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When I first took over this newsletter two years ago, I had big intentions for my first day. I planned to write some lofty introduction, waxing lyrical on the grand themes of California and setting the tone for all that lay ahead.
Instead, as is often the case in the news business, something terrible happened.
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A man brought a semiautomatic rifle into a suburban San Diego synagogue and opened fire, killing one woman and wounding several others. I was sent down to Poway to cover the shooting and found myself in a situation I would be in many times over the next two years, transcribing an interview about the worst day of someone’s life while crying in a Starbucks parking lot.
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I figured Bob Johnson was just a kindly gadfly when we first met in 2009. After all, who requests a meeting with a reporter to talk about history specifically, Orange County history, a subject as obscure and unloved as the study of carpet?
He was tall and lanky, with a full head of white hair swept to the side and frameless spectacles. Johnson told me over lunch that he liked my articles about the hidden histories of O.C. and urged me to dig deeper. As a starting point, he handed me a book he co-edited, and might I review it?