Visiting angels

 

          Good evening, 919 Gang. I had a great day, I was visited by a bunch of old friends, some of whom I had not seen in 21 years. These folks know how to lift my spirits.

 

          From left: Jack, Mike Burge, Rex Baker, Anne Krueger, Susan Gembrowski Baker, Gina Lubrano and John Cannon.

 

          After lunch, the group reconvened at my house. Photo by John Cannon

 

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          BLANCA GONZALEZ writes:

Add me to the list of the John Gilmore fan club. He was a wonderful colleague, editor and friend. I echo the regrets of others. John and I had planned to have lunch in late September, but he was feeling under the weather, and I was busy planning a trip to Texas for my daughter's wedding in October. He had attended her quinceañera about 18 years ago in San Diego. We agreed to try to reschedule for November, but we never did. I had heard he wasn't doing well but when Jack mentioned John had visited him in Ramona recently, I figured I would call him soon to reschedule our lunch. At our age, we really need to stop putting off important things like seeing our friends and people we care about to tell them how much they mean to us. 

John Cannon's recollection of having lunch with John at the Mission Valley cafeteria made me chuckle. He described two colleagues having a quiet lunch. When I first started at the U-T as the border editor, I was their peer. I had come from a very social, collegial workplace and felt like an outsider when I arrived at a newsroom where people had known each other for many years. My first day on the job, I thought someone might invite me to have lunch with them. But that didn't happen on the first day, or the second... I didn't like to brown bag it so I would usually buy my lunch in the 5^th floor cafeteria and eat there alone. One day I noticed John Cannon and John Gilmore sitting at a table together. Each of them had been friendly to me in a reserved sort of way, so I crashed their quiet lunch and just started talking. I tried not to become an annoyance, but I did invite myself to their table on several more occasions over the years. I would later leave the paper for a couple of years only to come back as an education reporter covering North County. John Gilmore was my editor. He loved to growl and grumble, but he truly was a kind and caring person.

We had seen each other a few times over the past 10 years or so and had spoken on the phone, but the last time I saw him was pure happenstance. As a North County resident, I rarely go east of the 8 anymore. But a couple of years ago, I was running an errand with my husband. We were near D.Z Akins and decided to stop there for lunch. I think we had finished our meal when I noticed someone who looked like David Ogul. Yes, it was him, and his dining partner (who had his back to me) was none other than John Gilmore. We had a very nice visit and I'm so glad I suggested stopping for lunch there. 

It has been great to read others' remembrances of him. He was a wonderful person. 

 

          SUZANNE MACK LOEBER writes:

I remember John Gilmore well. The last time I saw him was at one of Terry Spilecki’s "Luncheons" at the Longhorn restaurant in Mission Gorge. John and his wife lived a few blocks rom Bedel and I on Clear Sky Terrace in the Vista Del Cerro neighborhood. John would use the paved path around Dailard Park to jog. I believe he and Bedel were classmates at SDSU under Jim Julian and on the Daily Aztec about the same time. 

 

 

Spare that tree

 

          Good evening, 919 Gang. We’ve been talking about John Gilmore and the El Cajon office. That reminded me of an incident, probably 25 years ago, that some may recall.

          The U-T’s East County building was in El Cajon, where the climate varied from hot to hotter to hottest.

          One bit of relief came from a tree that shaded some cars in the back parking lot. If you parked your car in this shade the temperature inside might be only 120 degrees, not 140, when you came back to it.

          For some reason, this tree was cut down. There was no warning. If I had known of the plan I would have blocked it, but one day the tree was gone. This made a lot of people unhappy, and their complaints apparently reached Gene Bell, CEO. I say that because the U-T purchasing agent, who was in charge of such buildings took a lot of heat.

          She asked me to accompany her on a trip to the office. I think she felt the need for a bodyguard when she faced angry newsroom staffers.

          When we got there the newsroom space was empty. Not a soul. We wandered through the desks then went into John Gilmore’s office. Nothing unusual except someone had sent John a picture postcard. The picture was of Michelangelo’s David, in all his naked beauty. And this card was pinned to John’s bulletin board with the genitalia facing us.

