White Berkeley math major falls for Tecate drug-addict, woman-beater

Sordid Agua Caliente racetrack, parts 1 and 2, glass blower across from jai alai palace, gringo marries TJ prostitute, the Chula Vista woman everyone in La Mesa prison hated

Author

By Jeannette DeWyze, Bob Owens

Publish Date

Sept. 25, 2022

We arrived at Chula Vista's Del Rio Motel by very different routes. (David Diaz)

When opposites attract

In Tecate I cooked over fires, on a camping stove, on a two-burner Mexican propane rig, and with electric “stingers,” as circumstances allowed. I bought cooked food from the other side, we ate from vendors on the street, and we picnicked for weeks at a time. As for water, at Ignacio’s second shack we ran a hose in from a outdoor faucet and stored water in a plastic garbage can. Mostly, though, we carried it in gallon milk jugs from a public faucet somewhere.

By Francesca Da Leo, Feb. 10, 1983 Read full story

Few U.S. bookmakers will accept a bet on any horse running at Caliente. (Jack Yon)

The Arguello heirs vs. the mighty Alessios

On February 1 of this year, federal officials in San Diego struck another deal, this one with the Caliente racetrack, known formally as Hipodromo de Agua Caliente. In exchange for no one laying blame for anything or admitting any sort of liability, the United States returned to Caliente the entire $250,000 in cash and the Monte Carlo automobile in which Spector was arrested. Caliente, in turn, handed over to the U.S. a cashier’s check for $45,000.

The amazing and slightly sordid story of the Agua Caliente racktrack, part 2

Max Paul, owner of Sara International imports, had built his store on Revolucion at Fourth in downtown Tijuana. He had been told that the new owner of the racetrack was seeking a spot downtown to locate Caliente’s off-track betting (the Foreign Book), so he flew to Mexico City to meet with Fernando Gonzalez. “We talked about the lease. He told me that I looked like an honest man and said to me, ‘I’d like to be partners with you in this racetrack. It’s a good business, and we can make a lot of money.’”

By Bob Owens, July 28, 1983 Read full story

"This is a good paying job, and there are very few of us.” (Bob Eckert)

A touch of glass

The red hot material hardens almost instantly. His apprentice grabs the cana and quickly puts everything in the kiln for a few moments, and the intense heat soon brings it back up to the required temperature. While he waits, Rafael catches his breath, mops his brow and smiles: “This is a good paying job, and there are very few of us”.

By Kitty Morse, Oct. 24, 1974 Read full story

The newlyweds honeymooned for a week on Shelter Island. (David Diaz)

How much for the rest of your life?

Six months after going to work as Freddy's bartender she moved into an Infonovit development, a government-built house on a remote hillside project in La Mesa, with her kids and her mother. These “houses” are really a sort of working-class condo, non-detached, the rooms tiny. As in many Tijuana colonias, the water comes on for only a few hours every other day, if at all. But the price is right: no payment at all for some six months, and then the equivalent of about sixteen dollars per month.

By Michael Olson, Oct. 27, 1983 Read full article

Jerry Miller: “People walk past her door and they spit at her.” (Robert Burroughs)

Prisoner Clague

“I’m not going to abandon her completely. I’ll keep my eye on her. But I can’t continue to give her the attention I have been giving her.... I also know that she can get anything she wants or needs with the money she’s got.” At the same time, Miller expressed some concern about Clague’s safety, given her growing unpopularity among the other prisoners. “People walk past her door and they spit at her.”

By Jeannette DeWyze, Nov. 3, 1983 Read full article