Men asked to imagine selves as women, San Diego Okies remember, celebrities asked to recite poetry
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Photo by Sandy Huffaker, Jr.
Rodolfo Curiel shares something strangely in common with other prominent San Diegans he lived in San Diego, California. Curiel was a linebacker for Serra High School s team in the late 80s, and his picture hangs on the Wall of Fame in the Round Table Pizza in Tierrasanta.
Our tiny, Southern namesake and its vast, luminous sky.
Our namesake lies due west of Corpus Christi, past flat miles of sorghum, wheat and cotton fields, and towns with shops smelling of blood that, for pennies per pounds, will butcher the deer you shot and mount its head. Farther west the fields disappear, towns become fewer, the land becomes inexhaustible in breadth and texture. If it s got thorns on it, then we got it in South Texas, is what they say down here, a half-boast meaning that they re tough enough to ride harsh scrub, or at least their ancestors were.
Photo by Sandy Huffaker, Jr.
Rosie Medlock: My mom always said the dachshunds were easier to get along with than most people. Even if they get mad at you, they get over it.
Dachshunds and the people who love them.
“One afternoon in the park I said it would be fun to run one of those free classified advertisements in the
Reader and see who shows up with their dachshunds. We decided on a date, Noodle’s birthday, and a rendezvous point, the large fig tree behind the National History Museum. We ran the ad, and we showed up the tree at the appointed date and time not knowing if anything besides immediate friends and their dogs would be there. To our surprise, around 35 people arrived with their dachshunds.
Photo by Craig Carlson
3363 Thirtieth Street, San Diego. Most people in a bungalow court don’t use the courtyard, except as a buffer for privacy.
I let the front yard go and worked on building a fence in back. I got so angry digging postholes in the rain one afternoon that I had to lie down for a minute under the eave of the garage (rain falling in a puddle at my ear) because I’d started to feel lightheaded. The rain made the grass in the backyard sprout. Jane was astonished because she thought it was dead, but it didn’t surprise me a bit.
Photo by Alan Decker
Jacob Puka: Even at the age of six, you had to learn the name of each cow. You never count your cows, but our family probably had 500. Maybe 300.
The Ethiopian Army caught up with the boys at the Gilo River. Most of us couldn t swim, says Isaac. It was really very deep and swollen because of rains. The currents were very, very fast. All the rivers were overflowing. We didn t have boats. There was no bridge. The army started firing guns at us. Artillery, big machine guns. And that s why many of us threw ourselves into the river, because we had no option. Out of the river you just get shot. I did not know how to swim, and I was scared to throw myself into the river and get drowned or be taken down by a crocodile. So I followed another group who were running along the riverbank.
I ask to hear the tape made on that day, the 43-minute one in which Jones leads his followers into drinking the cyanide-laced drink. Stephenson invites me to sit at a small table where there is displayed the image used on the tape made by the People s Temple Gospel Choir. The tape, He s Able, borrows its title from an old gospel song and refers to divine intervention. Here, however, he is a reference to Jim Jones. Stephenson inserts the audiotape in the boombox and fixes the volume. I listen for a few moments, then stop the tape.
By Jangchup Phelgyal, July 14, 2005 | Read full article