Ken Kramer: Go back with me to the late 1950s and a really creative teenager living in Bonita starts putting a couple of things together, made of chicken wire and plaster and paint, and what he was making caught everybody's attention, that's for sure.

Vanessa Chicca: He had them right out there on what was-- would be known as Dinosaur Hill.

Ken: Now, about the same time, anybody remember?

Downtown at what was then called 12th and Broadway, come on into Teresa Gonzalez's place.

All you can eat eggs for 39 cents.

Great deal if you worked at one of the neighborhood car dealerships.

Larry Giannoulas: American Motors, which it was Nash Rambler, and next door it was Balboa Oldsmobile.

Ken: And ladies and gentlemen, if you would please proceed straight ahead to the stairs, public stairways.

Too many to list all of them, but we'll visit a few built back when community planners and developers knew how these stairs could connect streets, neighborhoods, and people with no cars required to get from me to you and more stories too, all of them true about San Diego.

announcer: "Ken Kramer's About San Diego," the history and people of the area we call home.

Here's Ken Kramer.

Ken: We are all set to tell you some stories about San Diego.

Hi, I'm Ken Kramer, and we welcome you wherever you may be in San Diego or Imperial Counties, and we have a lot to get to this time.

We're back by the fireplace, sort of a comfortable storytelling setting, right?

And we're gonna do something a little bit different at the start here.

A time or two, we've done this in the past, I guess.

We're going to start with your part of the show, things you've sent in for us all to see, which is usually at the end, we've moved it up to the start here.

And you know what this is, things you've called to our attention or emailed for us to see, to get things rolling.

What have you got about San Diego?

Ken: Aha, you're new in town, a little brochure titled "Life in San Diego."

What to expect: It was 1942, so with the war, maybe life wasn't great, but-- speaker: Mother and daughter, yep, and even grandma herself, as you can see, have torn themselves away from the home and taken over the game of bowling.

Ken: You could bowl 12 cents a game at the Tower Bowl at Broadway and Kettner, with Herb Kern at the organ.

The place had a distinctive tower with rotating neon balls that, by the 1970s when John Margolis took these photos, were pretty faded.

Tower was demolished to make way for America Plaza and the trolley in 1986.

You could call a yellow cab to get there.

I mean, why walk a mile to save a dime, right?

20 cents and then 10 cents for every mile after that.

1887, about $2 would be the going rate for a nice room and meals at Hotel Escondido, considered to be one of the finest and best equipped in Southern California.

It lasted into the 1920s at the east end of Grand Avenue.

Remember our story about how in Mission Beach in 1937, all this foam blew in off the ocean?

Marilyn Malcolm wrote to say that's her mom, Norma Baker, Malcolm Griffin, and Albert Campbell.

Norma, her mom, is 100 now.

Ken: Imperial Beach on the old pier.

You know what this is?

It's a generator to make electricity from ocean waves in 1909.

The idea of Charles Ernest Edwards, who had to do some calculations, as we know, where motion can be described by a velocity potential, a particular equation must be satisfied, a fundamental second order partial differential equation stating that the sum of the partial derivatives of a function with respect to its spatial coordinates equals zero.

And in the end, it didn't work.

announcer: Hennesey, presented by Kent Cigarettes.

Ken: This is always fun, seeing TV shows set in San Diego.

Here's one from 1959, the TV show "Hennesey," starring Jackie Cooper as a doctor at the Naval Hospital and Abby Dalton as a Navy nurse.

Jackie Cooper was in real life a World War II Navy Veteran and an officer in the United States Naval Reserve who was often seen in San Diego and Del Mar.

"Hennesey" ran for 3 seasons and had one of the most memorable theme songs.

Anybody who ever watched the show all those decades ago will instantly recall that.

♪♪♪ Ken: From Karen and Phaedra Drimmel, a June 1963 Sunday newspaper.

Remember FedMart?

Sol Price founded-in-the-1950s discount store.

