"I learned about the Klan by being at a lot of the socials and meetings. But I think that the only thing that I really registered as a kid was the cross lightings."
November 10, 1988
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Stories by Abe Opincar
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Ku Klux Klan 's John Metzger talks of hate and tears
Black scene south of Market Street
Don’t flatter yourself. My life is not an open book. "You don’t learn this from no fuckin’ book. Don’t need no education for it,’’ says Jerome. You don’t. You really don’t. To us, the man …
November 10, 1988
Sorrento Valley Pet Cemetery – this is their park
“The first thing we have here by you at the desk in the pet cemetery office is the box of Kleenex,” says Velma Matthews. “That means, ‘We offer you our sympathy.’ The Kleenex is used …
September 15, 1988
I went to UCSD. I can’t say that being lovely caused me to quit learning, but...
Most of us walk around through our lives with our “selves” glued tight to our skin. No creases. No folds. No spots where it chafes or rubs spots raw to the bone. When we look …
July 7, 1988
My friend who comes alive only at night
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.
June 16, 1988
San Diego State's seventeen fraternities and eleven sororities
There are seventeen fraternities and eleven sororities officially recognized by San Diego State University. Although no “fraternity row” (street along which “houses” can be found) exists as such, most chapters are located within a one-mile radius from campus.
June 2, 1988
Tijuana mi amor: intimate scenes of city love
Zona Norte hasn’t changed. It is still the wild side. Desperate; sure of itself. Dark-skinned guys from the interior still come here for one last sinful evening before crossing to the other side.
February 25, 1988
My psychiatrist is dead; all falls apart
Such are the conceits of first-world living — they follow you. A late-night call from San Diego slips through a satellite onto the shore of a beleaguered nation with the news of my psychiatrist’s death. …
February 4, 1988
The Ecolibrium commune settles in Imperial Beach
Imperial Beach has been a long-time media favorite for contaminated water coverage, but now, ironically, the city has become headquarters for an environmentalist commune that calls itself Ecolibrium. Twenty-five of the group’s forty members (two …
August 15, 1985
Thomas Baumann's Kensington-Talmadge 1910–1985
Joseph Franklin Rutherford, president of the Jehovah’s Witnesses from 1916 to 1940, planned to see Kensington engulfed in flames one day. If his predictions held true, he foresaw himself standing in the third-story watchtower of …
May 16, 1985
Oceanside Blade-Tribune wins suit against city over police documents
Two years ago Oceanside Blade-Tribune publisher Tom Missett filed suit against the City of Oceanside for refusing to release police documents regarding the closed investigation of student/teacher indiscretions at Oceanside High. Superior Court Judge Larry …
January 10, 1985
Rancho Santa Fe parents feel pressure to donate blood
Last week the Parents and Teachers Organization of the Rancho Santa Fe School in Rancho Santa Fe sent out questionnaires to parents of 250 students, asking the parents' blood types and asking if they would …
November 29, 1984