Thirty Years Ago Art's wife suffered a stroke one afternoon in October. The North County paramedics, dressed in black Can't Bustems and blue work-shirts, did what they could for her. The ambulance came to take her to the hospital, but it was too late. The doctor said he couldn't do anything for her and asked Art to sign a paper saying she could die. So he signed it. What else could he do? -- "WHISKEY AND WATER AND THE 11:00 NEWS," Steve Sorenson, January 27, 1977

Twenty-Five Years Ago Marianne Cheatom, the local restaurateur and music promoter, has moved out of the Adams Avenue Theater, where her reggae concerts brought a touch of the exotic to that Normal Heights facility. "We were just too advanced for San Diego," she says. -- CITY LIGHTS: "A REGGAE SEGUE," Jeannette De Wyze, January 21, 1982

Twenty Years Ago As a former long-term tenant of the Spreckels Building, I feel compelled to set the record straight about Jacquelyn Littlefield, owner of the Spreckels. Littlefield is known for being anything but a victim of downtown redevelopment. She is a shrewd businesswoman who recently received a hefty sum for the land behind the Spreckels, which is now under construction as an Omni Hotel. Littlefield was instrumental in having the Spreckels declared an historical site, but rather than taking pride in that fact, she has been playing the "waiting game" until the building became so deteriorated that the city government would find it necessary to provide funds. Are Mayor O'Connor and Councilman Gotch naive enough to think Littlefield actually is in need of taxpayers' monies to begin renovation? -- LETTERS: "MIRACLE ON BROADWAY?" Cecilia Moreno, January 22, 1987

Fifteen Years Ago About a month and a half after that Homegrown show aired, locals Rocket from the Crypt were packing up their gear after a New Year's Eve set in a mechanic's garage-turned-venue downtown. It had been a strange gig -- the scheduled headliners, Encinitas' internationally recognized neoprimitivist industrial group Crash Worship, had canceled the show a few days before when some of their members got in a car wreck. Then, on the 31st, word of mouth got around that RFTC would headline themselves. By the time they went on, over 300 people had packed into the private space to see the band follow last-minute openers Napo. -- ITEMS: "POPCORE: NEW-NEW WAVE OR ANOTHER CHEAP SNACK?" David Stampone, January 23, 1992

Ten Years Ago Tourists often confuse Hollywood Memorial Park on Santa Monica Boulevard for other "cemeteries to the stars" in town. On any weekday you can see them trudging across Hollywood Memorial's brown lawns, squinting at headstones and frowning. They call to each other, "Where's Marilyn Monroe?" (Westwood Memorial Park) or "Where's Humphrey Bogart?" (Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale) or "Where's Al Jolson?" (Hillside Memorial Park, Culver City). Some older tourists content themselves with Rudolph Valentino's crypt, but younger ones march past the graves of Norma Talmadge and Nelson Eddy without a glance. Many of the celebrities buried here were forgotten a long time ago. -- LOST ANGELENO: "WHO WERE THEY, WHAT DID THEY DO?" Abe Opincar, January 16, 1997

Five Years Ago Blocks away, at the beach, tourists from the East are making a nipple-stiffening point of being photographed in swim gear, surf breaking behind them, the Hotel Del like sonic cinematic matte to stage left. "This was us on CHRISTMAS DAY!" Blocks in another direction, folks from similar reaches are guffawing about what San Diegans call "cold." At one time I was one of them, but I have long since become a thin-blooded weakling who senses the onset of Snow Moon, Wolf Moon, and Hunger Moon with an array of hypochondriacal symptoms that would render Felix Unger absolutely Schwarzenegger-like. -- T.G.I.F.: John Brizzolara, January 17, 2002