Some prices listed here.

Swanson TV dinner, 53 cents.

Cheese pizza, 67 cents, oh boy, 74 cents for pepperoni.

So why'd they keep the paper for 63 years?

That's their dad on the front page.

Antique and vintage car collector James R. Drimmel, and I mean, who can blame them.

Our story about pigeons in Balboa Park.

Ken: Well, maybe not these birds exactly, but they're great, great, great, great, great, great, great grand pigeons were very prominent when the big exposition was held here in the park in 1915.

Ken: We showed a photo from 1915 in the park, and wait a minute, Mike Schaefer wrote to say: you know who those guys are?

That's San Diego business and transportation titan John D. Spreckels on the right, and on the left is iconic Speaker of the House Joe Cannon of Illinois, who served 23 non-consecutive terms in the United States Congress and was the longest serving member ever.

And by the way, Mike Schaefer himself served on the San Diego City council in the 1960s, and when elected to the state Board of Equalization in his late 80s, became the eldest Californian to serve in a state constitutional office ever.

And finally, you remember that little brochure, "Life in San Diego 1942," advertisement in it says, oh, you gotta go to the zoo, rare animals, birds, reptiles.

Admission: 25 cents, children: free.

Ken: Couple of things more about what costs were in San Diego in 1942.

First of all, there was rationing.

The government controlled how much of many things you could buy, but if you had the ration stamps, you could get 10 pounds of potatoes for a quarter.

Ground beef was 19 cents a pound.

Milk was 32 cents a gallon, and gasoline was 24 cents for 2 gallons.

Nobody would think of doing away with a penny back then.

Every one of them mattered.

Ken: When you think of how San Diego was in the 1940s, we were, of course, a city filled with soldiers, sailors, and marines, and we looked the part, not just downtown or along the waterfront.

Now go with me a few miles inland to where there were some really unusual military structures.

Okay, if you've been around for a while, you might right away say: "Oh, I know that.

I recognize them.

Some kind of navy radio thing, right?"

Well, yes, and that's putting it mildly.

Since the late 1910s, these towers had dominated the sky.

At the time, the tallest structures in San Diego, 600 feet high and arranged in a triangle.

As they were being built, San Diego was proud to be on the very cutting edge of radio communication.

Mayor Edwin Capps proclaimed: "Space has been annihilated and the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards are as one."

And it was a giant radio station, 200,000 watts.

It was the Naval Radio Transmitting Facility.

It mostly handled routine communication to and from shore operations and ships in the Pacific.

But on December 7th, 1941, word of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was flashed around the world from these very towers.

But eventually the station was deemed unnecessary and too expensive, and all operations ceased on the final day of September 1992.

Three years later, on Veterans Day-- And that was it.

In their lifetime, I'm betting not 1 in 100 of us really knew why they were there and what they were doing.

Gone now.

Disappeared, but I wonder if you remember or if you might know.

We'll make this a quiz.

See if you do know where was this giant navy radio station.

Was it City Heights, Chollas Heights, or Normal Heights?

Did you know it?

Sure.

It was known around the world as the Naval Radio Transmitting Facility at Chollas Heights.

And by the way, inside the administrative office for naval housing at 3251 Transmitter Road in the very building that once housed the giant station is today a little museum which on weekdays when the office is typically open, visitors can ask to see an area set aside for photos and memorabilia from back in those days when this station at Chollas Heights left a worldwide impression about San Diego.

♪♪♪ Ken: One more story about the early 1940s, and for this story we have to turn to the About San Diego Sports Page.

Now, I don't know if when you're seeing this in the future sometime, UCSD and the Tritons and USD Toreros and the Aztecs might all be playing in the same Final Four.

Is that even possible?

Each one trying to bring a national basketball championship home to San Diego.

And if when you're seeing this in the future, some version of that has happened, just know that this story has its roots back before any of that, when San Diego did have a group of champions in every sense of the word.

Ken: Here's a picture of a San Diego basketball player.

