Stories you should not have missed
Valedictorians after 20 years, Chicanas, revenge, how New Yorkers see us, an Elvis sighting in Escondido
Various Authors 8:30 a.m., April 21
Gordon Smith
Smith wrote longer features for the Reader in the late 1970s and the 1980s.
Articles by Gordon Smith
Our House
After the bank called to say that our loan had been approved, I felt strangely depressed
We finally offered to buy a two-bedroom house in Kensington for $133,000, only to be outbid at the last moment by an anonymous real-estate agent (who, we were told, considered the property a bargain).
Inside the Padres' lockers
Tony Gwynn's, Tim Flannery's, John Kruk's, Eric Nolte's, Marvell Wynne's, Goose Gossage's
Tony Gwynn sat in a canvas-backed chair and peered into the wooden cubicle in front of him. “What’s in my locker?” he asked, repeating the question that had been posed to him. “Well, here’s a ...
She Only Smuggled on Sundays
Get a great deal on a hot car at an out-of-the-way auto auction.
In better times they were sleek, gleaming sedans and custom vans, classy date-night transportation, latest models, freeway cruisers with air conditioning, stereo cassette decks, power steering, and power brakes. They made you look and feel ...
The Oak Lady
Eighty-four-year-old Frances Ryan has planted 1,000 Engelmann oak trees in North County.
"It is an Engelmann oak, a species found in the inland valleys of San Diego County. There are stands of the oaks in Riverside County and a few in Los Angeles but none exist farther north.”
Wyatt Earp Was Here
The Lawman's Adventures in San Diego
One night Earp returned to the house on Third Avenue and told Sadie that a man “had sort of donated” a racehorse to him in a poker game. Earp raced it at the old Pacific Beach Racetrack.
The Sheraton Letters
Sideways views of the Intercontinental and Con-Vis Bureau
Everything is pretty quiet down here, until suddenly a siren goes off on one of those little walkie-talkies that Garside has on his belt. It’s a code two, he says, which means someone smells smoke.
San Diego Primeval
When dinosaurs roamed and volcanoes roared
The flexible joints allow a twenty-story skyscraper to sway one or two feet during an earthquake, but ask anyone who was in the Cuyamaca Club on the afternoon of April 8, 1968, how much two feet is.
Notes From a Wagon Seat
Indians, dust, and death along the old Butterfield Overland Stage route
George McCain lives by himself in an old Airstream trailer beneath a eucalyptus tree, about half a mile from S-2, and after leaving Vallecito station Remeika and I drive up and bang on the trailer s door.
Take it to the Hoop
Smokey Gaines slid into a booth in a dimly lit Chinese restaurant one Monday afternoon not long ago, scanned the menu for about five seconds, and then laid it down. The restaurant is one of ...
