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…
When Charles Manson died in November 2017, his name carried weight even among those who weren’t alive when he committed his crimes. For decades, Manson was the symbol of evil, a real-life boogeyman who loomed as the American conception of wickedness incarnate. His death ended 48 years of imprisonment for a series of murders in August 1969, some of which he committed, most of which…
According to legend, if the groundhog sees his shadow on February 2nd, there will be six more weeks of winter; if not, an early spring is predicted. Of course groundhogs – also known as woodchucks – don’t emerge at this time just to be furry weather predictors. So what’s the real reason? Research into groundhog biology shows they have other priorities in early February than…
As a Cal State San Marcos professor of history, of course, Jill Watts is also a student of history. Watts knew that many U.S. history textbooks, in the all-important pages about the hugely consequential Franklin Delano Roosevelt presidency, make passing references to what the black press of the day coined the “Black Cabinet,” an unofficial group of African-American advisers to FDR as he navigated the politics of the Great Depression and the New…
Hail Estonia! Wait. What? Estonia opened an honorary consulate at La Jolla on January 24, 2019. The Estonian honorary consul in the San Diego area is Michael Chan, and the address of the consulate is 10901 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA 92037. La Jolla, according to the Estonians is located 15 miles (24 kilometres) north of San Diego. Of course, you knew that….
It’s difficult for Kasandra Balsis to count the ways that Cal State San Marcos history professor Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall has helped her in her academic journey. When Balsis entered CSUSM’s history master’s program in the fall of 2020, the virtual format made it challenging for her to find her way, but Sepinwall aided the transition by using Zoom breakout rooms to facilitate deeper discussion and…
In San Diego County, which had a population of 2,076 Japanese-Americans in 1940, families were sent to Poston, 12 miles south of Parker, Ariz. Poston was one of 10 internment camps created during World War II after an executive order authorized the Secretary of War to designate specific areas as military zones and excluded certain people from living in them. President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order…
(Editor’s Note: This was the state of the holiday just one year pre-COVID, for those with nostalgia for the way ot was before social distancing and over 770,000 Americans lost their lives…) California supplies the nation’s Thanksgiving tables California ranked #8 in turkey production in the United States (2016), and supplied most of the western states from our poultry farms located in several areas in the state….
Parades rolled through many American cities on Veterans Day, Nov. 11 honoring the anniversary of the end of World War I on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, what once was known as Armistice Day. None of those parades, however, featured tributes or remembrance of one of the war’s oddities made all the more poignant by today’s tensions…