Back When

Thirty Years Ago Entire sections of the [Comedy Store]audience were on their way out, disgusted by the preceding scene. I wonder to this day whether anyone could have made them laugh at that point. Not one sentence was out of my mouth when they began to holler, "Get her out of here! Get the hook!" I made believe I didn't hear them, but the silence was worse. -- "I CAN'T SEE YOU OVER THERE. I CAN HEAR YOU YELLING AND BOOING...." Judy Lin, August 12, 1976

Twenty-Five Years Ago Dave likes to hang out on the wall separating the sidewalk from the sand at the foot of Newport Avenue in Ocean Beach, watching "all the little honeys" walking by in their bathing suits. He lives off the few dollars he makes selling blood to the plasma center two blocks up Newport, and eats most of his meals free at the Point Loma Methodist Church on nearby Cable Street. "[I]n January I met this family, a couple and their two kids, who were livin' in their car in the Santa Barbara Harbor parking lot. About six months ago they moved down here 'cause the weather's nicer and the atmosphere is mellower, and when they came back in June to pick up a welfare check, I came down here with 'em." -- "LOW TIDE AT O.B.," Thomas K. Arnold, August 13, 1981

Twenty Years Ago One night in the late '60s, after nodding out during the sci-fi flick starring William Lundigan, I did some tooling around on an astral plane. My consciousness floated out of my body and bobbed above the bed like a balloon full of psychic energy. My suspended being perceived the flickering TV set and the crumpled paper bag on the night table. Were the bag's earlier contents -- four White Castle hamburgers -- to blame for the current circumstance? -- "JUST GET OUT," Bill Owens, August 14, 1986

Fifteen Years Ago I have further details about the cultural level of this planet to add to my previous reports. I have discovered a bizarre institution called the "air show." The occasion for my investigation is an annual air show at a location called Miramar in San Diego, California, USA, North America, to be held this weekend. Apparently other such shows are held elsewhere on the planet. These shows reveal what the people of Sol III are like.

Airplanes, I should explain, are flying machines propelled by fossil fuels. Each flight uses huge quantities of these resources and pollutes the planet's atmosphere with poisons. -- "A WING AND A PRAYER," Snorri Sturluson, August 15, 1991

Ten Years Ago Pete Wilson hatched his political career in San Diego, and it is here that it's likely to die. The rise of the city's ex-mayor to presidential candidate ("dour," "a great campaigner," "not interested in governing," "never underestimate him," "really fun when you get him one on one") was stalled last year by San Diego characters and circumstances that gained national notoriety. It is ironic that Wilson, who fancies three-piece suits, imported silk ties, Italian shoes, expensive cigars, and wealthy friends, would be brought down by a pair of Mexican maids and their La Jolla employers. -- "WELCOME, GOP CONVENTION DELEGATES, TO SAN DIEGO, CITY OF SHAME," Matt Potter, August 8, 1996

Five Years Ago On a recent Saturday, I visited the jam-packed sands of Pacific Beach. Like bees busying themselves with their honeycomb, sun-worshippers busied themselves with recreation -- beer, tanning, horseshoes. The tanned flesh of the toned twentysomething crowd was dotted here and there with bits of ink and metal, belly-button piercings and tattoos having slid from roguishness into trendiness. I weaved my way through the buzzing crowd, searching for a queen bee who would give me her perspective into the feminism of the new millennium. -- CITY LIGHTS: "PRETTY WOMAN," Deirdre Lickona, August 9, 2001