On Foot in San Diego: Old Police Headquarters

I headed down to the Old Police Headquarters sale today hoping I would be able to get a look inside. Built in 1938 and located on prime waterfront land at the San Diego Harbor, this huge site has been vacant since 1986 and surrounded by high rises, cruise ships, and Seaport Village. Since it was put on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999 it couldn't just be torn down. Thank God for that.

It is a beautiful Spanish revival building with courtyard and lots of space. It looked more like Moorish-Craftsman to me, but what do I know about architecture? The city is permitting the site to be renovated into retail shops and boutiques, keeping the historic architecture in place.


I couldn't get inside the building as I'd hoped, but I could get a glimpse through the arched doorways that had already been cut in for the future design. I was able to stand on tiptoes and look into the old court house, naturally drawn to the door propped against the wall.


Outside were cell doors, toilets, sinks and, believe it or not, they were selling. One guy bought 13 metal bunks to make a fence, others were going to use the lidless toilets for garden planters. I thought a cell door would make a useful tomato trellis but how the heck to get it back to my house?


Most of the history came from talking with those in the lot. This Mexican-American woman was thirteen in 1945 when her 22 year old brother died as an inmate-set conflagration swept through the jail and killed 5 prisoners. Grief from losing her older brother ("he was in trouble a lot") was still there and I sensed she had come to share her memory of her brother with others. She showed anyone who would look the original newspaper articles and a picture of her brother that was pinned to her sweater. Headlines above the article reported German action in World War II.


A retired police officer who worked at the facility knew all the history of the Headquarters. (When they're not giving you a ticket, police officers are actually nice guys.) The jail, he said, had a capacity of 300 men and women, but at times they had 600. This was the total jail population in 1986. Today, just twenty some years later, San Diego has seven jails and 5000 inmates. Not much to brag about. But he was bragging about how the cooks would throw steaks on the grill for the officers, and they even had a barber shop inside.

Next stop, I'm not sure yet, but I'm kind of getting into this San Diego history thing.

Charleston Walking

Ever wonder where that phrase "dead man walking" came from? Remember in the death penalty movie, Dead Man Walking, how the prison guard escorting Sean Penn to execution calls out "dead man walking, dead man walking here"?

Every day at the jail I hear a deputy - they're called deputies in jail, guards in prison - call out down the hall "walking!" when they escort inmates around the jail, and I have a flashback to the movie and the morbid Thomas Hardy poem the phrase may have come from. Or even just now writing out my title "Charleston Walking".

In a less gloomy vein, Patty, Kelly and I were walking Charleston during our Christmas visit, and what a wonderful town to get some walking exercise. No wonder Joan never runs out of material.
Beautiful old houses...


Ornate wrought iron gates...


...and fences.


Spanish moss libraries...


Architectural alleys...


Of course, I couldn't resist those doors.






On the way we passed Joan's "little" house -- no means little by California standards, and here in California a twenty year old house is considered "old" -- and lamented not having the foresight to call ahead for a "drop in". Next time, Joan.

Edinburgh: Knockin' on Heaven's Door

Toward the end of our first day trekking the Royal Mile, we came across the Canongate Kirk (church) and cemetery with a stunning view, old headstones, and this door on the church's east side. Of course, I had to take a picture of the red door. Check this site for a picture of the front of the wee kirk and the beautiful interior which, unfortunately, we didn't get to see.

If cemeteries could talk, this one would have a lot to say. When I came home, I checked out who is buried there. A cemetery around since 1688 has plenty time to collect some notable bodies. The list reads like a Who's Who of Edinburgh - painters, musicians, writers, scholars, mayors, and lords. Naturally some spicy scandals accompany the notables. Here are just a few of the interred...

George Drummond, Lord Provost of Edinburgh, laid the foundation of the North Bridge, fought at the battle of Prestonpans. The guy was born in 1687 and would have been 58 at the time of this battle. He was on the side of Johnny Cope, fighting those pesky Highlanders. :)

Adam Smith, that famous economist and free market Reaganite who wrote The Wealth of Nations in 1776. Was he perhaps a plagiarist? His statue was unveiled in front of St. Giles Kirk just days before we came to Edinburgh.