His name was Milky, Milky Phelps, described as legendary.

At the end of the 1930s and start of the '40s, college basketball was a bit different from today.

Four personal fouls and you were out of the game.

No three pointers, there was no shot clock.

The ball itself was a little bigger and heavier, and in that basketball world is where Milky Phelps and his teammates played and where this story begins.

Ken: Of course then there was no Viejas, no UCSD or USD Division One basketball.

The only act in town back then was small San Diego State College of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics playing in the 1500 seat women's gym, but they were winning.

1939, they were 22-7; 1940, 22-6, and 1941, 24-7.

For two straight years they had gone all the way to the national championship, only to lose, was pretty devastating.

But then in 1941, Kansas City Convention Center, they did it.

They beat Murray State, and here's the campus newspaper, The Daily Aztec, a few days later: "Team's coming home.

Come meet the team down at the Union Depot tonight at 10:30.

Do what you have to do, just get there."

President Hepner, Mayor P.J.

Benbow, the whole town showed up, and on that night and in that time there was so much joy in this city before only a few months later when everything changed.

announcer: At Pearl Harbor, at Hickam Field in the bombpocked streets of Honolulu, ever is written history, history with a tragic, treacherous pen, history that 130 million Americans will never forget.

Ken: The nation was plunged into World War II.

Team members Mason Harris and Paul Fern were killed in action, and Milky Phelps, 1000 point team leader, All-American, Hall of Fame player, just a year after winning that championship, died in a Navy training exercise.

If you go to Viejas for a game or a concert, look up in the rafters where the championship banners are hung, and way down at one end, there is that banner from all those years ago.

No, it wasn't the NCAA of 2023. sportscaster: He's gonna put it up.

And he wins it.

He wins it with the jumper.

Ken: It was a smaller school in a much smaller San Diego in a different time, but keep looking up, and there also in the rafters among the retired jerseys of Michael Cage and Judy Porter and Kawhi Leonard, there is Milton Milky Phelps who gave everything he had on the court and in life in becoming a sports story to remember about San Diego.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Ken: It's odd how sometimes a person can come to be known for the work that they do because for some reason that work just touches people.

It remains with them for years, and a whole community can be affected by it.

In time, that person becomes a figure in local history, and that's just what happened in one place in our county more than 60 years ago.

A young man had a particular talent, and he's known for that even yet.

Ken: This is the story about a young man named Jerry, and in the late 1950s, early '60s, Jerry lived in Bonita.

Vanessa: Jerry is still loved and admired and honored by this community.

Ken: Wanna know why?

Okay, first, I wanna show you some video of what was back then a roadside attraction in Alpine.

Didn't last very long.

It was an amusement park.

If you're old enough, you might remember it was called Dinosaur Land.

All you could look at, even crawl around on replicas of prehistoric animals, and working at Dinosaur Land, there was Jerry, Jerry Gauss, a teenager who had a talent for curating these dinosaurs, even made a couple of them move.

He knew how to do that.

Vanessa: Well, we know that he had a love of art and a love of sculpture.

Ken: And it is for that that he is revered in Bonita to this day.

Vanessa Chicca says Jerry's story so captured her, she studied him, written about him, learned how in the 1950s, this then 15-year-old student at Hilltop High started creating some things out of rebar, chicken wire, and cement in his front yard over on Valley Road.

Vanessa: Yes, in his imagination, and then he started sculpturing them.

Glarfs, he called them G-L-A-R-F, Glarfs, just a name he made up as he built a couple of them and then more.

Everybody noticed.

Vanessa: He didn't just create these Glarfs and put them in the garage.

He had them right out there on what was--would be known as Dinosaur Hill.

Ken: His Glarfs were a landmark in Bonita, something the town knew about and celebrated because they were a little quirky.

Jerry Gauss was becoming really well known for his imagination and creativity, and then-- Vanessa: There was an accident, and that's all that's told is there was an accident, and a traffic accident.