          “That offends me,” the Purchasing chief snarled. I was up to date on sexual harassment training, and I knew that when a woman was offended you had to do something. So, I took the postcard down and placed it face down on John’s desk.

          The Purchasing boss had aired her venom, so we left and drove back to Mission Valley.

 

          SUSAN GEMBROWSKI writes:

John Gilmore was one of the kindest, most thoughtful people I have ever known, despite his faux curmudgeonly persona. He was my first editor at the U-T and one of the finest. We kept in touch over the years and would go to dinner or lunch on occasion. When Covid hit, we moved our dining group online and added a few more. He truly touched my heart with his comforting words when my sister died unexpectedly at age 45 and I flew to Michigan for the funeral. As I read the 919 tributes, he touched the hearts of so many.

 

MICHAEL BURGE writes:

It is no surprise that so many people had such wonderful memories of John. Some of the recollections, I mean you, John Cannon, brought tears to my eyes. 

          I have been sharing these 919 Gang emails with John’s family, although they already see them on his email feed. Still, I want to be sure to flag them and maintain contact.

          They have not yet informed me of plans for services. As soon as they do I will pass that information on to you, and to Jack to post on 919 Gang.

          Thank you all for your remembrances.

 

From CARL LARSEN: No one in this realm remembers John Gilmore for as long as former Union reporter and assistant city editor David Farmer, who befriended John as a small-town boy in Ramona. I messaged David, who went on to a distinguished career in broadcast news, about John’s passing. Here’s what he wrote in reply for the 919 Gang from his home in LA. 

 

David Farmer writes: 

John Gilmore died this week from lung disease. He was 81. Most people reading this knew John as a capable, likeable journalist for The Union-Tribune. I first knew him as Johnny Gilmore, the curious little boy I sometimes saw at his father's popular pharmacy/soda fountain in Ramona.

I was half a dozen years older than John, but we kept in touch all his life, often through his sister, Barbara. She and I were Ramona High classmates, and she married Ernie Trumper, another Ramona classmate and my oldest friend.

After high school John got on the track to enter journalism. Once, in his early twenties, he suffered a collapsed lung and was hospitalized in the San Diego area. I visited him with what I decided was an appropriate gift, the very popular book "The Medium Is the Message" by Marshall McLuhan.  I hoped John would understand it better than I did. 

After graduating from San Diego State, John entered the Copley Newspapers' training program. Copley, owner of The San Diego Union and Evening Tribune, had a string of small afternoon dailies circling Los Angeles: in Burbank, Monrovia, Pasadena, etc. They were like the farm teams of baseball, developing reporters to work in Copley's large dailies. After stints at a couple of them, John was called up to "the Bigs," in his case the Evening Tribune. 

John served the Tribune for many years, settling in Santee and covering the East County. After the Union and Tribune merged, he reported and edited for the Union-Tribune. Eventually he was among staffers offered a buyout. Like me, faced with a similar challenge amid media cutbacks, he wondered how a journalist could make a living in San Diego apart from the U-T. But he had nothing to fear. After making the decision to retire, he landed quickly, to his surprise, in a public relations post at the Port District.

Late in life, John suffered two personal tragedies. His wife died young, and he had a disabling stroke.  He worked hard to recover from the stroke and regained almost all of his abilities. 

While John remained in San Diego County, I moved first to CBS News in Los Angeles and then New York City. I finally returned to LA and we began a frequent email correspondence that continued until he died. 

John Gilmore was my kind of newsman: serious, dedicated, and interested only in providing accurate news to the public.

 

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          JACK REBER writes:

          Today my oldest son and I went through the stack of Union-Tribune sections Don Kohlbauer sent me. These papers (mostly sports sections) were from the 1980s to about 2003.

          Two things leapt at me.  The paper was much larger then. A U-T page is 10½  inches wide today. In those days it was 13½ inches wide.

          The second thing was people really knew what to do with great photos. The photos are huge and interesting, and I have to report that Don took most of them. Beautiful work.

 

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          REBER: We close the month by wishing John Muncie a very Happy Birthday on Feb. 28.

