From our weekly issue dated June 25, 2008

With apologies to John: In the beginning was the word, and the word was, “Get a job.” It was around 1962 when your current editor-in-chief, then one year out of high school, was hot-rodding around the San Diego area, and needed money for Jack In The Box 22-cent hamburgers and 25-cents per gallon ethyl gasoline.

My job at the time was working for Canteen Service, and I parked my truck at the end of my vending machine route right about 2 p.m. That gave me 30 minutes to reach Southwestern Community College from the area of Old Town San Diego. Yeah, I drove too fast, but I was young and stupid. Fortunately the campus then was at Chula Vista High School before the college got its own campus out Otay Lakes Road. Otherwise I would have been late for my first class at 2:30.

Actually, I only took a journalism class at Southwestern because it started at 2:30, which dove-tailed with my arrival after work. I didn’t know what the class involved, but it fit my schedule, and I had always done well with English. So there you go.

One of my fellow students at the time wrote a weird humor column called The Mad Gypsy. As I wrote a strange humor column called The Shaman Speaks, I felt a kinship. I chose the name for my column because S.W. College teams are known as the Apaches, and I thought that my reference was apt. I don’t know why “Dave” picked gypsy. Other than the staff, no one knew his identity.

For one issue we had a photo of a student who had perfect attendance for two years. And we had another photo, of the back of Dave’s hairy head, which was to run with his column with the caption, “Guess who?” Somehow, the photos got switched, and so every copy of that issue was goofed up.

Dave was different. One of his assignments was to write a story about the then-planned campus. There was an architect’s model of the site, complete with tiny buildings and trees. The model was covered with a clear hard-plastic cover, like a cake dish. The “gypsy’s” story led with, “It’ll never work. People will die without oxygen under that plastic dome.”

Another time he was assigned to interview the graphic arts teacher who designed the college seal. He submitted his story; we ran it. All heck broke loose. The teacher was incensed because he had not been interviewed. Good ‘ol Dave had made up the whole story.

Well, that was the end of The Mad Gypsy’s time on the college newspaper, The Athapascan. Too bad, because I liked the guy. Must have something to do with peculiar senses of humor.

I still have a job. Some feel I’m still stupid, but I’m no longer young, although sometimes I drive fast. And now the cheapest burger at Jack’s costs around $1.29. However, the price of a gallon of gasoline is approaching 5 bucks, and even my atypical sense of humor doesn’t think that’s funny.