Our new garden up on Fire Mountain, in Oceanside, looked like hell I grew up in Southern California suburbia and hated gardening. It was called yard work, which pretty much explains why any kid would …
July 17, 2023
It was a sharp descent off the ridge, over rotten scree, but Schad soon found a sheep trail to the bottom. As he bounded down the canyon side, he shouted back to me Schad’s Rule of Thumb: “I figure I can go anywhere a sheep can go!”
Posted September 28, 2011
Stories this photo appears in:
Thought about Idaho, settled for Oceanside
The Reader’s best stories in fifty years, part 2 of 4,
“Lifestyle and slice-of-life themes, often written in free-form styles that border on the bizarre.” In May of 1989, the Los Angeles Times published a profile of Jim Holman and his newspaper, the 17-year-old San Diego …
October 19, 2022
I hike the San Diego River from its source
River run The river twists and winds even more. I’m trying to go south by heading east, then west. There are places where walking down the river is the only way to go — on …
July 9, 2022
Who still hitchhikes, the California Zephyr, the climb up El Cajon Mountain
There’s Only One Hitch At first I didn’t take him for a hitchhiker, even though he was standing at the on-ramp at Via de la Valle. He had a preoccupied look, as if being without …
March 8, 2021
Best Reader stories from 1987
Explosion! The sighting of San Diego was a welcome event for the crew of the GSS Bennington on a sunny July 19,1905. The patrol gunboat had just completed a rough, seventeen-day journey from Hawaii, and …
December 14, 2019
True adventures of San Diego
Snakebite Bob recalls, “I was getting pretty good mouthfuls of blood for a while, then everything seemed to coagulate.” Less than three minutes had elapsed since the time of the bite. He substituted the waist …
June 16, 2018
San Diego voyages, 1987-1994
Read more voyages in the Reader: bike ride to Milwaukee aborted, hitching with CBers, quest for San Diego River source, Dad and I in La Paz, who rides the Greyhound, scary sail from Newport Beach, …
July 14, 2016
San Diego's he-man Jerry Schad – the rougher it gets, the better he likes it
I made my bed in the lee of a stout little juniper, but Schad, fond of wind and rain and discomfort,made his on the crest. Then we huddled together to cook noodles and tuna, with a Kahlúa chaser.
April 2, 1987