Feature Stories
Sam Zien is a regular guy. He’s a husband, he’s the father of three teenage boys, and he has two dogs, an orange Labrador and a Chinese Crested. He also happens to have both a …
A typical conversation went like this: “Excuse me, do you offer home mortgages?” “Well, yes.” She seems startled. “What sort of customers borrow from your bank?” “People who have no other choice.” On April 25, …
“We never had speed down here,” Verne Dodds remarked. I nodded, agreeing with my former JV basketball coach, going back 40 years and more to our shared town of Imperial Beach. Mostly sons of Navy …
I walked into Body Marks Tattoo and Piercing on El Cajon Boulevard, a few blocks from the 805 and right next to a strip club. At night, hookers are walking the streets. A perfect setting …
It was a little over a year and a half ago. I left my old, faithful, beat-up Karmann Ghia stowed in a garage in La Mesa and left for Antarctica. Why Antarctica? The adventure, I …
A cloud of fog hangs over the mountains as morning begins at the Friends of Cats shelter in Flinn Springs, a small community just west of Alpine. At 7:00 a.m., the day is already underway …
Del Cerro, which is Spanish for “of the hill,” is located just off I-8 at College Avenue. Turn north onto College and there it is, welcoming visitors and residents alike with a small cement sign. …
Bonita lies in the Sweetwater Valley, nestled inside three freeways--I-805 to the west, 54 to the north, and 125 to the east. To the south lies the city of Chula Vista. Small though Bonita may …
My neighborhood is a memory. I’ve been gone so long I can’t remember what’s real and what’s invented. It doesn’t matter much, I’m in a very Forrest Gump state of mind, fighting a war most …
On July15th, 1991, we moved into this house. After the last of the boxes had been delivered, we went to sleep with the windows open to let some air in on what had been one …
The 100-degree days and the half-hour minimum commute to anywhere was beginning to suck the life out of me. I’ve always said, “Life’s too short to be unhappy,” and although I’d never considered selling my …
Sure it was 117 degrees a few days ago and we have to drive more than an hour to buy organic vegetables or underwear. We don’t have a movie theater or a Thai restaurant and …
People here see how it all fits together — earth, sea and sun; spirit touching flesh. Where I grew up, they just hope they can make it through the suffocating summers and the character-testing ferocity …
Eleanor Roosevelt. Betty Crocker. Wyatt Earp. Those are some of the famous names associated with my neighborhood. And then there are the celebrities: Fred Astaire, Gary Cooper, June Allyson, Dick Powell, and John Wayne come …
In my neighborhood, each driveway is pretty much a snapshot of the next on Halloween. Snapping fires rise from washtubs turned firepits or new Target-purchased varieties. Smiling folks in sweatshirts stand or sit around the …
Behind my back garden, my ex-boyfriend with the golden eyes perches like a buzzard in the house my brother-in-law built for him. I avoid my garden, despite the plum tree, the towering aloe, and honeysuckle, …