John Workman

What the hell was Ron Novosat doing sailing around Mexico eleven months after he was supposed to be dead?

Mystery of the Gypsy Song

His one overriding desire is to find some shred of evidence that the Gypsy Song did in fact sink. “I just want to put that lady’s mind to rest,” he says time and again. “I’d like to find a piece of the mast, a lifejacket, some sign of the dinghy — anything to indicate the boat went down at sea.”

By Stephen Meyer, Aug. 21, 1986 Read full article

The handlebars of Susan's bike became entangled between the trailer ties.

David Diaz

A slow dirge for Steve and Susan

Holmes called the ferry office in Cabo San Lucas to make sure the ferry was on schedule. The ferry was canceled, he learned. They would have to wait a week. They drove south to Cabo Pulmo, a primitive coastal region, sixty miles south of Cabo San Lucas, and the next day they set up camp in a small stone hut at one end of the beach.

By David Steinman, May 8, 1986 Read full article

Instilled in each woman is the belief that she is intransitive, that she cannot affect change or motion in her life, any more than she can resist the social code. To take responsibility for my actions — to say “I did this thing,’’ rather than “It happened to me” — is to breach culture’s dictates.

Dutiful daughter

Countless sexual acts spread over the last ten years, some engaged in with a passion which the resulting conception of a child would have been esteemed by; the child would seem a natural extension of the act. All these acts, in which I indulged on the slightest provocation, and for which I felt so little responsibility, had taken place without consequence.

By Lynn Gygier, April, 6, 1989 Read full article

Chris O'Rourke. He motions for me to touch his head, which I do, gently — three fingertips pressing the lightly yellowed skin above the ear. The skin gives, as though there's nothing behind it but pulp.

Photo by Jim Coit

A bump on the head could kill Chris O'Rourke

One in three persons survives Hodgkin's disease, but O'Rourke's chances appear not to be that good, because his case was discovered in its advanced stages. he's in chemotherapy now. Eradicating growths of cancer required five operations, the last of which took a section of his skull. Hence the hat.

By Joe Applegate Aug. 3, 1978 Read full article

The home of Paul and Jody Wright on Joanna Drive in Encanto was often a gathering spot for kids in the neighborhood.

David Diaz

American Gothic

"She wasn’t crying, but I could tell she was really upset,” Wright recalls. Linda told her mother she had gone to buy some food at Kentucky Fried Chicken and was headed back to the nearby Hitching Post Motel on El Cajon when she saw police officers putting her husband David and his younger brother into the back of a squad car.

By Bruce Gibney, Aug. 5, 1982 Read full article

Dewey Taylor owned a print shop in Sorrento Valley and was well known, or so claimed the other women tellers who worked with Joani at the California First Bank on Tripp Court in the valley.

The final days of Dewey Taylor

The typical Agent Orange story begins with a living Vietnam veteran who suffers from a variety of mysterious symptoms ranging from nervous disorders to liver damage to rashes to reproductive difficulties. Typically, this veteran knows that the government’s use of the defoliant Agent Orange in Vietnam is the source of his problems.

By Neal Matthews, April 16, 1981 Read full article