Photo by Craig Carlson

3363 Thirtieth Street, San Diego. Most people in a bungalow court don’t use the courtyard, except as a buffer for privacy.

What on Earth am I Settling For?

I let the front yard go and worked on building a fence in back. I got so angry digging postholes in the rain one afternoon that I had to lie down for a minute under the eave of the garage (rain falling in a puddle at my ear) because I’d started to feel lightheaded. The rain made the grass in the backyard sprout. Jane was astonished because she thought it was dead, but it didn’t surprise me a bit.

By Joe Applegate, Dec. 2, 1982 | Read full article

I have broken the driver’s seats of a Datsun and a Volare just by sitting in them.

David Covey

So, What Are You Looking At?

About ten years ago, I went on a strict low-carbohydrate diet in an attempt to shrink to fit society. I ate some of the most unhealthy food imaginable to lose weight — all meats and hard cheeses. No bread. No vegetables. No starches. I lost fifty-six pounds in three months, and I was miserable. I was miserable because life had become unenjoyable. Each day was a struggle, another day of denial. I drank water and black coffee.

By Bob McPhail, Apr. 9, 1987 | Read full article

A Lladro Christmas ornament, fashioned in a blue-and-white Wedgewood design, that he’d given his girlfriend. “It’s real nice It has the baby Jesus on it and everything. But my girlfriend’s Jewish. I mean, I didn’t know she wouldn’t want an ornament with Jesus on it or anything."

The Day after Christmas at Horton Plaza

“It was like a little lady’s purse. It had a shoulder strap and was shaped like a rectangle, but it had this great big flap over it so it was very awkward to reach into it I hated it She, my ex-husband’s wife, said she was giving it to me because I always carry an ugly purse. I was really insulted. We’ve been divorced for 13 years, their father and I.”

By Judith Moore and Abe Opincar, Jan. 26, 1989 | Read full article

“My dad keeps saying he’ll take me to the beach on weekends, but he is usually working.”

Randy Hoffman

The Mall Boys

Matt and David are waiting for a bus on Fletcher Parkway. 5:00 p.m. Matt’s face is sweaty, smudged with pizza, dirt from his fingers, and what looks like chocolate. He leans back onto the bus stop bench, his skateboard held to his chest like a pet. His eyes are lidded, heavy. David leans forward off the bench, tosses baseball cards into his Cubs hat three feet away. “Pretty woman ... ” he sings softly to himself.

By John Brizzolara, Aug. 8, 1990 | Read full article

He had hoped for a while that he would turn out like Wallace Stevens, plodding to the office every day, turning down the rides that neighbors in station wagons offered.

Russel Redmond

Houses and Homes

He was on the verge of asking her to marry him, because she loved him more than anyone. He'd admitted that he was hooked on her loving, and then had extended the metaphor to where he was “flopping on the deck." His taking her home for Thanksgiving was tantamount to a proposal, in his eyes anyway, because this was his family's most important holiday, at which he had never appeared with anyone so portentous as a girlfriend.

By Joe Applegate, Dec. 18, 1980 | Read full article

The apartments were located on Stanley Avenue, one street removed from and parallel to El Cajon Boulevard, between the Campus Drive-In and the Sixty-third Street shopping center, well within walking distance of San Diego State.

Mark Zingarelli

One Man's Ceiling is Another Man's Floor

He landed a job working as a bartender’s assistant at the Hotel del Coronado. Initially, he rode the bus over to the island but after a couple of paychecks he bought a motorcycle from someone at work. He broke his arm trying to ride the thing down the cement steps leading from Ocean Boulevard to the Coronado beach, and later got knocked off it by a woman behind him, while waiting for a light to change.

By Ron Jennings, July 30, 1981 | Read full article

3309 Thirtieth Street, San Diego. The typical court consists of eight to twelve dwellings set in a U-shape about the perimeter of a rectangular lot.

Craig Carlson

Life in the Courts

Most people in a bungalow court don’t use the courtyard, except as a buffer for privacy, so the designer would seem to have more range in thinking of buffers, and here I think Quigley has had real success. At 1788 Missouri Street in Pacific Beach he designed a two-building, four-unit condominium with a V-shaped yard in the middle. But instead of grass, the yard is all lilies, and has a narrow boardwalk down the center.

By Joe Applegate, Nov. 24, 1982 | Read full article