Locally Speaking, the Inside Scoop on Reagans Seems to Be Plain Vanilla

America’s Friskiest First Family?

When I worked in Riverside, I had an editor who routinely complained about that city’s lack of grisly/newsworthy occurrences.

“When a plane crashes anywhere else in the world, it does a nose dive into a Catholic school playground at recess,” he said. “When a plane crashes in Riverside, it lands softly in a cow pasture and everybody walks away unhurt. Just our lousy luck.”

Now I know how he feels.

I just finished “Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography,” by Kitty Kelley. Sad to report: I couldn’t find one measly scandalous reference to San Diego in the entire 603 pages.

The closest to a juicy local angle was some stuff about Michael Reagan, now a San Diego radio talk show host.

The book says the Secret Service tattled to his father that Michael had swiped a candy bar, a T-shirt, a bottle of mouthwash and a small bottle of airline booze. Michael was supposedly frozen out of the family for three years.

Interesting, but small beer compared to the sexual frolics asserted elsewhere.

What makes this so galling is that there have been lots of local Reagan sightings.

In the early 1950s, Ronald, Nancy and the kids vacationed at the Hotel del Coronado. (I’ve seen the pictures.) Still, there’s nothing in the book about Ronald fanny-pinching any chambermaids.

What’s worse, San Diego was long said to be Reagan’s favorite political city. He ended all his campaigns here.

In 1980, the Reagans spent Election Eve at a monster pep rally in the parking lot of the Fashion Valley shopping center: a marching band, Donny and Marie Osmond, a fireworks display that formed an American flag.

Come to think of it--I’m pretty sure I saw Nancy giving Donny the eye that night.

Somehow, though, Kitty Kelley never included me in her 1,100 interviews. A missed opportunity for San Diego to share the headlines.

Just another case of lousy luck, I guess.

Still in the Dugout

Take one, they’re free.

* Benched.

Update: After six weeks, the state architect’s office in Los Angeles has yet to OK as earthquake-proof the parent-built batting cage (complete with pitching machines) at San Dieguito High School in Encinitas.

Meanwhile, the cage is idle, and the Mustangs are 1-8 and batting under .200.

* If guests at a big-name San Diego hotel are getting surly service these days, maybe there’s a reason.

The new general manager has started charging hotel employees for their meals. “Now the same tasteless food is costing us $40 a month,” grumps one employee.

* Anti-abortion activists are beginning a letter-writing campaign to trustees of Children’s Hospital in San Diego.

The goal is to dissuade trustees from allowing the hospital to participate in a student health clinic planned for Hoover High School in East San Diego.

The activists are convinced that the clinic will soon be dispensing birth control devices and making abortion referrals.

* One hooker in Oceanside gave her occupation to police as “pleasuristic technician.”

* Yesterday’s glory.

T-shirts supporting Operation Desert Storm are in the discount bin at the Sears store in Encinitas.

Hidden Assets

“Anyone who has been a patient and worn a traditional hospital gown knows there has to be a better way,” says Anita Chaffee.

So Chaffee and her brother, Tim Russell, developed a new hospital gown, with Velcro tabs in the back to avoid southern exposure.

The pair hired a Chula Vista garment maker to mass-produce the new gowns, and formed their own La Jolla-based company to market them.

After a big spread in Modern Health Care magazine, the new gown is selling briskly to hospitals nationwide, including the Scripps Clinic & Research Foundation.

Chaffee and Russell see no reason to hide the main asset of their creation.

Hence the name of their firm: The No Moon Co.