Category: History

The Ocean Beach Historical Society Presents:

REMEMBERING LoVerne Brown—

O. B. Poet, Activist, Beloved Friend

Thurs., July 19th, at 7 PM

At P.L. United Methodist Church, 1984 Sunset Cliffs Blvd., O.B.

The Ocean Beach Historical Society is honored to present our July program featuring friends and family who will talk about the achievement of LoVerne Brown and the important part she played in Ocean Beach’s history.

LoVerne Brown, was born in North Dakota in 1912. Prior to coming to O.B. she led a somewhat nomadic life. In 1950, LoVerne’s husband, George Brown (employed by the federal government) was transferred to San Diego. They and their children- Tony, Jonnie, and Tim – chose beautiful O.B. as their new home. Sadly in 1952, George died of a heart attack, and LoVerne became the family breadwinner, working for the next 22 years in the City of San Diego Engineering Dept.

Originally posted September 29, 2009

Editor: This is part of a irregular continuing series about Ocean Beach since the late Sixties and the early history of the first OB Rag.

1968: The Rowdy College-Surf Town Morphs Into Hippie Haven

OB was already well-known for its rowdy and irreverent culture of beach, surf & beer; but by 1968, it began its transformation into something more. Bleach blond long-haired surfers lived next door to long-haired hippies, and soon you couldn’t tell them apart. It became official: Ocean Beach had become the hippie mecca. Since the late sixties, Ocean Beach had morphed into the hippie hangout for the entire city. OB had become the Haight-Ashbury of San Diego, shadowing the more famous early birthplace of hippie-ism. But if you were young and a hippie in San Diego, you ended up in OB.

Please Join the Celebration
For the new location of

The Green Store

Open House on Saturday July 14th
from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m.
4843B Voltaire St, Ocean Beach

The Green Store on Voltaire Street has been OB’s quintessential center of green, ecology and environmental awareness for decades now. Operated by Colleen Dietzel – she and Kip Krueger originally opened it – and several energetic volunteers, the Green Store has for 23 years been providing peace, social justice and environmental information to the community of Ocean Beach and San Diego in general.

Come inside for the Celebration Schedule of music and speakers …

Seven-and-a-half hour City Council marathon ends in 6-1 vote in favor of Balboa Park overhaul.

by Andy Cohen

The most controversial decision in the San Diego City Council since the Chargers ticket guarantee …. Go inside for more ….

Point Loman Incensed by Vote

By John P. Falchi

It was good to have spent Monday downtown on one of the hottest issues of our time, the preservation of the historic integrity of Balboa Park. . Go inside for more ….

Todd Gloria sells his soul

No surprise Todd Gloria voted in favor of the developer-backed Jacobs Balboa Park plan. Especially after … Go inside for more ….

Democrats Emerald, Alvarez and Gloria Join Republicans Against Lone Hold-out Lightner for the Plaza de Panama Plan

By Katie Orr and Claire Trageser / KPBS / July 9, 2012

SAN DIEGO — The San Diego City Council voted 6-1 to approve the Plaza de Panama plan for Balboa Park, one of the options to get cars out of the center of the park.

City Councilwoman Sherri Lightner voted against the plan and City Councilman Tony Young was absent from the meeting. The remaining six councilmembers voted for it.

Every year for the past several, there’s a whole lot of soul-searching done by OBceans when they survey the gooey mess left over from the July 4th traditional OB Marshmallow War. There are usually calls to ban it outright and much gnashing of the teeth as volunteers struggle to clean up the beaches, the streets, the monuments, the …. everything else that got caught in the targets of marshmallow throwers.

In 2009, the OB Rag did a poll of readers on whether the tradition should continue.

… 69% of the respondents to the OB Rag poll want the Marshmallow Wars tradition to continue, although nearly half of those want some kind of controls placed on the event by volunteers, whereas 27% believe the event is out of control and want it to end. 3% wanted to study the issue. At that time we had 62 respondents.

