North County Times

Sending in the llamas and clowns on 9/11

Sept. 10, 2001 was pretty much like any other day. That is to say honored only in its passing, don’t remember what happened. Sept. 11, 2001, as we all know, was a day seared in our personal and national memories like few others. Don’t know when the carnage began, but at my Del Dios home phones started ringing way too early in the morning and…


Sunlet Nursery shamrocks are evergreens

(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…


Let us now praise Bruce Kauffman

Mensch (Yiddish: מענטש‎ mentsh, cognate with the German word Mensch meaning a “human being”) means “a person of integrity and honor”.[1] Highly savvy in the ways of journalism, and a brilliant analyst of the ways of the world, Bruce Kauffman was the very epitome of a mensch. He always was ready to lend an ear to a friend’s tale of joy or woe and help…


Tale of the Toppled Hurler: A Peter Hartwell Story (Parts 14-15)

Tale of the Toppled Hurler: A Peter Hartwell Story by Bruce A. Kauffman c 2017  All rights reserved. For full story to date, visit: https://escondidograpevine.com/a-the-tale-of-the-toppled-hurler-a-peter-hartwell-story/. Chapter 14 Peter Hartwell at last is in the driver’s seat, having turned the tables so that the fat man becomes his prisoner.  They are driving toward Boston. “Would you tune in the Opera Channel?”  my passenger said. What with all…


Tale of the Toppled Hurler: A Peter Hartwell Story (Parts 12-13)

Tale of the Toppled Hurler: A Peter Hartwell Story by Bruce A. Kauffman c 2017  All rights reserved. For full story to date, visit: https://escondidograpevine.com/a-the-tale-of-the-toppled-hurler-a-peter-hartwell-story/. CHAPTER 12 Last we saw, Hartwell’s latest escape attempt was foiled and he was chauffeured by the fat man from Boston to the Donut Depot in the heart of Hartsdale.  The fat man is now indulging his tryptophane urgings. The fat…


Tale of the Toppled Hurler: A Peter Hartwell Story (Part 9)

Tale of the Toppled Hurler: A Peter Hartwell Story by Bruce A. Kauffman c 2017  All rights reserved. For full story to date, visit: https://escondidograpevine.com/a-the-tale-of-the-toppled-hurler-a-peter-hartwell-story/. Readers will recall that intrepid journalist Peter Hartwell was en route to a watery grave when Russell, the Fat Man’s partner, shows up, a girl in tow. The Fat Man, concerned about the presence of a witness, puts the brakes on…


Seaside Courier (of Encinitas) bites the dust

Another attempt to bring local independent news in the form of a print newspaper failed at Encinitas as the 2-year-old Seaside Courier announced that’s all folks, quietly fading into the dust bin of history last month. Thomas K. Arnold, who also has contributed stories to The Escondido Grapevine reported the news to another Grapevine friend Roman Koenig, who worked with us at North County Times…


County baby names, dog names, faulty price scanners and vaccinations

(Editor’s Note: San Diego County News Service information officers have been hard at the news game recently providing information in a journalistic format. Here are some highlights…) Top Baby Names in San Diego County — Jose A. Alvarez Liam came close, but it did not quite make the top of the list of most popular baby male names in San Diego in 2015. There were…



Go time at the San Diego County Fair

It’s time, once again, for our once-a-year break from political banter, land-use controversies and assorted governmental shenanigans. As I’ve done every year since I began writing a weekly column on North County coastal issues in 2009 — initially for the North County Times, then for the San Diego Union-Tribune  — I devote one week’s missive to one of my favorite annual events: the San Diego…