
This Day in San Diego History by Linda H. Pequegnat, Sunbelt Publications, 2009, ISBN 978-0-932653-90-1, $19.95 By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO — There are 478 years between 1513, when Vasco Nuñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, and 1991, the year of the death of [...]

San Diego Judge Mayor: How Murphy’s Law Blindsided Leadership with 2020 Vision by Dick Murphy, Sunbelt Publications, 2011, 191 pages, $22.50 By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO –As a local historian, I am very pleased that Dick Murphy, the 33rd mayor of San Diego, has written a book about his life and career. I wish [...]

-Third in a Series- By Donald H. Harrison BORREGO SPRINGS, California– Utilizing a converted military troop-carrier-and-cargo truck, California Overland Desert Excursions offers visitors to the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park the combination of three off-road adventures in a single trip. The company’s owner, Joe Raffetto, utilizes both of his previous careers–advertising man and biologist–to make the [...]

-Second in a Series- By Donald H. Harrison BORREGO SPRINGS, California — Today if one stares at the ridge line of the mountain behind the Palms at Indian Head, one can make out nature’s sculpture of an Indian who evidently was lying on his back and contemplating the bright stars in this desert town’s [...]

-First in a series- By Donald H. Harrison BORREGO SPRINGS, California –Diana Lindsay’s excellent illustrated book Ricardo Breceda: Accidental Artist prepared my wife Nancy and me to see the amazing giant sculptures of prehistoric and imaginary animals standing, feeding, nursing, or fighting in vast private stretches of land owned by Dennis Avery, heir to the [...]

By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO — Grandson Sky is an energetic four-year-old. With only a little coaxing he will clean up whatever room he left looking like it was subjected to a hurricane. But I’m not certain that he is ready to absorb the lesson at the downtown Children’s Museum that the world [...]

By Donald H. Harrison SANTEE – A sensory garden, to further enhance blind people’s enjoyment when visiting the Santee Lakes, has been experiencing luxurious growth in its first five months. Aromatic roses are large, fat, and presumably happy, and other plants interesting to the touch like sage, rosemary, and English lavender are flourishing. With an [...]

By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO – When Richard Greyson reached up and rotated an acorn on the branch of a Coast Live Oak between his thumb and finger, he was reenacting a scene that may have occurred many thousand times over the centuries in the area along the San Diego River that today [...]

By Donald H. Harrison Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO – After we all were settled at our patio table at the Apollonia restaurant in the Costa Verde Shopping Center on Saturday night, Laura Simon reached into her purse and distributed three copies of a letter she had received from Bridgette C. Jenkins, head of the [...]

By Donald H. Harrison Donald H. Harrison BARONA INDIAN RESERVATION, California – We came here serendipitously on Saturday night. Our friends the Burstains live in Escondido. We live in the eastern portion of San Diego. We wanted to meet somewhere in between for dinner. “Let’s try the buffet at one of the casinos,” said I. [...]