Photo by Joe Klein

Stan Humphries. "Like no other injury man has experienced, it changes the essence of who you are. You've lived with yourself for 30 years, and that changes in an instant."

Orrick, one of founding members of the Baltimore City Paper, visited San Diego in the latter 1990s to write feature stories.

Excerpts from stories Orrick wrote for the Reader:

• San Diego's least-remembered great man – U.S. Grant Jr.

• Buck Grant was a man of substantial means in 1893 (thanks, in large part, to that $1 million dowry from his senator father-in-law). He bought a 25-room mansion at Eighth Avenue and Ash Street. (July 2, 1998)

Buck Grant (U.S. Grant Jr.). When Buck arrived in San Diego in 1893, George W. Marston, the department store magnate who would carry Buck’s coffin 36 years later, had been in business 15 years.

• Jeff's docs at Camp Pendleton find he's better without his epilepsy meds

• 'September 12 of 1993, when I collapsed at the bowling alley, the Vista Entertainment Center, that was the starting point," Jeff Olsen says. What started on that day was a new life for Olsen, who ... (February 26, 1998)

• That special glow

• The Navy's massive nuclear homeport project on North Island has come down to two state hazardous-waste permits that are pending before the California Department of Toxic Substances Control. One permit was set to go into effect two weeks ago but has been appealed. The other should be drafted in a matter of months. (Jan. 15, 1998)

• Misty of Chincoteague author ends up in Rancho Santa Fe

• When Marguerite Henry died last month at the age of 95, a relationship that began for me more than 35 years ago came to a premature end. Henry and I met for the first and last time in the fall of 1995 at her home in Rancho Santa Fe. (Dec. 18, 1997)

• James Meredith's school lands in San Diego

• Rosalie Martin knows the vicissitudes of raising black boys, having seen two sons through college and graduate school and into corporate careers and now with a grandson in her care. So when her old friend James Meredith, the man who integrated the University of Mississippi at Oxford in 1962, told Martin about his plans for a school tailored specifically for black boys and men, the Golden Triangle financial seminar coordinator signed on. (Dec. 11, 1997)

• La Jolla's Diversa gets to mine Yellowstone

• When Diversa Corporation, a biotech company based in La Jolla, signed the first commercial prospecting agreement in a national park four months ago, Vice President Al Gore applauded it as a landmark alliance between the private and public sectors. (Dec. 4, 1997)

• Sex-club operator Thad Poppell comes out swinging

• Like most politicians, Eighth District City Councilman Juan Vargas hungers for publicity, but Vargas may regret one occasion when the press gave him the attention he asked for. (Nov. 20, 1997)

• What happened to Stan Humphries' brain?

• In the days after Chargers quarterback Stan Humphries received his latest concussion, the team reassured the public that Humphries was consulting neurologists and that a CT-scan and an MRI showed no problems. (Nov. 13, 1997)

• "El Nino is supposed to diminish the trade winds"

• It takes a lot of work to drop out of the rat race if the escape route entails crossing 3000-plus miles of Pacific Ocean. Justask Ellie Goolkasian and David Hudson, most recently of Oceanside. Three years ago, Goolkasian, a 44-year-old registered nurse, and Hudson, a 42-year-old aerospace programmer, started to lay their plans. (Oct. 30, 1997)
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