Extraordinary fraud

 

          Good evening, 919 Gang. I’m not surprised by the outpouring of praise for John Gilmore, and I hope there is more to come.

          When a 919 Gang member dies, I do not drop them from the mailing list. I hope that the deceased’s relatives are checking his/her email and seeing how much that person was respected.

          Share your memories, they are bound to offer at least some comfort to those who have had a major loss.

 

          JOHN CANNON writes:

John Gilmore was a fraud.

          An extraordinary fraud.

Sure, he had that hard-bitten, hardcore edge. Or so he would have you believe. He worked to perfect this public face, but talk to him for less than a minute, and you saw his true self. He couldn’t hide a compassionate soul. He wanted to know what story you were working on, what books you were reading, and what you thought of this or that world development. You couldn’t help but admire his hard-nose schtick. He seemed to revel in the game.

          John was one of the first people I met at the San Diego Tribune. When I arrived from freezing Chicago in February 1987 to interview for a night desk position, I had never been to Southern California. I was apprehensive and unsure how I would fit into this strange land. But John, a reporter filling in as desk editor that day, intercepted me as I stumbled around and chose not to use the tough-guy act. He asked me about my life, what Chicago was like and other stuff. Classic reporter trick – get people talking about themselves to put them at ease. I felt at ease then, and all the other time I spent with John. Sometimes, we didn’t even talk. We just sat up in the fifth-floor cafeteria in Mission Valley and ate brown-bag lunches while we read.

          He could be blunt because, you know, you have to keep up appearances. He played guard on the Ramona High School basketball team (it was a few years ago), and during a game at the Army and Navy Academy in Carlsbad, the cadets were riding the Bulldogs mercilessly. Eventually, John had had enough and flipped off the home crowd, an uncommonly coarse act in those days.

          “I’m not proud of that,” he told me at least three times over the years.

          Once, I bought an older Toyota Corolla from John at a price he set ridiculously low. When I got into the car to drive it home, I saw a bottle of Peachy Canyon red wine in the passenger seat with a ribbon around its neck, a gift to mark the sale. Who does that?

          Gruff. Yeah, sure.

John, I’ll miss you more than I can explain. 

 

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ANNE KRUEGER writes:

John Gilmore had a wry self-deprecating humor that I always enjoyed in the years that I knew him. This is my favorite John Gilmore story.

In the early 2000s, John was working in Mission Valley and I was in the East County bureau. I didn’t see him often, but we had a good relationship.

Imagine my surprise when one day on our internal messaging system, I got a message from John that started out “Hey scum bucket.” I couldn’t imagine what I had done to bring that about. I called John, and he had meant to send the message to Eddie Krueger, who was listed as EKRUEGER in our messaging system, while I was AKRUEGER. John and I laughed about it.

A few weeks later, I got another message from John that started out “Hey dirtbag.” Once again, he had sent me a message he intended for Eddie.

Since then, it became a running joke between us. Whenever I met John, I would greet him with “Hi scum bucket” and he would respond “Hey dirtbag.” The greetings were said with great affection.

John was the nicest dirtbag scum bucket I've ever known.

 

          LESLIE WOLF BRANSCOMB writes:

I'm sorry to hear about John Gilmore. I didn't realize he was in poor health, because you recently posted that he joined you for lunch in Ramona. He was a great boss when we were in the El Cajon bureau together. And yes, the curmudgeonly thing was an act. He's one of the sweetest, nicest people I've ever met. We crossed paths when he was at the Port of San Diego, but I haven't seen him in years.

          Despite that, when my husband was going through his cancer journey in 2018-2019 he sent me a very nice email about his prostate cancer experience, and gave me and Max some thoughtful advice, uplifting encouragement, and offered to be available for any help.

I last heard from him about a year ago, when I was pondering in the 919 about who I would be and what I would do after retirement. That post prompted a lot of financial advice (I have financial advisors I inherited from my parents, so that's all taken care of, thank you) and an eye-opening number of stories from 919ers who "retired" only to go on to greater career heights as teachers, lawyers, freelancers, book authors, sailors, etc. John sent me a kind email saying, you know, it's okay to just enjoy your retirement and not feel like you have to keep working to attain greater accomplishments. If you would like to spend your time watching old movies, catching up on all the novels you want to read, puttering in the garden, going to the beach to watch the sunset, spending time with family or lunching with friends, that's fine. That's what I do. You earned your retirement, so enjoy it!

