Check casher, Turkish rug dealer, comedian, police dog handler, private investigator, bullfight surgeon

The Laurence Olivier of Market Street

“What’s the meaning of this outrage?’’ The mink lady’s indignant question was straight out of a Marx Brothers movie. Margaret Dumont couldn't have done it better. "Get your hands off me!’’ she said to the officer who was patting down her mink as if he were beating a carpet. When he stuck his hand in her pocket, she pivoted, bringing her left arm down in a home-run swing.

By J. Stephen Culbertson, Dec. 15, 1983 Read full article

Millions of tiny knots

One day in early February Carstensen took me into the back room of his store, past all the marvelous Turkish rugs in the showroom that have such a deep aroma. He showed me a frock he wove in 1976 when he was a twenty-seven-year-old cultural studies student at Emerson College, in Sussex, England.

By David Steinman, May 5, 1983 Read full article

How San Diego's comics and the Comedy Store co-exist

Nearly all of the performers needed practice — some fumbled their lines, some had to refer to notes when they forgot material, others spoke too loudly into the microphone. The customers were restless, and not above hurling insults such as “Nerd!” and “You’re a fag!” and, worst of all, greeting jokes with strained silence.

By Gordon Smith, July 7, 1983 Read full article

Oceanside police use tougher dogs

Lang ordered the man to halt and drop the gun. He kept coming. So the officer set the dog on the man. When Fritz jumped him, the gun went flying away and the man went down. The suspect repeatedly kicked the dog in the stomach with his heavy boots until the officer pulled him away and handcuffed him. Lang told his sergeant that if it weren't for Fritz, he would have had to shoot the man.

By Neal Matthews, Aug. 4, 1983 Read full article

Jack Divine – Baja private investigator

In recent years the number of stolen planes found in Mexico has dwindled, but there are still enough of them to keep an enterprising investigator busy. Divine, who keeps his own Cessna at Tijuana International Airport, can fly anywhere in Mexico in a few hours. On one of his many trips he might notice an abandoned or suspicious-looking plane standing, say, in a corn field or behind a hangar at an airstrip.

By Gordon Smith, March 31, 1983 Read full article

Tijuana's premiere bullfight surgeon

Rodriguez says untrained surgeons often have no idea how many separate trajectories can be created in the instant or two in which the goring takes place. For the victim to recover, each trajectory must be fully explored and cleaned, the broken blood vessels mended, and drainage tubes inserted to clear the infection.

By Jeannette DeWyze, July 30, 1987 Read full article