Good evening, 919 Gang. This country needs more newspaper readers like Sharon Larson.
There’s an untold story here, found in Sunday’s U-T obituary pages by my wife, Sharon.
Check out the side-by-side obits for Thomas Davis McBride and the one for Marjorie Ann McBride (nee Schwarz) on Page B-6.
Thomas died on July 18 at age 101 while Marjorie died July 13 at the age of 97. Both lived in La Jolla, their obits say.
Here’s where the sleuthing is needed.
Though neither obit says so directly, it’s clear from the separate obits that the pair were married before divorcing decades ago and after having four children, three of whom survive.
Thomas, a developer, is survived by a second wife, Karen.
Marjorie was a Ph. D. in education, working for San Diego city schools, and was a principal at Kate Sessions Elementary.
Thomas, his obituary says, was a World War II Navy combat pilot and as a postwar test pilot was the first Navy pilot to fly a jet. He also flew typhoon tracking aircraft in the Pacific and served in the now-forgotten Formosa Straits crisis of the ‘50s.
Here’s the kicker: A celebration of life will be held for both on the same day, August 10, at the White Sands retirement community in La Jolla.
But neither obit, placed side by side, says if they both lived at White Sands and whether the services will be combined.
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At Saturday's Don Bauder get-together, folks were raving about a KNSJ radio chat about him.
Hosted by former San Diego City Attorney Mike Aguirre, it was a stellar convo with Craig Rose, Sandy Young, Lynn Walker and Jeff McDonald — whose obit of Bauder had recently appeared. In the second half of the 2 1/2-hour "Talk of the Town" episode, they played a Zoom chat with Michael Kinsman and added (by phone) Hal Fuson.
Sandy sent me an audio file. I raised its volume and uploaded to my Google Drive here:
(Also, I neglected to mention these attendees at Cheryl Clark's house: Susan White, Melanie Ross, Darlene Alilain-Horn, Alison DaRosa and Sylvia Shaughnessy — Rick’s wife.)
The latter part of the show explored challenges to the industry.
Craig recalled covering a "mosquito control board" — probably a vector-control agency and how such watch-dogism doesn't occur as much anymore,
Sandy recalled how she'd fill up a fat briefcase with info for Don to study at home. She called him "absolutely relentless."
Aguirre cited Walter Lippmann, the old Lincoln Steffens platform McClure's magazine and how the decline of society paralleled the decline of our journalism.
He twice urged that some local group honor Bauder with an annual Don Bauder Award — for investigative journalism or the like. He said Bauder "went after the heart and soul of the [San Diego] power structure."
Lynn said that when Don arrived from Cleveland, this city didn't know what hit it.
Sandy said Don joked about his subjects: "It's all mob money," and I recall quoting him in my obituary of La Jolla's Allen Glick.
Aguirre said Don regularly got bonafide death threats, which I also noted in my 2018 retirement story of him:
Someone said: "In every society and community, truth-sayers [become] the conscience of business and government. You didn't want to cross paths with him in an adversarial manner. ... He was fearless. He had La Jolla up in arms over [J. David] Dominelli. At every society party, that's all they talked about."
Craig joked that he asked Don: "When are you going to break the Mob money behind Mother Teresa?"
Hal Fuson said Don found a crook under some canopy every week, but that it only took 4-5 minutes to find his story legally solid.
Also something I didn't know: Don sat on the company's pension committee. "He got along fine with the La Jolla folks," Hal said.
Hal reviewed Don's book "Captain Money and the Golden Girl" — written in just a month — before it was published.
"My job was to tell [the paper] whether you were going to get your ass sued or not," he said.
Craig said Don considered Hal an ally, not any adversary.
Hal became the U-T's chief operating officer in 2007, spending much of his time finding a buyer "when things really went south."
David Copley decided to sell in the wake of his heart transplant and "was facing reality," Hal said. Platinum Equity bought the paper in 2009 when Hal thought newspapers would decline and then "flatten out" but continue forever.
We heard that a very small audience soaked up Don's work — but they thought it was bigger and "what does an audience not know today that they would have known 15 years ago?"
Lynn said of the news industry: "I don't believe we're out of the game yet. ... There are very serious efforts under way," with online news organizations across the country.
Craig bemoaned the "Internet Tower of Babel."
Hal said America needs media literacy.
It was Craig, who worked 17 years with Don, who I think said observing Don was like "watching Willie Mays make catches."
Aguirre said Don will never die as long as those who knew him keep his memory alive.
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I'm home now in Madison, Wisconsin, just having finished a seven-day, 450-mile-plus bike ride across Iowa that had a total elevation gain of more than 18,000 feet. Iowa, believe it or not, has a lot of hills, and I feel like I climbed many of them on this tour. It was something of a sufferfest, with five or six hours a day in the saddle with temps in the mid-to-high 80s. Still, that was much better than last year, when temps were 10 degrees higher. The longest day this year was more than 85 miles and had a vertical gain of 4,500 feet. Since I'm an Iowa native, it pulls me in. And not just me. More than 20,000 riders from around the globe participate. I met folks from Australia, Norway, Argentina, Columbia and, you guessed it, San Diego.
The first of three photos I'm sending is a smiling me with my new compass rose tattoo early in the morning. The second is a brother and sister on a farm where I stopped showing off their Nubian goats. And the third is yours truly toward the end of a loong day after I'd pretty much hit the proverbial wall.
Fortunately, Iowa has towns 10-12 miles apart. So I was able to stop, get a cold fruit smoothie, rest and soldier on. Will I do it again next year? Probably, but I won't make that decision until January. It wore me down and was likely the hardest physical thing I've ever done, even more difficult than hiking the Inca Trail last summer with my 23-year-old daughter. Then again, I like challenges in the outdoor world. And hey, 70 isn't that old.
I forgot to mention that the bike ride across Iowa is called RAGBRAI. It was started 51 years ago by Des Moines Register columnist Donald Kaul. The acronym stands for Register's Annual Bike Ride Across Iowa.
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Maybe David Gaddis Smith and I bumped into each other [at Ted Williams’s boyhood home). I sat across from Billy Capps and Bill Swank at the Ted Williams house. One of the developers is Brian Rucker, son of Gary Rucker, a close friend and Friday morning D.C. Akins regular.
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ANTONIA (TONI) ALLEGRA shares:
How appropriate that Alison DaRosa worked at Sea World before joining the Tribune where she eventually landed as travel writer…Certainly, she’s a writer who does SEE the WORLD!
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REBER: Here are wishes that Luis Monteagudo has a Happy Birthday on July 29.