Ken: Jerry Gauss died.

His devastated family, his mom, they remained at the house with the Glarfs outside for a while.

Then with time she moved.

Jerry's creations were taken away and lost for 28 years, and that might be where the story ends.

But look.

Is that, yes it is, a couple of Glarfs, but they were lost.

What happened?

A Chula Vista police lieutenant from Bonita spotted them while on patrol.

It turns out a family member had them, agreed to a relocation to here in front of Bonita Center on Bonita Road.

A local artist became involved.

The Bonita community got behind it.

It was really something.

Vanessa: And then they were restored, and that's what you see today is what the restoration of the Glarfs that Jerry created.

Ken: For those of a later generation driving by maybe noticing or to the passerby curious enough to stop and wonder, that is what they are and how they came to be where they are.

And as for Vanessa Chicca.

Vanessa: Well, I decided to write a story about the Glarfs and about Jerry.

Just tell his story.

Ken: And a coloring book too, in English and Spanish.

She says her book is about the Glarfs who lost their friend Jerry but still have a connection even though he's passed.

Vanessa: The love is still there.

And that's what I wanted to write about.

Ken: She says anything that comes from their sale goes back into the community's annual Bonita Fest.

There are Glarf t-shirts that benefit the Bonita Museum and Cultural Center.

Seems like the Glarfs have become a kind of unofficial logo of Bonita.

Even at Glen Abbey Memorial Park, if you know where to look, there is a grave and a marker honoring Jerry Lee Gauss and his glarfs.

Vanessa: Jerry Lee Gauss, the greatest boy in the world.

Ken: So, many decades later, I wonder what would he think of the legacy he left behind, the affection Vanessa Chicca and the Bonita community feel for him even yet.

Vanessa: I love this one.

It's got polka dots.

Ken: I think you'd especially enjoy the reactions of people seeing them for the first time.

How curious and strange they are and the questions, what are they?

Who did that?

In his memory and by all means, do tell them this story about San Diego.

Ken: By the way, the two Glarfs we now see on Bonita Road were the two that initially Jerry had installed at his parents' home.

There is a commemorative plaque at the base of each one of them today, and if you search the word Glarf, their appearance is described as brightly colored squat figures with large eyes and manicured claws resembling a mix of ET and Teletubbies.

I think that might have been written a while ago.

Ken: We're going to do something a little bit different now.

It may become a regular feature.

There's no telling, I suppose we could call it Things That Aren't Here Anymore or Things That Aren't Around Anymore.

Let's go back in time to celebrate one particular place.

Do you remember it?

Ken: It was just a simpler time in San Diego if you wanted to run a restaurant 50 years ago.

Thinking back, there's this twinge of nostalgia.

It's kind of sad that things have to change.

Ken: And the thing is, nothing has changed, not at this place at 12th and Broadway.

Ken: Not much anyway, in 54 years.

It's like a trip back to the Eisenhower administration, when Teresa Gonzalez bought it back then, it cost her $1,000.

Teresa Gonzalez: Yeah, for everything, everything, machines, everything, $1,000.

speaker: [speaking in Spanish].

Ken: The cook, well, he's just a kid, only been here 40 years.

The refrigerator is 75.

Larry Giannoulas has been here since the early '60s.

Larry Giannoulas: Alright, and we had, what, 5, 6 cooks, about 20 waiters who were working.

Ken: These seats were filled by people who poured out of small businesses downtown, car dealerships.

Larry: American Motors, which it was Nash Rambler, and next door it was Balboa Oldsmobile.

Ken: The food, all-you-can-eat Mexican plate was $1 and for breakfast-- Teresa: I have one special for 38 cents.

Everything the eggs you can eat.

Ken: No more all-you-can-eat eggs for 38 cents now, but the look, the feel, the employees, they're the same for the moment.

The city plans redevelopment along what is now called Park Boulevard, which will mean the end of Teresa Gonzalez's restaurant.