George Chalmers, originally a plumber, founded Chalmers Hospital. Maybe there's hope for our Joe the Plumber.

John Frederick Lampe, one of my favorite guys here, was Handel's bassoon player in opera houses in the early 1700's.

Young Robert Fergusson, poet. Often sickly, he died at the age of 24 years in a public insane asylum. Likely he had manic depressive disorder complicated by spending too much time in those Scottish pubs. He fell down stairs in a drunken state and died a few weeks later. Robert Burns visited his grave site a year later and on reaching the grave uncovered his head, knelt down and embraced the earth. He put up a monument to the young Fergusson, inscribed as follows:

"No sculptur'd Marble here, nor pompous lay,
No storied Urn nor animated Bust;
This simple stone directs pale Scotia's way
To pour her sorrows o'er the Poet's dust."


Joan caught a picture of the poet's statue outside the kirk, a wee short lad he must have been.


David Rizzo, Mary, Queen of Scots' personal secretary. He was murdered by Mary's husband, Lord Darnley, and a bunch of noble thugs in front of pregnant Mary, stabbed 56 times. (We saw the spot in Holyrood where this happened.) Within a few hours he was buried in the back yard of the Holyrood Palace just down the street from the kirk. His body was moved at least a couple times before finally ending up in the Canongate Kirk.

And, lastly (for this story, that is), dear Clarinda, sweetheart of Robert Burns is buried here. But hers is a story for another day...

Wouldn't you like to be here in the Canongate cemetery on All Hallow's Eve? Maybe chat a bit, swap some stories?

The Doors of Hadrian's Wall

Cha d’dhùin doras nach d’fhosgail doras.
No door ever closed, but another opened.

Before we entirely leave Hadrian's Wall, I must show my trail doors. Had I not been so preoccupied with the other eye candy on the trail -- and I'm not referring to the "sexy voice" guy in the pub -- my camera would have been filled with more doors. I wrote an earlier blog on the Doors of Bhutan. Joan has a gallery just for Doors.

What is it that draws some photographers to doors?


Farm building doors along the way were not your usual bland entrances. These farm doors were Mykonos colored and, curious... do you suppose Sarah Palin got hold of that second floor door to nowhere?


More farm doors...


The door to this fortified house entered into the second floor -- the better to defend your house from those nasty "reivers" come raiding across the border from Scotland in the 15th and 16th centuries. English law required the border houses have three foot thick walls for defense. How would you like that in your homeowner's association agreement?


Beautifully simple and classic church doors...


Classic doors in the little villages we walked through...


Joan spotted this loving door at the Low Rigg dairy farm that put us up for a night.


And, last but not least, a door to one of the many of the pubs we frequented along the way ... my kind of door.

Goodness, Gracious! Great Balls of Fire!

A couple weeks back I wrote about the Doors of Bhutan and one practice in this Buddhist country was particularly puzzling.

Why the ubiquitous public display of the male member in this Himalaya kingdom, soon to be a constitutional monarchy/parliamentary democracy?

No sooner wondered than the March issue of National Geographic arrived in the mail. Inside is an article "Bhutan's Enlightened Experiment" with a terrific description about Bhutan's history and emergence from its cocoon into modernity. And, of course, those amazing National Geographic photographs. If you want to understand Bhutan, run to your local newsstand for a copy or check out the website.

But, back to my story. When I asked a Bhutanese about the phalluses, I was told "it's good luck".

According to National Geographic, though, the significance lies in Bhutanese Buddhism itself. It seems there was a 16th century lama, Drukpa Kunley, also called the "Divine Madman", who "caroused across the countryside...slew dragons and granted enlightenment to young maidens with the magical powers of his 'flaming thunderbolt'".

Have we progressed in the last 500 years?