(Editor’s Note: Originally published Sept. 22, 2001 in the North County Times…) Clown came to town. He was talking peace by the freeway as others spoke of war. “I’m mainly out here for world peace,” said the thin, wispy-bearded 22-year-old who blew in from a Sonoma organic farm to visit his “girl,” and child in Ramona. In case you missed Clown — his nom d’pax…
It rained a lot this past winter. However, as we all know, that hasn’t always been the natural state for the arid San Diego region. It took Charles Hatfield to make it rain 107 years ago in San Diego. The only problem was he couldn’t make it stop. A deep dive through the San Diego Historical Society archives courtesy of the OB Rag reveals the…
Crab Fever Express, so-called, rolled without fanfare into downtown Escondido on Monday, July 10, with nary a whisper into the historic building home for decades to Champion’s Restaurant followed by a spectacular if ill-fated run as Rosie’s Diner. Unsullied by the vagaries of customers during Wednesday lunchtime, the sixth restaurant trying to find the charm at the 117 W. Grand Ave. building that began serving…
Rancho Santa Fe’s Covenant Association, basically a quasi-governmental homeowners association dating to the community’s founding in the 1920s, refuses to change the covenant designation that harkens back to racist restrictions in its original 1928 documentation despite the 1948 outlawing of the practice by the United States Supreme Court, sources say. “What’s unique about Rancho Santa Fe’s covenant is that it went beyond just restricting the…
The archive of the influential psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, who developed the theory of the five stages of grief, has been given to Stanford Libraries, Stanford University officials said this week. What does that have to do with Escondido? Plenty. Of special note in the archive are complete runs of newsletters from the Shanti Nilaya Healing Center, which Kübler-Ross founded in Escondido, as well as manuscript…
It is important and poignant to recall the hard life of Mary Ball Washington, who struggled – mostly alone – to raise our Founding Father. Historians have left us with inaccurate and mostly unpleasant accounts of her long and laborious years. After George Washington’s death, historians canonized him and his mother, too. But unlike George’s enduring sainthood, praise for Mary was short-lived. In the late…
The delegates in Philadelphia agreed, in the summer of 1787, that the new country they were creating would not have a king but rather an elected executive. But they did not agree on how to choose that president. Pennsylvania delegate James Wilson called the problem of picking a president “in truth, one of the most difficult of all we have to decide.” Other delegates, when…
“Ooh, let me get it back, let me get it back, Let me get it back, baby, where I come from It’s been a long time, been a long time, Been a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time. Yes it has” — Led Zeppelin Yes, it’s been a real trip — and way too much Linda Tripp although Sarah Paulson’s got to get numerous…
One of the habits Laureen has when we travel, and I believe everyone should, is using her phone to search for interesting sites near us when we stop. No matter where we are, there seems to be someplace we haven’t visited or — in this case — never even knew existed. After visiting friends in San Diego recently, we stopped off in Escondido for fuel….
A slice of Vista’s past was being served Tuesday over biscuits and gravy at Mom’s Kitchen, once knows as Allen’s Alley Cafe. While a lot has changed over the last 70 years around Vista, Mom’s Kitchen has not. So, the biscuits and gravy were flowing at the town’s oldest, continuously serving restaurant much as they have since, at least, 1950 when it was known as…