          P.S. -- I'm still not retired. Turned 65 last June and it kind of crept up on me and I didn't even think about it until I got letters from Milliman (the U-T) and the City of Chula Vista saying it's time to start taking your pension. So I planned to retire at the end of 2025, then put it off due to work obligations, then set the date at the end of March, and now my government employer is asking me to postpone until July 1, the start of the new fiscal year, to make it all tidy (and make sure they don't lose funding for my position in the next fiscal year.) Ugh. Discussions are ongoing.

 

EMMET PIERCE writes:

          I'm very sorry to learn of John Gilmore's death. He was a solid journalist and a supportive editor. Always calm and thoughtful, John was a very good listener. He was well-liked by his colleagues. I got to know John when I covered the Grossmont Union High School District in the late 1990s. He was the education editor. 

 

ALAN MILLER writes:

          John Gilmore , as many mourners will confirm, was one of the most decent colleagues one ever encountered. A consummate professional, his manner was unflappable. I spoke with him at home a couple of weeks ago and we talked for 30 minutes or so. I was stunned to learn he had a terminal disease, having recovered several years ago from a stroke. John calmly accepted his fate and was grateful that he had lived a good life and that his family had been so supportive. May this thoroughly gentle man RIP and God bless his family.

 

DAVID OGUL writes:

"Never put off until tomorrow what can be done today." 

That thought came rushing back upon reading the devastating news about John Gilmore. John and I were more than co-workers or casual acquaintances. I was honored to be known as a friend. While at the U-T, we spoke daily, not about office politics, but about family, faith, and loss. Our friendship really took off when the San Diego Trolley extended what became known as the Green Line under San Diego State and we both began commuting to the Mission Valley office by light rail daily, John boarding in East County and me at the 70th Street station. John always asked about my wife and kids, my mom, and what trips I might be planning. More often than night, morning conversations would continue on the trolley ride back home.

We kept in touch after we were unceremoniously let go during the demise of what once was a damn good newspaper, and I last saw John about a year ago when we met for lunch at DZ Aikins. Just a couple of weeks ago, I told myself I needed to call John and set up another lunch.

"Never put off until tomorrow what can be done today."

 

          KAREN KUCHER writes:

I was so sad to read about the passing of John Gilmore, whom I first met during my summer internship. He later was my editor and was always quick to offer writing tips and encouragement, although the feedback sometimes was delivered with his trademark curmudgeon-in-training demeanor.

He famously growled at me one day when I was dawdling over a crime brief he needed to edit: "You don't have to solve the murders, Kucher, you just have to write about them." 

He was kind and thoughtful. He once dropped me a note after meeting my daughter, who he said struck him as "a very sweet girl." He added: "And I surmise she is smart, funny, feisty and can be strong-willed. Perhaps she takes after her mom." That backhanded compliment still makes me smile.

We stayed in touch with occasional lunches or calls after he went on to the port and then retirement, but not as often as I would have liked. 

RIP John, you'll not be forgotten. 

 

CARL LARSEN writes:

I thought Mike Burge did a masterful job of presenting the John Gilmore I knew.

I was John’s boss for important years in his career, yet  I feel like a guy who holds only three pieces of a larger, complex puzzle that I’m unable to put together, but each piece I possess is a piece of gold.

Here’s hoping that a collective 919 effort  from others holding the other puzzle pieces - spanning more than 59 years at Copley and beyond - gives us a full picture of John as a father, colleague and friend, ornery at times but compassionate, understanding and thoughtful at heart.

I don’t have the memory power to pull up stories he worked on, both as a reporter and later as assistant metro editor shepherding a score of reporters. But I do remember John had a special interest in stories about social welfare, both as a reporter and editor, and as an education and military editor.

Post-merger, John took one of the earliest buyouts that signaled  the start of the U-T’s long decline.

