. . . And It Has Been Growing Ever Since

The newest--and most succinct--published history of San Diego comes to us courtesy of the second-graders at The Child’s Primary School on Cleveland Avenue. Fully illustrated by student drawings of famous people and places like Mr. and Mrs. Alonzo Horton and the Presidio, the class’s version of the San Diego story pulls no punches and unwinds as follows:

“The Spanish explorers came. They came by boat. Father Junipero Serra came and built the Presidio. That was the first church in San Diego. The Spanish people told the Indians to work for them or go to their houses and move. The Indians were mostly angry, because it was their property. The Spanish made them go to church and work for them. The first homes were built in Old Town by the Spanish. The Mexicans and the Spanish had a war. The Mexicans won.

“The Mexicans raised cattle and sold them for money and socks and clothes. The Americans wanted California as part of their land, so they had to have a war. During the war, they had to eat the mules on Mule Hill. William Davis decided to move the houses closer to the water so boats could come closer to the people. Some people came, but after a while they left. Mr. Horton came. He was a furniture seller in San Francisco. He went to San Diego. He bought land and built blocks downtown. He called it New Town.”

Time for ‘Sippies’ Soon

They started as hippies. Now they’re yuppies. And before they know it, according to Dr. Lynette Milner, a sociologist at United States International University, they will be known as sippies--”senior independent pioneers.”

“There’s no doubt about it, a large percentage of our population will be made up of senior citizens within the next 20 years,” Milner said, predicting that sippies will be the nation’s largest demographic group by the year 2000.

To prepare advertising and marketing executives for the onslaught of sippies, Milner offers a profile of a “typical” member of the species:

The age group will be 55-80 years old, with a “large majority,” up to 65%, being women. Approximately 90% will have been married at least once, and half will have been through a divorce. They will not necessarily be “urban,” or “professional” like yuppies, but most will work longer than current senior citizens because the Social Security system is not likely to support them. Most will have several children and/or stepchildren, and the average sippie will own a home within a retirement community.

Milner predicts that sippies will wield substantial influence in the job market and on the political scene, resulting in “less emphasis on marketing and advertising youth and youth-oriented products.”

Diver Pays a Debt

Olympic diving champion Greg Louganis, who grew up in San Diego County, has done his share of commercial promotions since winning his gold medals in Los Angeles, but perhaps none will be more meaningful than his appearances on behalf of the Aseltine School in Hillcrest.

On Monday, Louganis, who has been one of the top divers in the world since he won a silver medal at the 1976 Montreal Olympics at the age of 16, will kick off a fund-raising drive for the school, which specializes in teaching children with the learning disability dyslexia, an affliction that struck Louganis himself.

Dyslexia is a marked difficulty in learning to read, and sufferers of the disease habitually reverse the letters of the words they see, reading, for example, “saw” for “was.”

Louganis, as chairman of those raising money to pay for construction of a new Aseltine School, will share the story of his struggle with dyslexia at a student body assembly and make several other appearances in town on behalf of the school.

Vietnam Veteran Honored

William Craig Nystul is remembered as a football star and conference wrestling champion at Coronado High School in the early ‘60s--and as one of the last Americans to die in the Vietnam War.

Nystul, who grew up in Coronado and received a bachelor’s degree from San Diego State University, was a 29-year-old Marine captain on April 29, 1975, when the helicopter he was piloting during the final evacuation of American forces from Saigon crashed into the South China Sea near the aircraft carrier Hancock.

Sean William Nystul Hulin, who lives in Vista, was less than 2 years old when his father died. But this week, Sean, 12, who was adopted by the husband of Nystul’s widow, Carol, will honor the memory of his father by traveling to Pensacola, Fla., to participate in the opening of the University of West Florida’s new computer science center.

Sean’s father had received a master’s degree from West Florida, and school officials have named the $1-million William Craig Nystul Chair of Computer Science in his honor. Attending the ceremonies Thursday will be Sean; his mother; her husband, Donald Hulin, and the couple’s three other children.