Stories that kicked off a new year

Thirty Years Ago
Dear Matthew Alice:
We were wondering if any photo developers in the San Diego area develop nude photos. We have tried most of the conventional sources (Dean’s, Save-On), but we’ve always had our negatives returned accompanied by a note telling us that they don’t offer such services. On what basis do most developers go by when they do not develop nude pictures and could you tell us who will do it for us?
A.A.R., Pacific Beach

A custom photo laboratory will develop and print pictures of nudes, provided that they are not pornographic, as determined by the laboratory’s management.
— “STRAIGHT FROM THE HIP,” Matthew Alice, January 10, 1980

Twenty-Five Years Ago
From the time the Prophet International Vegetarian Restaurant opened in 1971 until just recently, the East San Diego eatery served as the mainstay of San Diego’s health-food crowd. Vegetarians and health-food aficionados from all over the country came for such unique dishes as African ground nut soup, the “Bangladesh” sandwich (a patty of soybeans, vegetables, and curry served on pita bread), and such nonalcoholic beverages as African ginger beer, gardenia and rose daiquiris, and a wheatgrass mint julep. Celebrities like Dick Gregory and Jane Fonda came by for lunch or dinner whenever they were in town. And by 1981, says owner Makeda Cheatham, business was so good that she started Prophet Productions to produce reggae and African concerts in town.
— CITY LIGHTS: “ONE VEGGIE COMBO TO GO,” Thomas K. Arnold, January 10, 1985

Twenty Years Ago
Please use whatever means possible to persuade Richard Meltzer to write more articles for your paper. Not only is he funny, but cynical without getting nasty like some of your other writers do. His story about Kobey’s Swap Meet Santa-ing was great. What a perceptive guy.

You guys should make sure he doesn’t go write for some other paper. This probably means you’ll have to pay him more money.
— LETTERS: “MELTZERIAN SUPREMACY,” Lisa Anderson, Golden Hill, January 11, 1990

Fifteen Years Ago
I’m the substitute, so I sit at a stranger’s desk beneath a poster that displays a Ferrari in the driveway of a mansion. “The rewards of higher education,” it reads.

A boy named Eric, who was called to the office during the first hour, is working on his test and talking to two girls, so after three warnings, I give him detention.

“You bitch!” he shouts across the room.
— “THE DESIRE TO LEAVE HANGS LIKE HEAT,” Laura McNeal, January 5, 1995

Ten Years Ago
“That’s a set-up question. You’re just asking me that to set me up to make me look like a nincompoop,” pastor Leo Giovenetti said to me last Sunday before a group of eight or nine onlookers at Mission Valley Christian Fellowship.

I’d asked Pastor Giovenetti if he believed in once-saved-always-saved, an innocuous question you might pose to any American Protestant to see where he stood on the Methodist-Presbyterian spectrum But Pastor Giovenetti’s reflexive response was one of suspicion.
— SHEEP AND GOATS, Abe Opincar, January 6, 2000

Five Years Ago
When the Union-Tribune gets that old special-interest bit in its mouth, it seldom lets go. Witness the recent spate of stories the paper has run about how decrepit the once-mighty Qualcomm Stadium has purportedly become. The campaign began on Sunday, December 12, with a 1200-word story under the bylines of Caitlin Rother and Jeff McDonald with the headline “Chargers fans just seething in the rain; Complaints trickle in over slow-draining Q.” The piece described a wheelchair-bound dowager getting wet in her luxury seat and quoted city stadium manager Bill Wilson as saying the venue, which taxpayers spent more than $60 million to expand and remodel in 1997, was already out of date: “It leaks all over.”
— CITY LIGHTS: “STADIUM DRUM BEAT,” Matt Potter, January 6, 2005