I remember his agonizing on whether to leave after 39 Copley years, even with an offer of a pile of money. What would he do? Could he pay the bills?

All those worries disappeared shortly after he left when Irene Jackson,  I believe, hired him for a p.r. job at the Port District.

I am so glad we kept our connection alive - a birthday dinner in his honor that Sharon and I invited him to at East County Anthony’s, his presence at our 25th anniversary bash on Shelter Island  ( a journey that was hard for him to make), and an East County dinner at Pietro’s near  Grossmont Center. And sharing our heart-healthy recipes by phone.

A week ago I called John; he was in good spirits, and he was concerned about my respiratory problems that mimicked some of his.

A minute after hanging up, he sent me an Amazon link to a room air cleaner he used and recommended.

Cherished times all.

Let’s all help finish that puzzle.

 

          DAVID GADDIS SMITH writes:

John’s appearances would bring a smile to my face — such a warm, kind and opinionated soul … I’m looking forward to reading 919 tributes to him.

 

GINA LUBRANO writes:

John Gilmore, faux curmudgeon, will be missed greatly by all of us who laughed at the carefully curated crusty act and saw him for who he truly was. May he rest in peace.

 

ANNE KRUEGER writes:

’I’m so sorry to hear that. John was a great guy. I’ll miss him. 

 

          STEVE SCHMIDT writes:

I’m sorry to read about the passing of John Gilmore. He was my boss for several years and was always a gentleman and a crackerjack editor. We met for lunch a couple times in recent years. It was great to see him so engaged in life, even with his health challenges, and to get his wine recommendations (Kirkland Signature Malbec!) He was all aces.

 

          TOM GABLE writes:

I had the good fortune to have John as a friend, going back to our days at the Tribune. It continued when I moved into PR, and then after he left the paper and got into the PR business at the Port, where he excelled. We would have lunch on occasion; it was always fun with his wry wit and Cheshire grin, sharing stories from the paper and the town. 

          He had a sharp critical eye, too, and I would run things by him for input. This included for PR articles and when I started writing a column on Substack. He provided links to some great resources for bright quotes. He edited my farewell blog when I retired from PR, greatly improving it, and I was pleased that he and Bill Osborne joined the festivities. 

          John had a good eye for wine values, too. He would email me with finds from his latest Costco forays. I thought he was going to be around much longer after Jack reported that John had visited him in Ramona. Everyone is saddened by John’s 30 message but probably smiles a little thinking about him crafting it. A great guy. His celebration of life should be memorable in so many ways. Cheers to John and his memory!

 

          BERNIE HUNT writes:

          As an ACE at the Trib., I worked in close harness with the remarkable John Gilmore and we became good friends. I am saddened, indeed, to learn of his death. He was a consummate journalist and a good man. 

 

          SUSAN WHITE writes:

John sent me a lovely note after Bob died, and we talked about getting together someday. Just yesterday Dave Hasemyer and I were talking about going to see Jack and inviting John, too. For me, John's sudden death is a poignant reminder that we shouldn't delay spending time with the people we care about. If we do, all those somedays too easily become never.

 

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ROBIN KLEVEN DISHON writes:

A belated thank you to you, Jack, for sharing the news that Lupe Quiroz had passed away. Also, many thanks to Rob Krier for his delightful recounting of their friendship, and to Michelle Carlin and George Varga, both of whom reached out to me on Facebook with the sad news. Lupe (Lulu to me) was a dear friend during all my years at the newspaper and long after. I'll forever miss her marvelous laugh, her quick wit, her gorgeous smile and her wonderful hugs.

 

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JIM GOGEK writes:

          Regarding Dave Hasemyer's post on U.S. guns in Mexico, the more things change... I wrote the opinion article below 32 years ago (who says journalists can't do math?), and it's even more true today! An amazing factor is that in the 1980s and '90s, Tijuana had less violent crime than San Diego, that Mexico was a safe place. The appetite by US citizens for drugs and guns has caused the violence in Mexico today. We are responsible. 

