Category: Life Events

By Giovanni Ingolia

Beside the turmoil that has been happening at city hall (A subject I would much prefer to discuss as its implications are much greater), Ocean Beach has a controversy of its own- the marshmallow fight after the fireworks.

I want to remind everyone this is not an event sponsored by the OB Town Council, OB Planning Board, OB CDC, OB Historic Society or OB Main Street Association. I personally sit as a board member on two of the groups and follow every one of them. They all do great jobs. (Remember this is my opinion and not that of the boards I sit on.)

The marshmallow fight event has its supporters and its detractors. Both sides make good points that are hard to disagree with. One thing all groups have in common is this event shouldn’t be harmful to others and the mess should be cleaned up immediately due to the problems it creates to the environment. We need to all work together.

Problems with a Ban

When I first started to see calls for the ban of the marshmallow fight there were also calls to end the fireworks.

Banning the 4th of July fireworks, a tradition that honors our country’s birth, should never be stopped in OB.

Editor: This is a story that we became aware of, potentially a tragic story, of how an OB man, Garret Rodriguez, has gone missing these last six months. It’s thought that he disappeared in Humboldt County.

By Kym Kemp / Lost Coast Outpost

When Garret Rodriguez drove north from Ocean Beach in late December 2012, he sat behind the wheel of his newly purchased 1998 Dodge Ram four-wheel drive pickup. He and two friends had left their marijuana growing operation in Humboldt to visit the neighborhood in San Diego that he had lived in for many years.

Now, he was headed back to Rancho Sequoia, a rural subdivision near the tiny hamlet of Alderpoint in southeastern Humboldt County. The area has a reputation for violence and is sometimes known as Murder Mountain. (See why below.)

As Rodriguez headed back to the Emerald Triangle after the holidays, he called a friend, Katrina LeBlanc, to ask her to visit him there. She explained, “He wanted a big group of us to come up for New Year’s Eve.”

By Ernie McCray

I was a bit out of tune the other day from just dealing with whatever tiny bits of frazzle-dazzle life had laid in my path that day and as I’m mumbling to myself over my little “First World Problem”, my cell phone vibrates in my levis pocket and I turn it on and there’s a picture of the dude, my main man, the leader of the band: Lyric. Flashing a smile that says in its very cuteness “Hey, dude, let all that minutiae go, bro.”

And so I did, like the sun melting snow. I just let it slide off my hide. I do that anyway, via my DNA, but my grandson’s smile made me not only stop but pause. Any rose near my nose was going to be smelled.

By Michelle Hope

I am a California Native and lived many years in Ocean Beach – my People’s card starts with a 1 4. My family owns property on West Point Loma and I still have family here.

For 7 years I traveled the country on my motorcycle working at Rallies to support myself and living in a tent. I dig the nomadic lifestyle and you could read some of my work on the internet of adventure stories of living gypsy. I came home last year and decided to stay to complete a dream of being a Holistic Health Practitioner at a school. So I enrolled and got myself an RV to live in while I am here in school. It is my pursuit of happiness. Everything I owned fit on my motorcycle for 7 years – always close, I am accustomed to it.

Keeping the cameras rolling during trying times resulted in an insightful examination of the world-famous event.

By Elizabeth Limbach / Alternet

In 2012, after 26 years of ballooning in popularity, Burning Man was on the verge of popping. And Steve Brown’s documentary crew was there with cameras rolling.

Editor: In honor of Father’s Day, we run this tasteful ode to one father by Carlos Batara, a San Diego and Southern California immigration attorney and long-time supporter of the OB Rag.

By Carlos Batara

He never went home.

He left his native county at the age of 20 to find work. Born in an impoverished area of a poor country, he left home to earn money which he could send back to his mother and eight siblings.

He ventured through, and stayed briefly at, a few countries, eventually reaching the United States.

For the next 25 years, he crisscrossed California, Arizona, and Utah, moving from crop to crop before settling in San Diego where he worked as a dishwasher at one of the city’s most prestigious restaurants.

by Ernie McCray

Lyric Allen Anderson arrived on this earth on May 29th, 2013. He’s become the tenth person I can claim as a grandchild and every one of them is dear to me. But this beautiful baby boy is particularly special in that he’s the first to carry within his veins the blood of his Grandma Nancy, who passed away four years ago, and mine. She was my valentine and I welcome Lyric Allen to the world in behalf of both of us.

Oh, I don’t know if I can describe what it felt like holding him in all his raw innocence, for the first time, as what words can convey how one feels when one of the dearest beings in the world to him gives birth to someone equally as cherished? I’ll portray it as simply a wonderful moment in time.

By Jack Hamlin

The early morning sunlight filtered through the venetian blinds and fronds of the potted palm, highlighting her multi-hued earth toned fur. She lay on her cushion strategically placed by the bay window so she could keep watch, guarding our home; a task she had performed diligently for over fourteen years.

When Children are Maltreated by Religious Groups

By Dave Rice

Child sexual abuse cases in the Catholic Church have repeatedly rocked the nation for more than a decade now, and in 2010 spread locally to reach the San Diego Diocese. The so-called “Satanic Panic” of the 1980s and early ‘90s brought the prospect of harm to children through mysterious and violent rituals to the forefront of the nation’s attention, while periodically stories reach the news involving the tragic death of a child raised by a family of religious separatists.
These stories, however, just scratch the surface of a more widespread problem concerning the mistreatment of children in the name of religion, says Janet Heimlich, author of Breaking Their Will: Shedding Light on Religious Child Maltreatment.

A man who jumped off the OB Pier early Wednesday morning – May 15 – had to be rescued by San Diego lifeguards. His brother told a TV station that the two had been drinking alcohol on the Pier, when he jumped into the ocean – around 1:30 to 1:40 a.m.

Lifeguards struggled to get the rather large guy onto their rescue craft, but did finally manage to get him to shore. Once on land, he was evaluated by paramedics and taken to UCSD Medical Center for treatment.

Adding to the difficulty of the rescue besides the man’s size, was the rather rough surf, and some immediate staffing shortages with the lifeguards.

BY JEC / San Diego Free Press

Is bigger better? The new AT&T commercial with the man in a suit sitting on the floor with the kids seems to think so. Cruise ships, now they have gotten huge like Royal Caribbean’s new 5,000 passenger ships. With crew that’s 7,500 souls on board.

But we don’t do cruise ships very often, but a lot of us do fly and we can appreciate the aircraft industry for trying to keep up.

Some lawyers talk a lot when serving their clients – and now an Ocean Beach lawyer is walking a lot.

OB’s Justin Brooks, a law professor at Cal Western School of Law, is leading a 600 mile march from San Diego to Sacramento, on behalf of his clients. He’s walking with other lawyers and supporters of the California Innocence Project.