Back When

Thirty Years Ago Newcastle disease is not limited to our feathered friends; it affects people too -- at least when the new castles are moderately priced condominiums for sale in Ocean Beach. So it came about that, in the last week of February, 76 people began to line up, on a Wednesday morning, for 56 Sea Colony condominiums not slated to go on sale until eight a.m. the following Saturday. I was ninth in that line. But for chance, I might have been 76th. -- "CONDO MADNESS," Katie Elsbree, May 12, 1977

Twenty-Five Years Ago If Rob Hagey could carry a tune, he would be singing the blues. His San Diego Jazz Festival (formerly called the La Jolla Jazz Festival) has brought the likes of Sun Ra, Dexter Gordon, Old and New Dreams, Chico Freeman, and James Newton to perform since its 1979 debut. Hagey must go head-to-head with national promoter George Wein, who will soon bring his eighth annual Kool Jazz Festival to San Diego. -- CITY LIGHTS: "ALL THIS JAZZ," Paul Krueger, May 13, 1982

Twenty Years Ago I have worked with the California condor for 11 years, in the field, as a keeper at the San Diego Wild Animal Park, and now as curator of birds and supervisor of the Parks California condor breeding program. Even so, I appreciated Neal Matthews's emotional outcry at the April 19 capture of the last wild California condor.... But when Matthews proclaims that it would have been better, symbolically speaking, to have sat back and watched the condor "perish with dignity," I am offended. -- LETTERS: "THE LAST LIVING HOPE," William D. Toone, San Diego Wild Animal Park, May 14, 1987

Fifteen Years Ago Now the saucer-eye orphans have lost their paternity. For more than 30 years, ex-realtor Walter Keane sold himself as the progenitor of the Keane kid. But Walter's ex-wife Margaret has been judged the true and lawful originator of the kitsch creations. Today Walter Keane lives alone in a rented La Jolla cottage, a rheumy-eyed and arthritic 76 years old. He intersperses remembrances of painting with accusations against Margaret.

"I knew all the big shots. Dali, Picasso, they were all my friends." -- "CITIZEN KEANE," Adam Parfrey, May 14, 1992

Ten Years Ago It began the afternoon of April 9, when a lawyer and an accountant were shotgunned to death outside Giuseppis on the corner of Agua Caliente Boulevard and Querétaro. Now one of Mexico's best-known journalists has been accused of murder.The accountant who was gunned down in April, Héctor Navarro Terríquez, had worked for Zeta from 1980 to 1995. His job was to pay Zeta 's U.S. expenses, primarily for the printing of the newspaper at the Daily Californian in El Cajon.

Carlos Estrada Garcia, the slain attorney, was a former friend of [Zeta editor Jesús]Blancornelas and had been associated with him at the old ABC newspaper. Sometime in the summer of 1996, Estrada traveled to Sinaloa and convinced El Gato's mother that she had been cheated when Blancornelas paid her off for her late son's share in Zeta. -- CITY LIGHTS: "NOW WOULD BE A GOOD TIME FOR AN ASSASSIN," Bob Owens, May 8, 1997

Five Years Ago In 1995, Reverend Cass was pastoring Vineyard of East County. At that time, the Toronto Blessing, a sort of Pentecostal revival that had worshippers across North America howling with "holy laughter," was in full swing. Cass says, "At a meeting of Vineyard pastors of North County, I asked when some biblical discipline was going to be brought to those churches participating in the Toronto Blessing. The pastors told me, 'You're obviously not part of our movement. You better take the name Vineyard off your church.' So that's how we started West Hills Christian Fellowship." -- SHEEP AND GOATS, Abe Opincar, May 9, 2002