Back when Anne Albright's breasts deflated like balloons

Thirty Years Ago The bare bottom of San Diego sport is epitomized by the face of Canadian entrepreneur and Sports Arena operator Peter Graham. This contemptuous double-dealer is the best case yet for confiscatory inheritance taxes. He controls San Diego's indoor sports' destiny, only because his ancestors placed their millions in family trusts. Graham has stripped San Diego of its professional indoor sports credibility with his self-aggrandizing and efforts to keep major sports teams out of his arena unless he can own them himself. -- "THE HIGH AND THE LOW OF SAN DIEGO SPORTS," Alan Pesin, July 15, 1976

Twenty-Five Years Ago [During WWII] planes were needed and that meant workers and that meant housing was needed. Kearny Mesa and Linda Vista were built by fiat. Housing for 15,000 was constructed from scratch in less than 200 working days. Eleanor Roosevelt took special interest in the project and dedicated it herself. "Money was no object," recalls Morrie Slayen, president of Morrie Slayen and Associates in San Diego. "And when money is no object, anything and everything is paid in wages, in overtime, day and night, seven days a week, nonstop. At peak capacity Convair was building about one hundred Liberator bombers a week!" -- "WAR!" Andrew Piotrowski, July 16, 1981

Twenty Years Ago A hot, crummy morn...oh stop complaining. This is SEA DAY, the day I at last go to sea. Having endured training camp, even if just as a tourist, I am ready to drown -- well, anything short of it -- if that's what it takes to get through. I don't mean to sound melodramatic, but as I wheel across the Coronado Bay Bridge I can't help but feel the horror ante increase. On land they were playing war, or playing something; at sea they'll be making it. -- "RICHARD MELTZER'S NAVY, PART II" Richard Meltzer, July 17, 1986

Fifteen Years Ago The forsaken farm looked as if it had been deposited in Dulzura for lack of a better place and then forgotten by time. The ranch covered some 400 acres of barren earth a mile and a half from the nearest paved road. Its back side was graced with miles of rugged canyons stretching to the Mexican border. There were dozens of decaying pens and barns that seemed to be sinking right into the ground. The farmhouse was a drafty, dusty, two-story, turn-of-the-century model. But it was habitable and free. And there was a hauntingly beautiful aspect to it all that appealed to my secret desire to live in the "Old West." -- "KIBBLES AND BITS OF HUMAN FLESH," Bill Delany, July 18, 1991

Ten Years Ago The rest of Web of Hate 's websites are insipid in comparison. Oh, sure, San Diego's feisty Tom Metzger shows up in the report, but his White Aryan Resistance Web site boasts nothing more outlandish than an uninspired caricature of a grinning black man. And the rest of the sites, like Skin Net, the "White Power Skinheads International Listing," are handsome in a prissy kind of way. The real caketaker, however, is USA Watch: "Police Looking for Link in Jewish-Type Ritual Murders of Tattooed, Mutilated Goyim Women." -- AS SEEN ON TV: "OLD-FASHIONED HATRED TV," Abe Opincar, July 11, 1996

Five Years Ago When Ben stopped nursing, my breasts deflated like balloons. A couple of nights ago, I stood in front of the bathroom mirror getting ready for bed. The house was silent and cool. I pulled my T-shirt off and unbuckled my bra. Before I lifted my nightgown over my head, I paused and looked in the mirror. My breasts lay against my chest like an afterthought -- two stretched-out nylon socks suspended from a wall of flesh.Later, with the lights off, I lay in bed and wept. -- KID STUFF: "WELL DONE, GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANTS," Anne Albright, July 12, 2001