Here, then is the OB Rag’s Archives on the OB Marshmallow Wars, collected over the last several years – several of these articles have some tremendous comments, so make sure you read them as well. (Click on the the headlines.)

• Who Started the First OB Marshmallow Fight? by Frank Gormlie, July 4, 2009

• Veteran’s Memorial Clean-Up Slated for This Saturday – July 18th by Jon Carr, July 17, 2009

Thousands congregated in Ocean Beach for a colorful fireworks show – even more so considering the malfunctioning mishap Downtown – and the decades-long traditional marshmallow fight. Young couples, teens, older folks and families all took part, armed either with their own bags of marshmallows (sold for $3.99 or less from various prepared vendors along Newport Avenue) or scooping up whatever fallen artillery they could find. The warfare didn’t wait until the fireworks finale, though things heated up dramatically afterward.

The event is a wonderful thing to have so close to home. One significant downside was the amount of trash – especially the plastic – that was left on the beach. If something could be done about that, this would the harmless, uniquely OBcean experience it was meant to be.

Go here for the photos (editor apologizes as he can’t figure out a way to transfer photos from Free Press directly.)

All photos by Annie Lane.

Immigration or a Historical Labor Issue?

By Herman Baca / Committee on Chicano Rights / San Diego Free Press

To this date, it never ceases to amaze me that the biggest problem/issue (the war in Afghanistanand economy) for the great-great-great grandchildren of immigrants who immigrated to the U.S.is…. immigration? This week, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Arizona’s (Nazizona) draconian SB 1070’s main provision, “show me your papers.” For the remainder of this article, please go to San Diego Free Press.

The City of San Diego has unfurled its plan to stem erosion of the Sunset Cliffs. In essence, the plan calls for pipes to be drilled through the cliffs, drains installed at the base of the cliffs, and to dye and texture surrounding hill and cliffsides so they appear “natural”.

The plan, presented by city associate civil engineer Paul Jacob, was given to a community meeting on June 20th, attended by about 30 concerned citizens at the Jim Howard Hall at Robb Field. Martin Jones Westlin wrote up a report for the Peninsula Beacon, published a week later.

Both candidates for Mayor of San Diego are viewed as fighters, but only one has repeatedly and habitually demonstrated a genuine concern for the people he is elected to serve.

Carl DeMaio and Bob Filner have both been described as “snarly.” Maybe they are but Bob has got a lot of snarling to do to match Carl.

I mean Bob pretty much, from what I’ve seen personally, as a friend of his over the years, only snarls at the likes of the promoters of injustices in our society like the fat cats in high positions and places who spend their lives conniving how to deny us “regular” folks a nice slice of the American Pie, not caring whether we live or die.

I had an old friend in town recently for a visit, a friend who’d lived in San Diego for many years until leaving for South America before the law could catch up with him. Back in the day, my pal was a real wild man, spending much of his free time scouring San Diego for the next dive bar with its mandatory sordid adventure, so his return to our heavily gentrified city was like watching a bewildered Bukowski re-emerge after being cryogenically frozen for 20 years, stumbling through the streets of downtown, Golden Hill, North Park, City Heights, and the beaches bitterly muttering to himself about chic bistros and expensive craft brews. The statute of limitations was up but his city was gone.

Never has a stout middle-aged man seemed so distraught to be in a room full of beautiful young women as my companion was when confronted with the new gang populating the renovated Waterfront Bar and Grill or the cocktail lounge that replaced the bar with no name and the crooked pool tables. “What happened, Miller?” He kept saying to me as he shook his head disapprovingly. “Look at this! What the hell happened?”

By J. G. Robinson / Special to San Diego Free Press

This is the first column I will write for the San Diego Free Press, so let me introduce myself. I am an activist, a sociologist, a college professor, a San Diego resident for over 25 years, and I will be looking at San Diego through all of these perspectives. The academic in me means that I have a gut level commitment to the importance of data, reason, and a complex notion of truth. I do not believe that advocacy is merely yelling louder or not admitting the truths held by people with whom I disagree.