Category: Columns

Restaurant Review

The Gourmet Bagger
3357 Rosecrans
San Diego, CA
Midway in Loma Square
619-523-0590
Thegourmetbagger.com

Time to have lunch with the widows again, except that this time there were only two of us. Irene and me. We started out the day going to garage and estate sales, and then went to the Police Department to drop off some very old prescriptions. As we were driving to the police department we noticed that traffic on Highway 8 going west was backed up all the way to Hotel Circle. That changed where we were going to eat lunch, and decided to try “The Gourmet Bagger” instead of our original plans.

Parking at Loma Square is difficult at any time, but Saturday is the worst. Luckily we found a place relatively easy and were pleasantly surprised to see that tables outside and inside had diners, but there were still a few tables left.

9:00 AM to 2:00 PM Teach-in, Rally and March at San Diego City College
3:00 PM Rally at the Federal Building
4:00 PM March to Chicano Park followed by Rally in Chicano Park

By Jim Miller

Usually May Day comes and goes with a small march that most people barely notice. Indeed, most Americans don’t know much about May Day and if they do, they associate it with the state sponsored holiday in the former Soviet Union.

The truth of the matter is, however, that May Day has deep American roots. It started in 1866 as part of the movement pushing for the 8-hour day.

Streams of Consciousness the Day Before Turning 79

By Ernie McCray

Tomorrow. April 18th. If I make it I’ll be 79. 79.

Can’t wait to jam as a 79-year-old man. No, indeed. Time flashes at some kind of supersonic speed. Glad I’ve got me a beautiful woman and some mellow weed…

And there’s so much greed with people in need… And they choose to shoot at each other and drop bombs on each other in all kinds of weather, no thoughts of whether a timeout should be called at some point in human history…

Restaurant Review

“Swami’s”
Midway Towne Center
3924 W. Point Loma Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92110
619-222-6600
Swamicafe.com

“Widow” get-together time again for Irene, Candy and myself. I have tried to eat at all of the restaurants in Ocean Beach proper, and find that I have reviewed most of them during the six years I have been writing for the OB Rag. There are still two that I want to visit, but found that neither of them are open at lunch time.

I have been to Swami’s in La Mesa and Encinitas. This time I decided it was time to try the one in my “own back yard.”

I have fond memories of Embers, and not so fond memories of its replacement, so went into this restaurant with a little excitement and trepidation. Some people told me it was good; others were not so nice.

By Jim Miller

In the age of Trump I have heard many a progressive ponder: “What went so wrong?” How in 2017 can we be fighting and, in many cases, refighting battles over basic economic rights and civil liberties? Whatever happened to women’s rights? How can we still be arguing about whether or not climate change exists? How did things get this bad?

In the political realm, as I have written here many times, a big part of the problem is that the Democrats have no bench of talented, young candidates. Indeed, rather than appealing to young voters and activists, it sometimes seems like the party is bent on alienating them. We saw this with the disdain heaped upon the idealism of millennial Sanders supporters in some quarters, and we can still see it in the national party’s frustrating inability to reinvent itself by bringing in new energy.

Earlier this week my “editor-dude” published my story asking you what you would have done in a situation that I found myself in a few days earlier. I was curious to see if there was a difference in the “male” way of looking at the situation vs the “female” way of looking at it. I was a little surprised by the outcome.

There were 92 respondents – several on the OB Rag; more on “Next Door” and a few more on Facebook. I also had eight telephone calls regarding the problem. Of the 92, 78 were women and 14 were men. I was very surprised by total answers given to me. Let me share with you:

What Would You Have Done?

Throughout our lives we are faced with making decisions. Some are important; some are not. Some will change our lives forever; others will make no difference. Some of our decisions will haunt us forever; some of our decisions we will never remember making.

I had a decision to make last week. I will not tell you the outcome in this article, but I will respond to it after I hear from you, the reader. Here is what happened:

For the past four years I have talked to – or texted – a man every single day. In those four years there were only two days that this event did not happen. We were good friends; discussed many different topics.

By Jim Miller

America is an increasingly unhappy place and much of what we are currently doing politically is bound to make us feel worse. And while our malaise is surely not just the product of the Trump presidency, it is highly likely that his policies will continue our negative trajectory.

As the Guardian recently reported, “Happiness in the US is declining and is expected to continue on a downward path, with Donald Trump’s policies forecast to deepen the country’s social crisis.”

By Judi Curry

It has been no secret that I have been terribly lonely since my husband died 7 ½ years ago. Our 51st wedding anniversary will be April 5th.

I was married at 17, (to my first husband) and have been married many, many years. I really never lived by myself, and have always been a “pair”. The past few years have been very difficult.

Last night I was reading an article on how you can order just about anything from “Amazon.com”.

By Ernie McCray

Some places in our lives resonate with us in special ways. San Diego City College is one of those places for me, a place that always seems to be about creating a better world. My kind of place.

Along these lines, I heard City College’s Interim President, Denise Whisenhunt, say to an overflow audience at the school’s Saville Theatre that the campus was “at the forefront of the social justice movement.”

Those words in her short welcoming speech seemed evident as I looked around me at all the attendees at the school’s “3rd Annual Social Justice & Education Conference,” a gathering that just gets better and bigger every year.

By Jim Miller

Over the more than two decades I have spent teaching at the college level, the vast majority of that time at San Diego City College, I have seen a little bit of everything. From the homeless student sleeping in Balboa Park who ended up at USC to the single mother living in her car with her kids who still got every assignment in on time before transferring to SDSU, there have been far too many stories of triumphs against all odds for me to recount.

Along with those stories come sadder tales like the cab driver supporting his family who almost finished but got knocked out of the game by an unexpected financial challenge

Restaurant Review

Buona Forchetta
2816 Sims Road
(Liberty Station)
San Diego, CA
619-548-5770

After months of waiting for this South Park restaurant Buona Forchetta to open in Liberty Station, the wait has come to an end. And even though I don’t like to do a review only a few days after opening, I couldn’t resist having lunch there with two widows on this day.

I felt that if it was adequate I just would not send in the review. As you can tell, if you are reading this, the meal must have been good because here is the review.