An August Sunday afternoon, lemonade weather. Leaves drooped on Balboa Park's giant eucalyptus. The Home States picnic, an annual event of America's Finest City Week, sponsored by the San Diego Junior Chamber of Commerce, drew …

The ripe round red tomato sitting on the kitchen table is alive and busy. While we are asking, “How shall I eat it?” the tomato is huffing and puffing, sending signals throughout its meat and …

STEPHEN ESMEDINAStephen EsmedinaA number of years ago, I was persuaded by a guileful siren with designs on the music biz to share my lowly downtown apartment for “a couple of days” with the great but …

The Reader has started this series of its best stories from the past 52 years — 2600 cover stories and some remarkable interior features — to help make up for the loss of its physical …

The Reader has started this series of its best stories from the past 52 years — 2600 cover stories and some remarkable interior features — to help make up for the loss of its physical …

The Reader has started this series of its best stories from the past 52 years — 2600 cover stories and some remarkable interior features — to help make up for the loss of its physical …

The Reader has started this series of its best stories from the past 52 years — 2600 cover stories and some remarkable interior features — to help make up for the loss of its physical …

The Reader has started this series of its best stories from the past 52 years — 2600 cover stories and some remarkable interior features — to help make up for the loss of its physical …

God’s Country RememberedMy wife and I are driving up El Cajon Boulevard. It hasn’t changed much, not really. Businesses come and go (there wasn’t anything remotely like the Hung Vuong Pho restaurant back then), but …

The Reader has started this series of its best stories from the past 52 years — 2600 cover stories and some remarkable interior features — to help make up for the loss of its physical …

The Reader has started this series of its best stories from the past 52 years — 2600 cover stories and some remarkable interior features — to help make up for the loss of its physical …

Judith Moore spent ten years digging up information about the mafia in San Diego. Finally she had a break when Mary Ann, the daughter of Frank Bompensiero, agreed to spend time with her telling her …

The Reader has started this series of its best stories from the past 52 years — 2600 cover stories and some remarkable interior features — to help make up for the loss of its physical …

Judith Moore came to the <em>Reader</em> in 1982. Moore, awarded two NEA Fellowships for literature and a Guggenheim Fellowship, wrote feature stories for the paper until she died in 2006.From 1986 onward she served as features editor …

This week, the Reader is dipping back into its archives for a few cop stories — that is, stories told by cops. First up is a slightly abridged version of Judith Moore's interview about old-style …

Dec. 6, 2001A CONVERSATION WITH THE AUTHOR: On the Monday morning that Mr. Naipaul and I began our conversation, he was in a Chicago hotel room. By that morning he had been in the United …

A whole different story if I'd been white Golden Age Garden Apartments (740 South 36th Street), built in 1983, has 76 apartments on its four floors. Requirements for obtaining an apartment here are that one …

How Do You Keep Warm at Night? If you think of the homeless at all — aside from how to avoid them or that daily mini-moral crisis as to whether to give them spare change …

Homeless plans for Thanksgiving On a warm autumn afternoon, a homeless man lies against a wall on First Avenue just south of Ash Street. He's sharing a bottle of cheap vodka with an older homeless …

What distinguishes San Diego landscape to paintersIn Coronado one day, after lunch with a friend, he went into a CD shop while his friend waited outside on a bench. When Crooks came out, he noticed …

La Jolla 1962 Dressed in long trousers and boat shoes and a white Lacoste tennis shirt, I accompanied Toby across Vista del Mar and Neptune Place to the Pump House and down concrete steps to …

San Diego's best tomato breeds: Better Boys, Early Girls, Yellow Taxis The ripe round red tomato sitting on the kitchen table is alive and busy. While we are asking, “How shall I eat it?” the …

I ran drugs for Uncle Sam . Fifty-two-year old Robert “Tosh” Plumlee, who has lived in the San Diego area off and on since 1976, has decided to come forward with the details of his …

Huero walks On July 2, 1988, at 2:30 a.m., Rudolpho “Nene” Rios was shot twice in the head while he was in the 2000 block of National Avenue, at Chicano Park. He died two days …

Every dive around San Diego yields discovery One of the oddest of these noises, an irregular bumping sound heard frequently in the rocks and ridges off the beaches from the La Jolla Caves south to …

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 …

The girls of summer Right after the Fourth of July, a series of perfect days unrolled across San Diego County beaches. Sun sizzled away the coastal low clouds by no later than eleven, and girls …

