Baja a few decades ago
Glass blowers in Revolucion, Chula Vista dowager in prison, man marries Tijuana prostitute, and the complete history of Caliente racetrack
Various Authors 8:30 a.m., Jan. 20
Education
A dystopia of sorts
San Ysidro - where it's cheaper for kids to live in a motel
Veronica Medina sits in an office overflowing with blankets, shoes, and donated school supplies. A native of San Ysidro, she has a perennial smile and wears pink lipstick that accents her jolly laugh. She doesn’t ...
College is kind of scary to think about
Middle school is not too early to think about it.
Last year, when my 16-year-old was a freshman in high school, we attended his school’s open house. I was interested in meeting his teachers and getting an idea of what his school day was like. ...
San Diego college students
Law students, SDSU frat boys, UCSD’s Marxists, USD students on sex and religion, the UCSD watermelon drop, will SDSU students go to war?
I Don’t Need This Aggregation Reggae (the music played by impoverished Jamaican blacks, often revolutionary in nature) blasts from the back yard of a nearby fraternity party. Young men holler, wiggle their behinds, and wave ...
San Diego characters in education and book publishing
John Theobald of SDSU, Roger Revelle of UCSD, book agent Sandra Dykstra, translator John Woods of Mission Hills, ex-spy D.G. Wills
What Greater Curse Than Life Without Verse Theobald opened a correspondence with Ezra Pound that lasted for years. Throughout this time, the poet was an inmate at St. Elizabeth’s mental hospital in Washington, D.C., having ...
Seagoing action
San Marcos Middle School students head to Birch Aquarium
On a gray day in May, a group of San Marcos Middle School girls and other visitors gathered in the Birch Aquarium galleria to try something that had not been done at the aquarium before: ...
San Diego high schools in the old days
San Dieguito strife, Poway wrestlers, Morse gangs, Helix football, Mission Bay reunion, Waldorf nurturing, Top 10 schools, and unusual homeschoolers
SD’s Top 10 High Schools “I think my eyes were opened freshman year [at Torrey Pines]. People think that when you go here, you’ve got this, like, perfect life made out for you, and, you ...
San Diego Unified accused of ignoring needs of autistic boy
Mother files lawsuit against school district
Parents of an autistic child filed a lawsuit against San Diego Unified School District alleging administrators failed to follow a specialized education plan for their 12-year-old son. According to the lawsuit, filed in federal court ...
When the Loud Bell Rang
22 Reader writers on school
My first day in school was really my second day — Jangchup Phelygal The Radiators That Ticked Heat into the Room — Laura Rhoton McNeal Rear Rank Rudy — Jim Morris Forget-me-nots — Rosa Colwin ...
I Was a Substitute Teacher
Attendance is where their money comes from. Taking roll is what counts.
A bell rings. The big metal door flies open, and hallway sounds of boisterous chitter-chatter rush into the empty classroom like lake water breaching an ill-built dam. Now comes a paddling of young humans, averaging ...
A Transitional Object Was Needed
I ran after my mom and held on.
I never made it to my first day of school. Or rather, I made it there, but I didn't stay. That is, the first day I ever went to school, I was there for all ...
Mean Girls
"Whadda you care what they think?"
'Do you think you're pretty?" A strip of tawny brown hair, chewed at the ends, dawdles by her nose. She stands at the top of the stairs and tilts her head to the side, flipping ...
I Wanted to Crawl into My Mittens
The soft cotton kept me from getting a grip on the slide.
I don't remember much from my childhood. Why this is, I don't know. I was happy; I remember that much. I came from an intact, loving, financially stable home. But when I go poking around ...
A Princess in the Domain of Mrs. Kerschke
I could learn almost anything the schools wanted me to learn.
If there were nursery schools on the northwest side of Chicago in the late 1950s, I knew nothing about them. The other preschoolers on my block and I negotiated our way through those years when ...
"Gin and Juice" until the Sun Come Up
I have to take bonehead English with the kids who can't spell "cat."
Jess's Ford roaring up my driveway woke me up. I looked at the clock, 7:15. I was supposed to be awake at 7:00. I was in the shower when I heard Jess yell from my ...
Forget-me-nots
She turned wary eight-year-olds into colonial settlers.
Upon my return from Boston, where I attend college, and dizzy with the prospects of home, the customary pile of mail one expects after a long sojourn greeted me. Two thin off-white envelopes lay within ...
