Help Wanted

Thirty-Five Years Ago
Looking for work in San Diego these days is a full-time job in itself, with all the attendant frustrations. Only the paycheck is lacking.

With the state, you have a big advantage if you’re a veteran, and the longer you’ve been unemployed, the higher your priority. Every morning the new listings go up on a separate board; up until 10:00 a.m., only veterans are supposed to apply for those openings.
— “HELP WANTED,” Anne Hutchison, April 24, 1975

Thirty Years Ago
[Denise] Carabet shrugs away the question of how directly the San Diego Business Journal will compete for the Daily Transcript’s readers and advertisers. “Yes, we’re going to do some of the same stories as the Union and the Transcript. But hopefully, we’re going to do them with a little more depth and expertise.”
— CITY LIGHTS: “THEY MEAN BUSINESS,” Jeannette De Wyze, April 24, 1980

Twenty-Five Years Ago
The second annual Rosarito Spring Festival is under way, and it will assuredly provide both good times for the fun-seeking elite and atonement for me.

Here’s where I publicly wipe the egg from my face. Some of you may recall my earlier palavering about the “wonderfully authentic” and “extravagantly staged” Mardi Gras festival held annually in Ensenada. Well, those who were gullible enough to still believe newspapers print the truth found themselves this year at a second-rate carnival.
— “FESTIVAL DAYS IN SUNNY ROSARITO,” Neal Matthews, April 25, 1985

Twenty Years Ago
The Timken Gallery has assembled an exhibition dedicated to Eastman Johnson’s paintings of the cranberry harvest on the island of Nantucket. There are 14 canvases here, but in a sense there is only one painting, the Timken’s own version of the subject. This large landscape with figures has given pleasure to local art-lovers since its acquisition in 1972 and is even more pleasing since its restoration last year, which freshened the painting’s appearance and removed an obtrusive figure that had presumably been added by another hand.
— “LANDSCAPE WITH FIGURES,” Jonathan Saville, April 26, 1990

Fifteen Years Ago
When it comes to city-finance development in Barrio Logan, the City of San Diego Housing Commission thinks two strikes may be enough. At least that is the call for one of the barrio’s quirkiest historic buildings. Sometime this year, the city council is expected to decide whether to accept a low-ball $30,000 offer for the nearest thing Barrio Logan has to a flat iron building, the triangle-shaped Victorian structure on a postage-stamp-sized lot bounded by National Avenue, 26th Street, and Sicard Street.
— CITY LIGHTS: “JACK’S ISLAND: JEWEL OF THE BARRIO, AND ALMOST AS COSTLY,” Janet Lowe, April 20, 1995

Ten Years Ago
The man who decided to drug-test all the cops in Tijuana is satisfied. Marco Antonio González Arenas says the front-page color photos of police officers lining up at a table loaded with their urine samples are proof that this Tijuana government is cleaning house.

Especially after 97 cops — 8.4 percent of those tested — were found to have either marijuana, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines, or other opiates in their systems on the day of the test.
— CITY LIGHTS: “WE’D LIKE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT OUR POLICEMEN,” Bill Manson, April 20, 2000

Five Years Ago
Dear Mr. Jackson: I would like to start off by saying how sorry I am about your childhood. I saw it all on VH1’s Michael Jackson program, so I am well versed on how the Jehovah’s Witness people are to blame for your erratic behavior. I would also like to say that I don’t believe that at all. I mean, it was on VH1, so that pretty much makes it completely false. Frankly, Mr. Jackson, I don’t know what to think. I know that you had a hard time growing up. However, does a not-that-great childhood justify a bizarre adulthood?
— “DEAR MICHAEL JACKSON,” Anne Baker, April 21, 2005