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Stories by Judith Moore (RIP)

Thought about Idaho, settled for Oceanside

Our new garden up on Fire Mountain, in Oceanside, looked like hell I grew up in Southern California suburbia and hated gardening. It was called yard work, which pretty much explains why any kid would …

July 17, 2023
The cute boys are at La Jolla Shores

The girls of summer Right after the Fourth of July, a series of perfect days unrolled across San Diego County beaches. Sun sizzled away the coastal low clouds by no later than eleven, and girls …

July 15, 2023
UCSD med school has 130 scalpels for its 3777 applicants

Don't be surprised if UCSD School of Medicine turns you down Maria Lofftus, manager of the admissions office at the UCSD School of Medicine, had just finished explaining to an irate father why his son's …

July 10, 2023
Bodysurfer zealots – from Tia Juana River mouth to Oceanside championship

Bodysurfers from Oceanside to the IB Pier A little further up the coast from Cartwright and Bye is the hermetic Boomer Beach crowd of La Jolla, with guys like "Dolphin" Don Riley, "Freeway" Dave Freeman, …

July 3, 2023
Get in Christmas mood with Frost, Eliot, Byron

What I don’t like about where I live is that it doesn’t snow. The other day I saw one of those glass balls that has a snowman in it; you shake the globe up and …

December 25, 2022
La Jollan Andy Lakey's hyper real art

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. …

August 7, 2022
VA Hospital patients tell how they were wounded

Temple of the wounded "The Marines had nothing to do with Agent Orange directly. It’s possible that some Marine groups were out on patrol or in the field, and a spray plane might have flown …

August 1, 2022
San Diego cops were fierce

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 …

July 31, 2022
They serve San Diegans with legal demands

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 …

July 23, 2022
San Diego crime boss gunned down on Lamont St.

How Frank Bompensiero met his fate "Bomp kicked the door shut, Mirabile wrapped his arms around Borgia just as Jimmy dropped the garrote over his head, handing the other end of the rope to Bompensiero. …

July 17, 2022
Inside Child Protective Services

Sometimes Child Protective Services works “When I got back to Stepping Stones from Vista Hill, I decided, ‘Okay, this is it.’ All the people there were the only friends I had. I got in drug …

July 11, 2022
Promising USD grad kills mom in Pacific Beach

The blood upon his hands “It was a dull, outdated play, but when Mark walked on stage, it came alive. He filled the theater with his presence.” Ehrenfreund congratulated Mark on his performance and continued …

July 3, 2022
Castro's prisoners end up in San Diego with their stories

¡Cuba, sí! He and four compadres left Cuba one night in a twenty-foot boat powered by a five-horsepower motor. The motor quit on the second day of the voyage, and the men drifted, lost, for …

July 2, 2022
Christ's crucifixtion and other Easter stories

Blood of the Lamb "After they crucified Jesus, on the third day, he rose to Heaven. That's the Resurrection. We all go up to Heaven after the third day." Floyd visualizes Heaven as a beautiful …

June 18, 2022
Cops, sailors, topless dancers eat at Johnny's Cafe

Welcome to Johnny's "I asked myself, ‘Why can’t I do this? It ain’t all that complicated.’ The first order was this young sailor who wanted French toast. I said to myself, ‘I know how to …

June 12, 2022
Successful Indian man loses family in Pan Am flight

Return flight There were men, several uniformed men, screaming, waving guns, ordering everyone to freeze. Somehow they had managed to sneak onto the airfield, then had leaped out and clambered up the entry ramp, weapons …

June 4, 2022
Albert Arffmann grooms La Jolla's streets

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 …

May 30, 2022
The woman behind the Prophet Vegetarian restaurant, women body builders

Reggae matriarch of San Diego vegetarians “We served Balinese food, like gado-gado. We were into Japanese cooking. We did a lot of tempura.” Near the cash register they sold herbs and — for a while …

May 8, 2022
Rudford's blue plate waitresses

Blue plate special "I’ve worked at Rudford’s since 1965. Twelve years altogether — I left three times. I used to get mad at something and I'd go back and quit. Some of the girls have …

May 7, 2022
San Diego's silverware nuts

Look! you've got a naked man on your fork! The drug and antique worlds share a vocabulary. Both worlds thrive on human “have to have it” weakness. Certainly, as it is with junkies, I always …

April 9, 2022
The Zoo turns Judith Moore philosophical, aggressive dog catchers

Mananimalmananimal You tell me why, what, keeps my stub-toed Frye boot from kicking, jabbing the open-toed lavender sandals, nylon-encased toes; what stays the hand from grabbing the gray-suit lapels, from turning that wood-laminate table over; …

March 6, 2022
Wahrenbrock's Book House, Chino's vegetables

A Long Shelf Life Valverde unburdens a perspiring white-haired man loaded from waist to double chin with titles about World War II. He says to Valverde, I'm just kinda reminiscing about my war.” Waiting in …

February 12, 2022
Judith Moore feels her daughters' pain, Reader writer marries Cynthis Heimel

Lines of Love, Lines of Pain We lived by the hospital. I heard sirens every day. When both girls were with me in the house, I felt a smug assurance when I heard the sirens …

