San Diego Sandanista

Thirty Years Ago
Late last April John Holtz brought home to San Diego four bullet holes in the trunk of his Renault station wagon. “I was an American driving a car with Venezuela plates, and a known sympathizer of the Sandanistas,” said Holtz, recalling the shoot-out at the Nicaragua-Honduras border. “Not only that, I was bringing information across the border.”
— CITY LIGHTS: “SAN DIEGO SANDANISTA,” Dan Trigoboff, August 23, 1979

Twenty-Five Years Ago
When the KGB Chicken (a.k.a. Ted Giannoulas) finally left radio station KGB in 1979, he made his debut as the San Diego Chicken during a Padres ball game. Since then, he’s toured with the team on their jet, and for the last three baseball seasons has been hired by the Padres to appear at a minimum of 15 home games each year. But weeks after the Chicken celebrated his tenth birthday, the Padres management ordered the bird off the field during ball games.
— CITY LIGHTS: “THE CHICKEN OR THE PENNANT?” August 23, 1984

Twenty Years Ago
So pleasantly are the 19th-century drawing rooms of Jane Austen’s novels furnished, we jump as if shot when next to us the telephone rings and do not want to answer it. Robert Stone’s Dog Soldiers or A Flag for Sunrise can do the opposite: take us as a thug, a hold-up artist might, up against the wall. Shaken, we try to resist, to keep our hand on the tea cup, and we half hope the telephone will ring.
— “BETWEEN BOOK AND READER,” Judith Moore, August 24, 1989

Fifteen Years Ago
I’d like to suggest a few ideas for San Diego–centric programs that I’d personally like to see: Roger Hedgecock: Tomorrow Belongs to Me: Conceived as a four-part series on “self-esteem for white people,” Tomorrow Belongs to Me allows former mayor Hedgecock to explore the many contributions white people have made to our society, such as the polka and the extremely popular snack product called Triscuits.

Helen Can Cook: In a characteristically grand gesture, newspaper magnate Helen Copley underwrites and stars in this monthlong series on “budget smart” cooking.
— AS SEEN ON TV: “SAN DIEGO-CENTRIC,” Abe Opincar, August 18, 1994

Ten Years Ago
This is in reference to your article last week titled “Don’t Try to Run” (“Sightseer,” August 5). Please tell me, this Justin Wolff kid, what is his background? It sounds as though he knows a whole bunch of nothing about sniping, and I bet he has never served his country in any capacity. He makes your left-wing San Diego Reader sound even more so than I ever thought possible.
— LETTERS: “YOUR LEFT-WING READER,” Alan J. Taylor, Carlsbad, August 19, 1999

Gadzooks! Gosh darn it! And other exclamations of dismay! In his August 5 “Sightseer” column on a sniper website, Justin Wolff has let the cat out of the bag! Indeed, snipers and gunners in general are evil, mean people.

He also refers to gun shows as the “last refuge for the overarmed.” Just what constitutes being “overarmed”? Having more than one gun? More than three? More than seven? Or ten? Never mind, I don’t want to know. Say, why do golfers need all those clubs? Why would they want to own more than one?
— LETTERS: “WHY WOULD WE BE PARANOID?” Steven Moscha, August 19, 1999

Five Years Ago
Get some! is the unofficial Marine Corps cheer. It’s shouted when a brother Marine is struggling to beat his personal best in a fitness run. It’s the cry of exhilaration after firing a burst from a .50-caliber machine gun. Get some! expresses, in two simple words, the feelings of power and the erotic-tinged thrill that come from confronting death, which is what war is all about. Nearly every Marine I’ve met is hoping this war with Iraq will be his chance to get some.
— CITY LIGHTS: “GET SOME,” Evan Wright, August 19, 2004