OB Rag

A mysterious banner was placed on the Ocean Beach Pier on Thursday, May 18th.

By Frank Gormlie

Until recently, Judith S. was enjoying her life as a retired educator, living in a cute 2-bedroom cottage in northeast OB with her husband Wayne, tending to her plentiful garden, playing with her grandchildren when they visited. Everything was good.

Then it all changed on November 8th – the day Trump was elected.

“The day after, I was in disbelief, shock,” Judith told me recently while sitting on her covered patio in the back. “I couldn’t get my head around what had happened.”

It’s been a long, slow saga for the well-known store to reopen after the owner, Saad Hirmez, was forced out of the site where he had his first market – where CVS is now – so many years ago.

OB’s famous Farmers Market just turned 25 – and it was acknowledged yesterday, May 17th.

After praising the Market for its quarter century existence and model for other farmers markets, Councilwoman Lorie Zapf presented Denny Knox, CEO of the Ocean Beach Mainstreet Association with an anniversary certificate, a Declaration from the San Diego City Council honoring the occasion.

The mystery surrounding the old Midway Post Office has finally been solved. Now we have found out that the site was purchased for $40 million and where the developer plans a mixed-use project, tentatively called “The Point,” which will be a new $325 million urban community.

For a number of years, reports and rumors of sales and projects have swirled around the old Midway Post Office – built in the 1970s -and closed in 2012.

By Ernie McCray

There’s a survey highlighting that a large number of Muslim students are being bullied at school.

Our school district picks up on it and looks at ways to make them feel safe on their campuses. And before you can say “Way to go!” to the school system, a bunch of hateful folks come up with some “reverse discrimination” kind of BS.

There’s been an additional Action Item added to tonight’s Project Review Committee’s agenda. The committee meets Wed. night at the OB Rec Center at 6pm, 4726 Santa Monica Ave.

The addition is a Map Waiver and permit for the conversion of 2 existing residences to condos at 4628 – 4630 Point Loma Avenue in south Ocean Beach.

By Brett Warnke

Every Sherlock needs his Moriarty. When Doyle’s great detective called his brilliant nemesis the “Napoleon of crime,” the reader kept reading to see London’s equally matched talents collide.

The great exposers in journalism, like Izzy Stone, America’s first blogger, self-published and changed the conversation when consensus was king. The great haters, meanwhile, purified public outrage at the crimes or embarrassments of those in power, and had the skill to peel the muck of sentiment and the grime of politeness.

Truth is uncomfortable. Facts are ugly. And hate is very real.

Puppets

by sloanranger

Does anyone remember Howdy Doody?
Howdy was a puppet on early TV, and us kids,
we sat there in the Peanut Gallery – at home, or in the studio –
and watched, watched Clarabelle the Clown running up and down
the aisles squirting Buffalo Bob with his seltzer bottle.

By Ernie McCray

Recently I received an email from a friend asking me if I would lead a conversation that would begin with a piece of art, next April, on issues important to Dunbar, the neighborhood in Tucson, where I spent the first 24 years of my life.

I couldn’t get back to her with the answer, “Yes,” quick enough. I can’t think of anything I’d rather do, in life, than take part in a rap session on behalf of a community that resides at the core of who I am as a human being.

I mean, I am Dunbar personified.

Dr. Seuss Knew a Thing or Two About Lindbergh

By Frank Gormlie

A week and a half ago or so, the San Diego Union-Tribune published a bunch of “rare, never-before-published photographic images of Charles Lindbergh on his way to becoming Charles Lindbergh,” while he was training in San Diego, photos that had been “hiding in storage for 90 years.”

It was of course in mid-May, 1927, that Lindbergh made the first-ever nonstop solo airplane flight across the Atlantic Ocean from New York to Paris, a total of 3,610 miles and he made it in 33 hours. The flight certainly “turned him into one of the most famous and admired people on Earth,” … for a while at least.

Ocean Beach-related Beaches Have Scored “Worst” Beach in 4 Out of Last 10 Years

On May 15th, Surfrider and Coastkeeper released the bad news:

188,000 pieces of trash were removed by more than 6,500 volunteers who cleaned up San Diego County beaches in 2016. 80 percent of all trash removed contained plastic.

But the bad news for OBcean and Point Lomans is that Sunset Cliffs was deemed one of the top two “trashiest” beaches in the County. Sunset Cliffs provided the most refuse on a per- volunteer basis, with an average of 7.65 pounds per person. The other was the Oceanside Pier. La Jolla Shores was the cleanest beach with 0.42 pounds of trash found per person.