Free travel makes Davis smile.

Bells of the beach

I have been going to La Jolla Shores for over 50 years. This year the city of SD has allowed street vendors with carts to sell pork rinds and Mexican ice cream on the sand (“First the swap meet, now the Oceanside Marketplace to close,” Neighborhood News, September 13). Now there are four Hispanic vendors rolling carts up and down the beach every day engaged in this cash-only business on public property. Each vendor has four cow bell’s attached to his cart to attract kids/customers to his cart. Is La Jolla Shores an underwater park, an oasis in the city of sd where people can enjoy nature, waves, ocean? There are signs when you walk up to the beach No Loud Music and other things you shouldn’t do at the beach. I think the should add: no bells! This noise from the vendors bells should be outlawed! They are ruining my beach experience. It reminds me of tawdry Third-world countries where beach goers are constantly harassed to buy things. Get it together, San Diego and get this nuisance off the public beach!

• Name withheld

Shop at Marketplace. “There’s a lot of good people here who are just barely getting by.”

Different drummer

This is very minor, the only kind of thing I comment on (“Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice,” Movie Reviews): In the Stone Ponies (sic) song, you don’t “pull in the reigns”; you “pull in the reins”: those leather straps for controlling a horse, don’t you know, not the period a king spends on the throne. As I said, no big thing.

• Don Ridgway
• El Cajon

Broke, unmarried, and car sleeping

I listened to Trump talk about the homeless problem, and as usual he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I volunteer for one of the organizations that works with the homeless here (“Homeless weigh heavy, even in Ocean Beach,” Neighborhood News, August 12). When many of us think of the homeless we think of those we see sleeping on the sidewalk or in doorways in downtown, Hillcrest, North Park, and Mission Valley. Some of these people have drug or alcohol addiction. Some of them have mental illness. But those sleeping out in the open also include families, the handicapped, and those down on their luck.

And I don’t think anyone realizes how many people here are living in RVs, vans, minivans, and cars. The lucky ones are able to sleep in one of the Safe Parking lots at night. There are hundreds of single women living in cars, divorced women with kids, and senior citizens. There is one 84-year-old woman who is forced to sleep in her car. Many have jobs, but can no longer afford rent. Some were born in San Diego or have lived here over 25 years. As businesses have cut back benefits, some individuals have to pay $700 a month for health insurance, or live just on Social Security benefits. Some are not getting child support. Some of these people in vehicles are college grads; a few have master’s degrees. Until recently they were normal middle class people. Our mayors and governors have waited too long to try to correct this problem. We’ve had outbreaks of disease here. This is a true epidemic.

• Nancy Davis
• Del Cerro

Discarded needles, human feces, homeless camp, graffiti, all along the seawall

Questions for Congress

As for charity-sponsored trips (“Can Susan Davis adjust to funding her own travel?” City Lights, September 25), 1.) The tax-deductibility of the support the sponsors of her trips receive from contributors makes it partially tax-supported junkets! 2.) I believe the paid expenses for her spouse is taxable income to the spouse, 3.) How many of these junkets could have been made domestically, to the same effect in terms of useable insight? Just askin’.

• Saul Harmon Gritz
• Hillcrest

Whistling at the queen

I have read that the four blasts of the whistle, two long, one short, one long, derives from an old English tradition for the arrival of the the queen (“When a train approaches, why does the engineer always blow his horn in a particular way, with two long blasts, a short, then a final long?” Straight from the Hip, June 25, 1998). “Here comes the queen” two longs one short one long. “Q” in Morse.

• Harald Aukland
• Deer Park
• New York