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Thirty Years Ago Dole is related to pineapples, though he's supposed to have the personality of a radish. Ford is a dependable, unexciting four-door. Somewhere maybe there's a vacuum cleaner or a pipe joint called a Mondale, but the media haven't heard about it yet. Consequently, when Mondale's Eastern Airlines jet pulled to a stop and blew the reporters' hair straight up, they were wondering what label to pin on this guy. -- "A REPORTER WHO SOUNDS LIKE HE'S SEASONED TAKES ON THE SEASONED REPORTERS AND THE JUNIOR WOMEN'S CLUB WOMAN," Richard Louv, September 16, 1976

Twenty-Five Years Ago Why doesn't that Duncan Shepherd stick to reviewing movies and stop all this name-calling? To write that "director John Carpenter still has mashed potatoes for brains" might raise a guffaw among the high school contingent, but doesn't convey much to anyone looking for a good movie. Why call Bo Derek "peanut-headed"? -- LETTERS: "GOOD POINT, FISHFACE," Jackie Giordano, Hillcrest, September 17, 1981

Twenty Years Ago Not all of the 70 or so houses destroyed in Normal Heights' fierce 1985 canyon fire have been replaced. But some are built...its neighbors are scraggly "move-ons." Others are newly built Spanish cottages. Farther down, one residence achieves a rustic look through its use of stained knotty pine.... Farther still, a two-story, deep orange house with modernistic lines conjures up visions of Del Mar or Lake Tahoe. -- "DOES A HOUSE MAKE A NEIGHBORHOOD?" Jeannette De Wyze, September 18, 1986

Fifteen Years Ago On the day it was announced that the Tribune was folding, a lot of things happened that didn't make it into the front-page story that afternoon or the follow-up the next day.At 8:30 a.m., when Morgan broke the news to the Tribune staff, he said, "Not that it's going to be any great comfort to you, but Helen Copley volunteered yesterday to come down here and break the news with me but decided she'd better not because, she said, 'I think I'd break out in tears.'" One reporter quipped, "Yeah, I hear she's real choked up." Another added, "If she came down here, she'd be choked, all right." -- CITY LIGHTS: "ADAM, GOD HIMSELF COULD NOT RAISE THIS SHIP!" Thomas K. Arnold, September 12, 1991

Ten Years Ago Nine years ago, my husband Forrest and I moved our used bookstore to downtown San Diego. Homelessness became part of our lives. The plight of the homeless was as bad if not worse when the Republican National Convention was announced over a year ago.

A few of us decided to form a group to plan a poor people's response to the convention. We held weekly meetings at the Big Kitchen and called ourselves "The Poor People's Party."

Lone Wolf had been corresponding on the Internet with a homeless discussion group. A Native American with a Ph.D. in anthropology, he'd lived on the streets of San Diego for three years.

Just as our outreach for the Poor People's Party was beginning, Lone Wolf was banished from the homeless discussion group on the Internet for making antisocial remarks. The next thing we knew, there was a posting from someone purporting to be his roommate. It stated, "Lone Wolf has committed suicide." -- CITY LIGHTS: "NORMAN MAILER, CITY HALL SLEEP-IN, AND THE HUMAN FIREBALL," Anne Curo, September 12, 1996

Five Years Ago Jim'd been overwatering the orange trees on the Sunday morning Raymond found him lying unconscious on the grass. The garden hose was running full blast. A line of black ants traced its away across Jim's cheek and into his open mouth. Cause of death: heart attack. Raymond noticed that Jim's secretary behaved with less decorum than is the custom at an employer's funeral. She embraced Jim's casket. She kissed the lid. -- TIP OF MY TONGUE: "ORANGES," Max Nash, September 13, 2001