chakra …

The Box solves NCAA tournament’s bracketology.