OB Rag

by Ray Blavatt

King Tide in Ocean Beach, Saturday, December 22, 2018. Photo by Albert C Elliott, ACE.

by Ernie McCray

Not too long ago I had an encounter with an act of random kindness.

It went like this: I was enjoying an interesting tale in San Diego born Nafissa Thompson-Spires’ wonderful collection of short stories, “Heads of the Colored People” and a meal of scrambled eggs and ham with a buttered biscuit and jam and a Bloody Mary when I felt a tap on my shoulder and looked up and into the beautiful face of a black woman, close to my age, a woman whom I had acknowledged with a slight nod of my head as she left the café.

We black people of a certain age do that when we catch each other’s eye, say, walking down the street or exiting a restaurant, sometimes adding a word or two: “How you doing?” or a “Hey, now” – essentially saying: “I don’t know you, but I can guess what you might have been through.”

With the way the woman was looking at me, as she stood over me, I thought maybe she was about to say something like “Don’t you remember me?” and then I was sure she was going to say “Did you drop this?” because she was handing me something.

Congratulations to the winners of the 2018 Ocean Beach Holiday Parade, “It’s A Wonderful Life” – says the OB Town Council, which announced the winners of the annual Holiday Parade on Wed. Here are the winners:

Best Use Of Lights:

Saint Charles Borromeo Academy

Best OB Spirit:

Wonderland Ocean Pub tied with Disco Christmas

Got an old surfboard? Well, don’t throw it away.

Instead – donate it to art-related upcycling/ re-purposing efforts for end-of-life surfboards. And it doesn’t have to be ride-able.

Uber and Lyft Unleash 500 Scooters on San Diego

Ride-hailing giants Uber and Lyft have unloaded a combined 500 electric scooters on San Diego this week, joining the fray of dockless transportation options on the city’s streets — and they’re undercutting their competitors.

Last night, Wed, Dec. 19, the Project Review Committee of the OB Planning Board gave a commercial project slated for Voltaire a green light to proceed to the next step. The next step is being reviewed by the full board at a future meeting.

The review panel also gave tentative approval to 2 other projects before it and asked the owners of another project to return to the drawing board.

The Project Review Committee is a sub-committee of the Board and gets first crack at reviewing projects that come before the Planning Board, and usually gives a recommendation of thumbs-up or thumbs-down to the full board which carries substantial weight.

By Kathleen Blavatt

About 50 friends of Mel Shapiro’s gathered last Saturday, December 15, to remember him in a wonderful and memorable tribute as he had passed in late November. A handful of OBceans were present at this memorable gathering. There were incredible speakers, tasty food from Hugo’s and it was good to know we still have still a good number of serious, but still fun activists, in town.

The 7-year-old boy seriously injured by a car Tuesday night while looking at Christmas lights with his family in Ocean Beach has been released from the hospital.

Caleb De Leon is in a wheelchair with his leg in a cast now but as of Wednesday, he’s back with his relatives. But he has a metal bar and pins in his leg bone and faces a good period of physical therapy and recovery.

Caleb was visiting San Diego relatives with his family from Arkansas when he was hit by a car on the 4700 block of Newport Avenue just after he had stepped off the curb.

by Bob Edwards

If you have lived in California for any length of time you have probably had your life touched by wildfires. Possibly you lost your own home or you know someone who did. You could have contributed money, food, or clothes to a fellow worker or community member who was affected by a fire.

Certainly when the Santa Ana blows and smoke fills the air you have experienced ash landing on your car, a blood red sunset, or perhaps cancelled school events or exercise classes.

I have lived in California for over sixty years.

The Old Broad Writes …

Ft. Rosecrans Cemetery

Several years ago I wrote a number of articles about the deplorable condition of the Ft. Rosecrans Cemetery. (See here, here, and here.) At about the same time Michael Turko [ed: of the former “Turko Files”] also did a piece about the cemetery and between us the transformation of the grounds was amazing. Doug Ledbetter, the Director at the time of the articles, listened to us and within a year it was again a beautiful place to visit our loved ones.

Here is another one from ACE – Albert C Ellliott – taken mid-day, at Mystery outer reef break, Tuesday, December 18.

ACE says this is one of our local MYSTO spots. It’s hard to see, hard to photograph and hard to surf. I asked him what size of wave he thought it was.