Don't be surprised if UCSD School of Medicine turns you down Maria Lofftus, manager of the admissions office at the UCSD School of Medicine, had just finished explaining to an irate father why his son's …

Bodysurfers from Oceanside to the IB Pier A little further up the coast from Cartwright and Bye is the hermetic Boomer Beach crowd of La Jolla, with guys like "Dolphin" Don Riley, "Freeway" Dave Freeman, …

What I don’t like about where I live is that it doesn’t snow. The other day I saw one of those glass balls that has a snowman in it; you shake the globe up and …

Hyper-real Artist Andy Lakey, you've seen him on TV. His original paintings can be found in collections including Ray Charles, President Carter, Lee Meriweather, Peter Jennings, the Vatican Art Collection, and museums throughout the world. …

Temple of the wounded "The Marines had nothing to do with Agent Orange directly. It’s possible that some Marine groups were out on patrol or in the field, and a spray plane might have flown …

One tough cop "A homosexual murder, I remember that real clear. I was the first person there. They gave him an enema with Clorox, really fouled him up pretty good. Split his body open, his …

Leave! Banse turns off onto the University Avenue exit. “There’s nothing people out here have done that I didn’t do when I was young. I’m streetwise. I apply that knowledge. At 32nd and National I …

How Frank Bompensiero met his fate "Bomp kicked the door shut, Mirabile wrapped his arms around Borgia just as Jimmy dropped the garrote over his head, handing the other end of the rope to Bompensiero. …

Sometimes Child Protective Services works “When I got back to Stepping Stones from Vista Hill, I decided, ‘Okay, this is it.’ All the people there were the only friends I had. I got in drug …

The blood upon his hands “It was a dull, outdated play, but when Mark walked on stage, it came alive. He filled the theater with his presence.” Ehrenfreund congratulated Mark on his performance and continued …

¡Cuba, sí! He and four compadres left Cuba one night in a twenty-foot boat powered by a five-horsepower motor. The motor quit on the second day of the voyage, and the men drifted, lost, for …

Blood of the Lamb "After they crucified Jesus, on the third day, he rose to Heaven. That's the Resurrection. We all go up to Heaven after the third day." Floyd visualizes Heaven as a beautiful …

Welcome to Johnny's "I asked myself, ‘Why can’t I do this? It ain’t all that complicated.’ The first order was this young sailor who wanted French toast. I said to myself, ‘I know how to …

Return flight There were men, several uniformed men, screaming, waving guns, ordering everyone to freeze. Somehow they had managed to sneak onto the airfield, then had leaped out and clambered up the entry ramp, weapons …

Show me a sign Arffmann works into the early-morning hours, cleaning the restaurant and preparing the Pearl for the coming day. “Imagine you were having some friends over for dinner,” he says, "and imagine the …

Reggae matriarch of San Diego vegetarians “We served Balinese food, like gado-gado. We were into Japanese cooking. We did a lot of tempura.” Near the cash register they sold herbs and — for a while …

Blue plate special "I’ve worked at Rudford’s since 1965. Twelve years altogether — I left three times. I used to get mad at something and I'd go back and quit. Some of the girls have …

Look! you've got a naked man on your fork! The drug and antique worlds share a vocabulary. Both worlds thrive on human “have to have it” weakness. Certainly, as it is with junkies, I always …

Mananimalmananimal You tell me why, what, keeps my stub-toed Frye boot from kicking, jabbing the open-toed lavender sandals, nylon-encased toes; what stays the hand from grabbing the gray-suit lapels, from turning that wood-laminate table over; …

A Long Shelf Life Valverde unburdens a perspiring white-haired man loaded from waist to double chin with titles about World War II. He says to Valverde, I'm just kinda reminiscing about my war.” Waiting in …

Lines of Love, Lines of Pain We lived by the hospital. I heard sirens every day. When both girls were with me in the house, I felt a smug assurance when I heard the sirens …

Sweet-and-Sour Pork-u-Pines When you got a new desk calendar in December, by which time ground was frozen and trees leafless, you marked down third Thursday afternoons for guild and fourth Sundays for potlucks. You X-ed …

Bushwhacked We look at a Wieghorst painting called Spring Rain, a dark, impressionistic work, one of about a dozen Wieghorsts on the walls. Thackeray can remember when Wieghorst painted it. “It was raining cats and …