Dateline Rancho Santa Fe. March 26, 1997. A 911 call came into the San Diego Sheriff’s Communications Center. It was treated as a prank call at first. From what turned out to be a nearby payphone, the caller said something so preposterous that dispatchers took their time in relaying the information to central command. “This is regarding a mass suicide. I can give you the address,” the…
People have been debating D.B. Cooper ever since his Thanksgiving 1971 leap into history and out of a commercial flight from Portland to Seattle with a whole bunch of money. The same, on a smaller scale, appears to be happening with North County’s own Geezer Bandit, so-called. He hit Vista — twice — Rancho Santa Fe, La Jolla — twice — Poway and 10 other…
Go down to Hernandez Hideaway at rural Lake Drive in Del Dios and people will swear up and down the long wooden bar that Hodgee, the friendly Lake Hodges monster, really truly — well, almost definitely exists. “The Lake Hodges Hodgee monster is kind of like the Loch Ness monster,” said Stan Smith, a long-time Del Dios resident. Smith, a cowboy poet and man about…
Is Jennifer Lopez moving to Escondido? Only The Shadow knows. However, local radio stations and the Internet were buzzing about the possibility that Jenny on the block was moving to this block. While it might be true — who knows, Donald Trump might have been president; the Cubs might have won the World Series — the rumor blasting across several local radio stations and celebrity…
Seen a wild pandemonium of parrots lately? Report it immediately. That’s the question and request posed by University of San Diego Biology Instructor Dr. Janel Ortiz and her San Diego Parrot Project, along with “parrot sighting submission form” and a hardy SDPP thank you. Ortiz took the academic show on the road Wednesday. That’s when she and her flock of students took flight with a…
The ghost of Richard Lee “Dick” Stuart was alive and well that warm, languid evening at Angel Stadium of Anaheim on Gene Autrey Way. Many of you weren’t born when Stuart, infamously known as Dr. Strangeglove following the Stanley Kubrick 1964 classic of the same name, held court and, oopsy-daisy, drop-kicked balls from 1958 to 1969. Stuart didn’t just butcher the rawhide. He stewed, filleted,…
Et tu Brute? Beware the Ides of March. It’s a day cloaked in infamy and the assassination of the Emperor Julius Caesar, a turning point in Roman history; March 15, 44 B.C.E. Let that be a lesson to you, Donald Trump. Time for you to go to prison. But we digress. And, according to the Smithsonian Museum, a lot of other notable events have taken…
(Editor’s Note: Last weekend, roughly 70,000 shamrock plants filled some of Sunlet’s many greenhouses, but by Wednesday, almost all had been shipped out to garden centers and supermarkets, locally and throughout the western United States, according to Harry Jones of the San Diego Union Tribune. “They’ll be on their way to their forever home,” said Janet Kister, owner of Fallbrook’s 26-acre Sunlet Nursery. All of Sunlet’s business is…
Feb. 29 is Leap Day, 10 points one might want to consider. 1. Monthly salary — oops. An extra day when getting paid on a monthly basis doesn’t account for much. It counts, actually, for nothing. People getting paid a monthly salary are paid the same whether the month is 28 days or 29. 2. Tale of the tape — yeah. The sun rose at…
Its gates are forever locked. The koi have died. A lonesome breeze blows through faded gardens overgrown with weeds. The waterfalls have ceased falling and even the roses have faded into wilted dreams. Welcome to Pikake Botanical Gardens at 15515 Villa Sierra Road, once one of the wonders of the horticultural world, now reduced to ashes and memories. A private botanical garden on nine acres,…