          The words of 19th century Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz have never been more true -- "Pobre México, tan lejos de Dios y tan cerca de los Estados Unidos"

“Illegal U.S. guns export

violence to Mexico

 

By JIM GOGEK June 6, 1994 Publication: San Diego Union-Tribune, The (CA) Page: A-2 Word Count: 770

Getting tough on illegal immigrants from Mexico is all the rage this year. But nobody's paying attention to a lethal cargo being smuggled the other way across the border: guns.

It's no surprise that the handgun used to kill a Mexican presidential candidate, Luis Donaldo Colosio, in Tijuana in March or the assault rifles used to gun down a Roman Catholic cardinal in Guadalajara last year came from the United States. And it's very likely the AK-47 used to
murder Tijuana Police Chief Jose Federico Benitez Lopez in April was purchased in the United States and smuggled into Mexico.

Thousands of weapons, from handguns to machine guns, are smuggled from the United States into Mexico each year. Guns are virtually illegal in Mexico. Gun shops don't exist there.

The export of illegal guns, coupled with a growing drug trade, is beginning to corrupt Mexico's traditionally safe society. Although Tijuana's reputation north of the border has long been besmirched, it has far less violent crime than San Diego. Mexico City, with more than 20 million people and many extremely impoverished neighborhoods, has much less crime than American cities a fraction its size.

But the safety of those cities is being marred by violence that's shocking by Mexican standards, usually shootouts between drug traffickers and federal agents or drug-related executions. The gunning down of the police chief has left Tijuana reeling, and its people angry, but it's only the
most recent nightmare of gunfire.

On March 3, bullets raked a busy Tijuana boulevard in front of a crowded swap meet when federal agents confronted a car carrying a top drug lieutenant and his bodyguards. During the battle, another car full of gunmen ambushed the federal agents. When it was over, five people lay dead in the street, including a top federal drug agent. It turned out that several bodyguards were Baja state police officers, moonlighting for drug traffickers.

Most of the weapons seized in that battle came from the United States. Weapons smuggled into Mexico from the United States have been found from one end of the country to the other. In the southern state of Chiapas, several guns seized from Zapatista rebels after the Jan. 1 uprising were traced to the United States. In Baja California last year, a drug raid netted 179 weapons from the United States, including four M-60 U.S. military machine guns.

Mexico recently began providing some information on smuggled weapons to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. In 1992, Mexican authorities identified 5,351 guns from the United States, and last year 3,376, although officials on both sides of the border say the real
number of weapons is far higher. Even foreign-made weapons seized in Mexico are believed to be smuggled through the United States.

Most weapons smuggled into Mexico are high-powered handguns, many of which come from a small number of gun dealers near the border, according to an unreleased ATF study. Since there are few restrictions on selling guns in the United States, many smuggled weapons are purchased through want ads or at weekend gun fairs, according to ATF officials.

Smuggling guns into Mexico isn't difficult. A straw man purchases guns from a legitimate dealer and turns them over to a smuggler, who takes them across the border. While cars crossing from Mexico into the United States are heavily scrutinized, travelers in the other direction usually are not. Smugglers often just drive into Mexico with a trunk full of guns.

The ATF is virtually powerless to halt this smuggling because the gun purchases here are perfectly legal. Mexican officials want U.S. help to stem the flow of illegal weapons. But with our lax laws on gun dealers and gun sales, that won't happen.

Enacting sensible gun laws in the United States would do a lot to stop the flow of weapons into Mexico.

The Gun Violence Protection Act of 1994, also known as Brady II, would enact handgun registration, limit the sale of handguns to one per month, require a federal license for ownership of more than 20 guns and prohibit the sale of guns anywhere except at legitimate gun shops. Right now, 90 percent of federally licensed gun dealers, including those along the border, don't have shops and instead sell weapons from the trunks of their cars or over their kitchen table. Brady II, co-sponsored by Rep. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., also would make it illegal to sell guns through want ads or at gun fairs.

Illegal immigration from Mexico has become the political snake oil of the 1990s. But when Americans complain about all the problems Mexican immigrants are causing here, they should consider how our nation, overflowing with guns, is illegally exporting murder and violence to Mexico.