She says she doesn't know what she'll do when that happens.

She'll be 81 in October.

She's getting older.

Larry: Everything is old, the lady owner, and the place too.

Ken: But till then the burgers and eggs and Teresa and the whole cast will remain here, something unchanging and absolutely wonderful about San Diego.

Ken: All right, a story now paying tribute to what some people call the Secret Stairs of San Diego.

Actually, there's nothing secret about them really.

They are known and cherished by those in the neighborhoods nearby, but we're gonna pay attention to public stairways for a minute because there is something very satisfying on many different levels about climbing them.

Show you what I mean.

Ken: It's an old motivational saying, there's no elevator to success, you have to take the stairs.

Ken: And since successful people, I mean truly successful people, are willing to do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do in order to be succe-- Let's climb some stairs.

Ken: These are stairs in the Mount Nebo neighborhood in La Mesa.

Ken: The successful people, so if you're not successful-- Ken: There are a couple of stairways connecting different streets.

This one goes from the intersection of Windsor Drive and Canterbury Drive up to Summit Drive, 245 steps, nice.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Ken: There are a lot of climbing opportunities in San Diego.

Staircases in Balboa Park, like the 98 Juniper Stairs built by the California Conservation Corps.

Ken: In Tierra Santa, Clairemont, Mesa, and Antigua, little over 100 steps, a popular workout spot for those more successful souls than I. What's at the top?

The sometimes entrance to ball fields and a public park and a really nice open view.

Ken: But for me it's not the workout stairs like the ones at Mesa College or San Diego State or even the grand staircase at the convention center.

It's back when people walked from place to place and they built these public stairways to connect up neighborhoods.

Ken: Like in Rolando Village, 80 years ago when developers were putting in sidewalks, they added what people living here call catwalks.

Mostly they are walkways that go behind and between houses, leading to eight stairways, offering a total of 256 stairs.

Sure, let's say you had a friend just one block up the hill.

Instead of hiking around winding streets, you could take the stairs, a built-in shortcut, right?

Thus streets and neighborhoods were connected together through a whole system of public stairways.

Maybe that's part of the charm of it, not being so car dependent and having something that's unique to your community.

What a great thing that modern suburban developers probably wouldn't think to do today, a welcoming permission to pass behind backyards and in the morning or the afternoon to walk along, breathe it in, take in the smell of citrus trees.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Ken: Or enjoy the poppies along the walks and secret stairs of Valencia Park connecting Las Alturas Terrace and Trinidad Way and extending on to Churchward and Dream Streets.

They had become overgrown and tended to flood in the rains, but then the Urban collaboration project, along with community and corporate donations, helped get the brush cleared away and the stairways open again.

And back in January of 2022, four local artists began painting poppies.

Ken: Cristina Kim and KPBS were there that day and learned that the poppy has some possible history.

The story is back when this neighborhood was being built, there were still open lots, and the developer is said to have added these walkways and stairs because his wife loved to go out and pick nearby wild flowers.

I love that.

And if it's true, thank you, for public stairways are a real asset that create a sense of connection and community.

They add beauty and a sense of local history and sometimes a view too.

They elevate step by step, and if you take them up on the offer, it can add up to a personal sense of something too that's quite nice in the end, that feeling of what was it again?

Ken: Success.

Ken: Uh-huh.

Ken: And that's it for this time and this episode of "About San Diego," the show that often dips back into history to celebrate how we came to be the place we are today.

Couple of things, if you wanna learn more, find links to the locations and stories we cover, see these stories again, or find a contact link to reach the show or maybe send us a photograph of something cool that you have or of the way things used to be, something we can show on the air.

It's kenkramertv.com.

Kenkramertv.com.

We will see you next time.

Till then and as always, I am Ken Kramer.

Thank you for watching and for caring about San Diego.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ announcer: Support for this program comes from the KPBS Explore Local Content Fund, supporting new ideas and programs for San Diego.