Feature Stories
At home my friend played flamenco guitar, a skill he had taught himself. Outside the apartment complex, Rome burned. I couldn’t tell him that. I mustn’t in any way intimate that the out-of-doors was a vexing place.
Silence is the necessary time for renewal. The finale of a great symphony is followed by the resplendent moment just before the applause, when the entire work resounds like a golden coin dropped into a …
There was one new mark off the ocean side of Silver Strand, which Tex had told them was a big, bad one. Gowdy made a dip on it, came up, and yelled, "Jesus, Frank, it's a submarine!
San Diego’s tuna fleet then numbered 200 and accounted for eighty percent of the world’s catch. Nearly half the vessels were owned by Portuguese dynasties that had been living in Point Loma for several generations.
By the time the defense rested its case on February 8, the mood in the hallway had become more intimate. People exchanged business cards and passed out breath mints, and raffle tickets were sold for the Cara Knott Foundation
Of the more than 110 missions Thomas George Lanphier Jr. flew during World War II, a single one ensured his place In history. On April 18, 1943, over the Solomon Islands In the South Pacific, …
Before the cashier would give him his money, she put a drop of indelible ink on one of his fingernails, to make sure he wouldn't be back later in the day trying to donate under a different name.
Fifteen years are a lot — particularly in Southern California, where already you are apt to see businesses hanging out signs to boast of having been established in 1982 or a tradition since 1977. There …
I moved to the Bay Area from El Cajon and the fifteen- or twenty-page letters we used to exchange dwindled down to a precious few and the next thing I know you had quit Creem.
Rumor will have it that I am at work on a novel set in the town. It will be said, “She has been a cross, God knows.” “He has not, you know, worn himself out, carrying it.”
Firefighters in this city have a 100% injury rate. That means everyone gets hurt sometime. Their profession is more dangerous than coal mining, which is more dangerous than being a cop. Maybe this is part of the appeal.
In May of 1986, Clint Cary, the Spaceman of Ocean Beach, was convalescing in a South Bay nursing home. It looked like curtains for him, after the sight in his one remaining eye was destroyed …
Cops talk in terms of penal codes, radio codes, and street slang. Every cop in this city knows what his colleague means when he starts out a story with, “I stopped this real dirtbag the other night...”
When Sunday school was over, I said, to no one in particular, “I have to go downstairs to church to meet my parents.” It wasn’t true. It just felt good to say it. I like …
He had the eager devotion to San Diego of Pete Wilson, the unswerving optimism of Mike Gotch, and the bounce-back ability of Roger Hedgecock. He was possessed of such energy that his chroniclers wondered when he slept.
Hey, Foxy Jaws, where’s a flop stop? We be makin’ three tracks in the sand an' we gotta get offa the licorice stick.” When a dozen CBers tell Daddy Longlegs where to park, No Show’s …