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Thirty Years Ago Needle's Eye. The secret about Needle's Eye is why more surfers don't get their lunch there. Located below Sunset Cliffs Boulevard on the north side of Luscomb's Point and breaking into No Surf Cove, it is visible to everyone who walks by. Yet there are rarely more than two or three surfers. Why? Because the wave sucks off a rock ledge that can do terminal damage to your fin, tail block, or cranium if you project too far onto the flat. -- "SECRET SURFING SPOTS," Mark Woelber, October 7, 1976

Twenty-Five Years Ago Shortly after opening his barbershop in Eden Gardens, Fidel bought the shop of a South Oceanside barber; he and an employee cut hair there in the daytime, and evenings Fidel worked alone in Eden Gardens. In 1962 Fidel put a beer bar in the Eden Gardens barbershop. With the beer bar, he started spending more time at the Eden Gardens location and it wasn't long before he was in the food business. As Martha tells it, "I would pack him a lunch and he would say, 'Honey, pack an extra one. I always have a customer there that -- I hate to eat my lunch and he watches me.' So I always packed an extra sandwich or an extra burrito." -- "THE MAN WHO MADE IT," Steve Shepherd, October 1, 1981

Twenty Years Ago I was outraged by your pet advertisement in the September 11 issue entitled "Dog Training Collar." Why would anyone want to shock their animal? I thought the best way to train an animal was through positive reinforcement. -- LETTERS: "ZING AROUND THE COLLAR," Carol Reynolds, October 2, 1986

Fifteen Years Ago I asked my mother to make green ham (no eggs, they made me gag) and she refused -- "I'd just use food coloring, honey. It wouldn't change the taste." This was the beginning of one of life's big disappointments. Theodor Seuss Geisel died on a Tuesday evening; by last Thursday the public was overfed with personal reaction stories of newscasters and reporters and five-year-old girls. I found out I wasn't the only kid who once thought Dr. Seuss was the Cat in the Hat. -- CITY LIGHTS: "ALL THE WORLD'S A SNEETCH," Mary Lang, October 3, 1991

Ten Years Ago A guy downstairs with a cellular phone, a hearty, jocular voice -- a future lawyer and compulsive, tuneless whistler. He's a nice enough man, but he begins whistling early in the morning and continues all day, pausing only to speak into his cellular phone in his hearty, throaty tones on his balcony just beneath my window. Maybe I'm envious of people who are happy all day every day, but he makes me feel like Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment. -- CITY LIGHTS: "I DIDN'T HIT YOUR WIFE," John Brizzolara, September 26, 1996

Five Years Ago The Sunday People, a London tabloid, is out with what it says is a true account of the local strip-club revels of Khalid al-Midhar, Nawaf Alhamzi, and Hani Hanjour, the three terrorist hijackers with San Diego connections. According to the paper, the trio "blew at least £15,000 of terrorist funds in dozens of strip bars in San Diego on America's West Coast. A Sunday People investigation has discovered how the terrorists made a mockery of their strict Islamic beliefs by...SHAMELESSLY stuffing banknotes down the bras and knickers of the dancers. The paper quotes two exotic dancers, Kerry and Monica, as saying the men told them they were pilots with Royal Saudi Airlines. "Of course, I feel cheap and ashamed -- we may not be nuns, but Kerry and I aren't alley-cat sluts. I've watched those terrible images on TV. It makes me feel sick to my stomach that I entertained them. I cleared maybe $12,000 from these beasts." -- CITY LIGHTS: "TERROR PARTY," Matt Potter, September 27, 2001