Stories hidden inside the San Diego Reader

Editor: The following feature stories appeared in the interior pages of the Reader in the 1970s and 1980s and have just been converted to digital form.

Meditations while riding San Diego Transit

“Yes, these people on this bus are alone. Alone as you. Each person is alone, always, no matter how many people they arc with or whom they may love. Each couple is two separate people. Together they may form a third entity, but its existence and character is constantly dependent upon each of the individuals."

By Richard Smith, Jan. 20, 1983 Read full story

The liveliest street in San Diego

“Cooking was Harpo's religion. He was zealous about it, and when customers were in a hurry, he shrugged and gave them directions to Jack-in-the-Box. Harpo was like everyone else on the street. He put people up in his apartment above the store, he fed them, he got them jobs, and he got them out of trouble.”

By Sue Garson, Dec. 22, 1983 Read full story

Minori Tanaka needs two million scallops and about $200,000

in November a Japanese scientist attending an aquaculture symposium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography inspected some of the handful of scallops left from the first batch of shellfish Tanaka imported in May. The scientist told Tanaka that his shellfish were growing at a faster rate than the same scallops in Japan. By then Tanaka’s scallops were about the size of a fried egg

By Kathryn Phillips, March 10, 1983, Read full story

Seaport Village is a Walt-Disney solution

Seaport Village is a controversial subject. No “designer” likes it. No true architect likes it. I don’t know how publicly they say that, but they say it to each other. If you hear one who says he likes it, the other people in the crowd look at him like he has the plague or something.

By Paul Krueger, Aug. 4, 1983 Read full story

Nothing ever makes sense in Brenda Starr

The situation was made even worse when Brenda and Basil had a kid, upon whom they inflicted the nauseating moniker Starr Twinkle. Within weeks after her birth, Starr Twinkle was making ironic asides in the last panel of the Sunday strip, a job that had formerly been the province of the pigeons that roost outside the Flash’s skyscraper.

By Ed Zotti, Sept. 22, 1983 Read full article

The profundity of the Vietnamese poets in San Diego

Nam’s poetry occasionally appears in the fortnightly Tim Tuc, a small Vietnamese newspaper published by a pharmacist in Linda Vista. “The Vietnamese do have a lot of respect for poetry. Being far from their homeland, they like to read things filled with emotion about their country, young people especially. Poetry is a natural disposition to the Vietnamese, something heaven gave them."

By Neal Matthews, Sept. 1, 1983 Read full article