From the archives

Waiter at La Jolla's Tapenade, toilet cleaner at Spanky's

San Diego's candy salesman, transient nurse, ups and downs of fishing

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The San Diego fishing industry has relied on one family for over 55 years. The Everingham Brothers Bait Company has three bait barges: one in Mission Bay, one in San Diego Bay, and one up in Dana Point. (Alan Decker)

  • Tools of the Trade

  • Have your friends and neighbors looked weighed down, put upon, or bent low to the ground lately? Perhaps they are! After all, many of the people we see around us tote a good deal of gear around with them: Chainsaws and helmets, toolbelts and chests, clown shoes and rubber noses. These are just some of the implements people use to earn their daily bread.
  • By Geoff Bouvier, Sept. 1, 2005
Michael Early: "My tool belt — construction workers call them "bags" — are usually set up beforehand."

  • Heartbreak? That's Fishing. Frustration? That's Fishing. The Good Life? That's Fishing.

  • Cast, in order of appearance:
  • Chorus, infrequent fisher and loather of boat travel
  • Bill Poole, 85, local fishing legend, past part-owner of Poole-Chaffee Boatyard
  • Buck Everingham, 51, heir and part-owner of Everingham Brothers Bait Company
  • Frank LoPreste, 63, local fishing legend, owner of five boats, two gas docks, and three landings
  • By Geoff Bouvier, Nov. 30, 2006
Fishermen disembarking the Dolphin. "The biggest, nicest half-day boats on the West Coast are these Poole Hulls from the '80s." (Alan Decker)

  • Dirty Jobs

  • At 6 a.m., Ramon Salazar is readying to leave the vehicle yard of Spanky's Portable Services in Escondido. It's Monday, and Mondays are rough. "Man, I needed an hour more sleep." He yawns. He climbs the two serrated step boards to the cab of his big white pumper truck.
  • By Thomas Larson, April 27, 2006
Ramon Salazar on portable toilet duty: "I don't want it to get on my arms. They gave us long plastic gloves," clearing the elbows, "but they're too hot." (Derek Plank)

  • Candy Man

  • "I was crossing the street in my old hometown of Fairport, New York, to get some candy," Stephen Traino admits, "and the next thing I knew, this car almost hit me because I wasn't even looking where I was going. That would be the only reason I was in that part of town. Just to get candy."
  • By Geoff Bouvier, Dec. 16, 2004
Down in National City, in a corporate subdivision on the concrete banks of the aptly named Sweetwater River, Candy Direct operates out of a nondescript storefront. (Derek Plank)

  • Service Personality

  • Dinner at Tapenade Restaurant is a memorable experience. The cordial ambience, the feel of that which is unmistakably French, and service like a brilliantly engineered heist: the help comes and takes you from your worries, replacing daily stress with gustatory delights. And what delights!
  • By Geoff Bouvier, March 11, 2004
Peter Jargowsky, George’s at the Cove: "You have to create yourself, you have to create your service personality, every night." (Joe Klein)

  • Nurses on the Run

  • When Mariette Parsons, RN, tells her patients she's a traveler, she says they often look puzzled. "They're, like, 'You work for a travel agency or something?'" Parsons explains that travel nurses fill assignments all over the United States.
  • By Jeannette DeWyze, Oct. 13, 2005
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In California, San Diego nursing jobs pay the lowest - from $24 to $30 an hour. (Martha Rich)
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