Found in the Shuffle

Thirty-Five Years Ago

If you drive south on Highway 5 and take the Pershing Drive off-ramp down to 26th Street, you will wind up on a narrow road through green hills and cool groves of trees, past a park where you will see children of different races playing together. Beyond this park is a business district inscribed with Spanish graffiti and mixed with gingerbread mansions and little California houses from the early part of the century. It is as if someone threw Mission Hills and Logan Heights into a bag and shook it.

— “GOLD IN THEM HILLS,” Richard Louv, July 8, 1976

Thirty Years Ago

At a table on the seafood deck of the Reuben E. Lee restaurant, he puts his card deck on the table and begins his intimate show as the riverboat gambler by telling me to pick a number between one and fifty-two. “Thirty-six,” I say.

He automatically lifts half the cards from the deck. “No, that feels like thirty-seven.” He puts one back. “There, count ’em,” he says, handing them back to me. I count them out — thirty-six. All I can do is laugh.

— “FOUND IN THE SHUFFLE,” Russ Lewis, July 9, 1981

Twenty-Five Years Ago

The latest travel advisory for Tijuana: don’t forget to bring toothpaste. A worsening shortage has caused most Colgate, Crest, and all other brands of pasta dental to vanish from Mexican shelves.

Shortages of various goods have become a way of life for Tijuana residents in recent years.... But the toothpaste shortage grew acute about six months ago, Tijuana grocers say. It was then that the Mexican secretary of commerce and industrial promotion in effect began ordering Mexican toothpaste to be sold at cost.

— CITY LIGHTS: “TIJUANA TUBES,” Jeannette De Wyze, July 10, 1986

Twenty Years Ago

Why don’t you have a cheesy picture of yourself next to your column like other top journalists?

• John Olsen
• La Jolla

Carrying on such a time-honored custom requires careful selection of just the right photograph. As soon as I find one that conveys the traditional image of a doughy dweeb with a bad haircut who’s probably a bore at parties, I’ll be glad to run it.

— STRAIGHT FROM THE HIP, Matthew Alice, July 11, 1991

Fifteen Years Ago

[The U-T] somehow failed to report last week’s grand jury criticism of a Golding-approved, city-run “landscape maintenance district” along Washington Street in Mission Hills. Neighbors complained the city railroaded the project so it could raise fees. After investigating, the jury reported that it was “concerned that the annual cost of administering an $8000 landscape maintenance contract is almost $17,000.” Cynics claim the U-T has a blackout on negative Golding stories until after the [Republican National] convention.

— CITY LIGHTS: “MAINTAINING SILENCE,” Matt Potter, July 11, 1996

Ten Years Ago

When the chamber of commerce published a brochure entitled San Diego: 503 Things to See in 1930, its suggestions included activities still touted by guidebooks today: touring the bay on one of the daily harbor excursion boats (cost then: $1), visiting the Junípero Serra (“Hoo-nee-pair-oh Say-rah”) Museum, boarding the Star of India (“now the property of the Zoological Society and...being preserved to house a Marine Museum”), venturing down to Tijuana (“‘Tee-hwah-nah’ — A blending of the quaint and the modern.... Visitors welcome and treated with courtesy.... Border opens at 6 a.m. and closes at 6 p.m.”)

— “HOW GUIDEBOOKS SEE US,” Jeannette De Wyze, July 5, 2001

Five Years Ago

The seven sisters were the first nuns in San Diego. During their stay, they met Father Antonio Ubach — whose parish,” he said, ranged “from 16th Street to the Colorado River.” Impressed by their courage, Ubach told the women to forget Tucson: begin a school in Old Town. Later, he traveled to Carondelet and begged for teachers. But the Reverend Mother said San Diego was too distant. In 1882, four Sisters of St. Joseph came west and founded the Academy of Our Lady of Peace. And in 1887, Ubach got his wish: Sisters of Carondelet established St. Anthony’s Indian School in Old Town.

— UNFORGETTABLE: “THE SEVEN SISTERS,” Jeff Smith, July 6, 2006