Thirty Years Ago PENNSYLVANIA natives: Re-incarnate as groundhog, coal, smokestack at America's Finest City picnic, Saturday, August 27, 3--7 p.m., Balboa Park, near Sixth, Upas. Prizes for unique Pennsylvania costumes/posters/representations.

NEW IN TOWN? So am I. I'm from Oregon. I love acid rock, the ocean, Frisbee. I need friends. Anyone, please reply in Reader. Kelli -- CLASSIFIEDS, August 18, 1977

Twenty-Five Years Ago I'll never forget moving to San Diego eight years ago from Orange County, but every time I go to Mission/Pacific Beach I regret the trashy, seaweed-littered beaches. Why are our beaches so unkempt compared to the impeccably white beaches up north?

Kelp removal is the bone of contention in this matter. Both the county and the state have policies that recognize the importance of kelp to the beach ecosystem, and leave any in place that happens to wash ashore. As the kelp decays, its chemicals are recycled into the food chain; another benefit is the protection the kelp provides grunion eggs, which are cooled and sheltered beneath the mounds of seaweed. -- STRAIGHT FROM THE HIP, Matthew Alice, August 19, 1982

Twenty Years Ago Who doesn't know who Carl Rogers was? He was the father of "humanistic psychology." He was one of the most famous psychologists of this century. He lived in La Jolla for almost two and a half decades, and he was Bill Coulson's hero. Coulson and Rogers founded the Center for Studies of the Person in La Jolla, where Rogers presided as chief eminence until his death just this past February. But something happened to Coulson. One day he began to think Rogers had made terrible mistakes.

Today it has become Coulson's mission to battle those ideas.... A few weeks ago, this crusade took Coulson from his rented house in Linda Vista to Michigan.... Before the committee, he stood up and preached ideas that would have repulsed Rogers. Parents must tell their children what to do, Coulson argued; it's a horrible mistake to tell youngsters they must "make up their own minds." -- "AN ENCOUNTER WITH BILL COULSON," Jeannette De Wyze, August 20, 1987

Fifteen Years Ago After a few blocks, my mental cursor jumped to the next line. Got to be a mistake, I rationalized. After all, I'm neither a faggot nor a junkie...well, at least I hadn't shot any dope in the last 11 or 12 years. I'm an ex-biker with a black belt in tae kwon do; a veteran of shitty little jungle wars from Vietnam to Suriname, with a couple in between; I had even spent a few months searching for the Truth à la Thomas Merton in a Trappist monastery between hitches in the U.S. Army; after killing a street hoodlum who mistook me for a hippie, I managed to graduate cum laude in only eight years from Leavenworth.There had to be a mistake. Some kind of strange bug from a Cajun kitchen...but not AIDS. Not AIDS. -- "THROUGH THE BELLY OF THE BEAST," John Abraham Fultz III, August 20, 1992

Ten Years Ago It was early May, and San Diego City Manager Jack McGrory was worried. He and the city council had put city taxpayers on the hook for guaranteeing the sale of 60,000 seats for each Chargers game, and now he had to deliver. During the bitter fight over the Chargers' contract with the City, McGrory had repeatedly reassured the public that taxpayers would never have to ante up to make good on the guarantee. The tickets, McGrory said, would practically sell themselves. -- CITY LIGHTS: "JACK MCGRORY'S SECRET E-MAIL," Matt Potter, August 14, 1997

Five Years Ago Sometimes I wish I could slice open the skin that covers my knees so I could poke around inside a bit. Without pain, of course. Without spilling any blood. -- "BAD KNEES," Jeannette De Wyze, August 15, 2002