Back When Point Loma Was Lomaland

Thirty Years Ago
The cypress trees remain. So do the eucalyptus, pine, and groves of pepper trees. They are memorials to people who turned a dusty, chaparral-covered section of Point Loma into a utopian wonderland. Of the fantastic architecture, the eccentric, ornate residences and glass-domed structures which crowned the peninsula, only a few examples can be seen today.

This is a brief historical account of that social experiment, of Lomaland, which blossomed in San Diego at the turn of the century.
— “THE LITTLE WORLD THAT ALMOST WAS,” Merton Gaudette, April 20, 1978

Twenty-Five Years Ago
Attention Jerry Herrera. The following local new-wave bands have decided to boycott your Morena nightclub, the Spirit: the Penetrators, the Rockin’ Roulettes, the Joyce Rooks Band, Jerry Raney and the Shames, and Country Dick and the Snugglebunnies. Reasons for the boycott: your policy of only paying the bands what comes in from the door charge instead of giving them an additional percentage of the bar revenues.
— CITY LIGHTS: “MUSICIAN DRAWS BLOOD AT SPIRIT,” Thomas K. Arnold, April 21, 1983

Twenty Years Ago
It’s been almost a year since Barbara Goldstein, an elementary school teacher who lives in Rancho Santa Fe, allegedly poisoned two dogs in her neighborhood. On June 13, a jury will begin hearing the district attorney contend that coincidence doesn’t allow two dogs to die of strychnine poisoning on the same night they rough up a neighbor’s pet rabbit.
— CITY LIGHTS: “WAG NO TALES,” Brae Canlen, April 21, 1988

Fifteen Years Ago
Take a drive along the Silver Strand area of beach south of Coronado on the 75, down toward Imperial Beach, and you come across an oasis of West Indian architectural chic named the Coronado Cays… When you turn off from the road, past the uniformed fellow in his guardhouse and through one of the several side gates, you have the impression of being in a suburban stretch of England’s Upper Thames or a yachting community in Bermuda.…
— ARCHITECTURE: “NO AMOUNT OF PITH-HELMETED COLONIALS CAN PROTECT YOU FROM CHAOS,” Lawrence Osborne, April 21, 1993

Ten Years Ago
How could the wife of a drug money launderer be elected to San Diego’s highest local office? It’s a good question, and the answer confirms the campaign consultant’s first maxim: Nothing is fatal in politics.

By the time the mayor’s race rolled around, the Golding Rehabilitation was under way. She had stuck by her man during Silberman’s trial and professed his innocence almost as much as her own. But when they put Dick in the slammer, Golding began to distance herself from him. The political spin was simple: Golding was an innocent woman who had been deceived by her no-good, lying, cheating husband.

Of course, to anyone who knew Golding well, it was a stretch to believe she had no knowledge of her hubby’s activities.
— SAN DIEGO CONFIDENTIAL, Peter Navarro, April 23, 1998

Five Years Ago
So it is I find myself passing a Friday night waiting to be cut open again, with some books I’d left at my girlfriend’s house and her back issues of the New Yorker. It didn’t take long to get through the cartoons and turn to the three books at hand: Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood, a remarkable memoir by Eric Burdon with the help of Marshall Craig; Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs (with an introduction by Gore Vidal); and The Classic Philip José Farmer: 1964-1973.

I was interrupted in the middle of Gore Vidal’s introduction by the arrival of Father Phil, an African Catholic priest from Chad and my new diabetic roommate. Having a priest as a roommate while in the hospital for heart disease has got to be one of the few experiences in life that is both alarming and reassuring at the same time.
— T.G.I.F., John Brizzolara, April 17, 2003