January 30, 2022
Episcopal parish potluck, San Pasqual Valley remnants of the 350-acre sweet potato farm

Sweet-and-Sour Pork-u-Pines When you got a new desk calendar in December, by which time ground was frozen and trees leafless, you marked down third Thursday afternoons for guild and fourth Sundays for potlucks. You X-ed …

January 23, 2022
El Cajon Olaf Weighorst forgeries, Reader author's parents killed

Bushwhacked We look at a Wieghorst painting called Spring Rain, a dark, impressionistic work, one of about a dozen Wieghorsts on the walls. Thackeray can remember when Wieghorst painted it. “It was raining cats and …

January 22, 2022
Doubleday follows Luis Urrea to Tijuana, priggish Richard Henry Dana visits the presidio

A Living Cloud The next morning, I am greeted by my media escort, Penny. This is a fascinating new feature of my life — escorts. They pick you up, drive you around, provide snacks, meals, …

January 10, 2022
San Diego's best tomato breeds, Quail Gardens obsession with bamboo

Creepy Bamboo Language Most San Diegans, he explains, believe that the leafy, green and beige stuff that grows in their back yards, canyons, and along the San Diego River bed in Mission Valley is bamboo. …

January 9, 2022
Fallbrook school bus driver, firemen at 32nd and Lincoln

Stop Food Fights, Clean up after Motion Sickness When Renee drives the pink route, she wears a white visor and shorts that make her seem calmly athletic, like the directress of a tennis camp. Twenty-four …

January 3, 2022
Navy corpsman on the Mekong, black unrest on the Kitty Hawk, best Vietnam books

Escape! Then he emptied out the bag before us. Two small cans and some plastic sacks with lump sugar, salt, and sesame seeds fell to the ground. Glancing around, I could see that all my …

December 11, 2021
Peter Rabbit, New York City child, dachshund beauty

Recipes for an Overbite Rabbit fictions permeate childhood: Br’er Rabbit, Potter’s Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny, the Velveteen Rabbit, Hazel and Fiver and company in Watership Down, Bambi’s Thumper, Father Rabbit, Alice in Wonderland’s White …

November 21, 2021
Nathanael West, Jim Thompson, Max Miller

Janet, My Mother, and Me “We went out to Belmont, and Harry couldn’t stop picking winners. We went to the 21 Club for dinner, and we scalped tickets for a Broadway musical in the fourth …

November 20, 2021
Frank Bompensiero, Dragnas, Mickey Cohen, Jimmy Fratianno, Momo Adamo

I Wasn’t There to Hold the Candle Mary Ann said that her grandmother Bompensiero worried about her son, but that she spoke little English and could not read. “Her daughter and my uncle Sammie kept …

November 15, 2021
San Diego writers open up: Jeff Weinstein, John Brizzolara, Dave Zielinski

Hard-boiled local Brizzolara recalled an evening when, together with three other suspense writers, he was invited to Grounds for Murder, a San Diego mystery bookstore, to discuss his work. “There was some controversy about Wirecutter. …

November 1, 2021
Starring roles in the Copley Union-Tribune: James, Helen, Michael, David

I’m Morgan, He’s Cronkite Scholars, particularly Vjaceslav Vsevolodovic Ivanov, director of the Section on Structural Typology of the Institute of Slavic and Balkan Walter Leland Cronkite Studies at the Soviet Academy of Sciences in St. …

October 31, 2021
The memories floating in Judith Moore's mind

Memories of Main Street “Sometimes I would see kids my age, girls with makeup and clothes like girls I’d see on American Bandstand. I’d stare at and study them and when we got home they’d …

October 25, 2021
San Diego actors' worst stories, he guards Volcan Mountain, community college adjunct

Break a Leg In 1993, Hal Holbrook was performing King Lear in the title role. Tom Hall, a San Diego actor, likes to tell the story. Hal came on too soon and started a completely …

October 24, 2021
Where to park downtown San Diego, loiterers at the library, high-rise top floors

Adult Orphans A Wednesday afternoon, hot. Half the stools at the State Hotel Deli are taken. Talk is quiet, desultory. Mama Sofia perches on her stool near the cash register, her daughter — mending again …

Tijuana through white eyes: the bus from Mexico City, where margaritas came from, the La Mesa prison

Destination Tijuana “Don’t let them tell me the bus is new. Of course, we always get there on time; it’s just on the way there are, well, complications. It’s in the nature of the route. …

August 15, 2021
San Diego's weasels, squirrels, worms, rats

I Wanted to Own Him Until He Opened His Mouth Six days later, on a morning when the air was light blue, the weasel left his kill on the driveway, a young opossum so dead …

August 14, 2021
Mira Mesa man captured first giant panda in 1936

I Need Time to Recuperate A snowstorm trapped the porter on the other side of a pass, and he couldn’t get back for three days. Quentin had matches and lit a fire. He had a …

August 2, 2021
Herbert Marcuse ends up in lotus land, Ishmael Reed visits Quincy Troupe at UCSD

Angel of the Apocalypse During that long, violent spring of 1968, leftist student leaders around the world began to quote Marcuse and claim his ideas as inspiration to their movements. By June worldwide media had …

July 26, 2021

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4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
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