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…
“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…
Many companies adopted DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) programs in response to pressure born from mass movements against police violence and for racial justice that spread through the U.S. in 2020. At Dr. Bronner’s we too were motivated to expand initiatives to foster a greater awareness of social and racial justice in our company, and to improve and take additional steps to reach more diverse communities in…
Fifteen years ago this week the Witch Creek Fire devastated Escondido, Rancho Santa Fe and North County San Diego. This is part of my first-hand coverage done as editor of the Rancho Santa Fe Record. I won the California Newspaper Publishers Association’s first place prize for local news coverage for this, and the other 26 stories, numerous photos, and overall coverage I produced during, and…
California, ever the avant-garde of legislative theatrics! Starting January 1, 2025, prepare for a smorgasbord of new rules, ranging from the progressive to the peculiar. Cannabis cafés and expanded outdoor drinking? A toast to your libations, but do mind the irony of laws encouraging indulgence while protecting your credit score from the ravages of medical debt. Even financial institutions aren’t safe from the guillotine of…
Editor’s Note: Updated… HM Alumni Council Shares Statement Regarding Alumni Award for Distinguished Achievement Petition – June 6, 2020 “We have heard concerns expressed by current students, alumni, and school employees regarding the Horace Mann School Alumni Association Award for Distinguished Achievement presented to US Attorney General William Barr in 2011. In response, we are convening our Council to canvass the views of our alumni…
Dr. Emanuel Bronner was born Feb. 1, 1908 and died March 7, 1997 at his Escondido home. His soap company moved to Vista in 2014 after 50 years in Escondido. Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps remain an iconic and distinctively American staple brand and curiosity, their wordy labels ubiquitous from Northwestern co-operative farming communities to the upscale bodegas of gentrified North Brooklyn. The boldly colored packaging…
Always a bit of an oddity, and itself a colorful exhibition of an Escondido antique dealer’s lifelong hobby, the Roynon Museum celebrating all things dinosaur, went the way of the creatures celebrated within, that is to say, extinct, on June 30, 2019. Applying the lofty title of Roynon Museum of Earth Sciences and Paleontology to its decidedly idiosyncratic exhibit and purpose, museum officials this week…
My days at the department store weren’t the most memorable, but a friend I knew briefly stands out, and the job had its moments. Who knows who makes these personnel decisions. Some genius at store management had the brilliant idea of assigning me, at first, to women’s shoes. It didn’t take long to realize that women, at least the ones who shopped at our store,…
(Updated Wednesday, June 3, 2020: Rosie’s Cafe, the Escondido diner featured last month on the Food Network series “Restaurant: Impossible,” has thrown in the towel for good, its owner announced in a Facebook post Wednesday afternoon. Despite the fundraising carnival that Food Network threw for owner Kaitlyn “Rosie” Pilsbury in February, she was never able to recover financially from the restaurant’s two-month shutdown during the…