Fred Swegles| San Clemente Times

CoastLines: Some of Our Spanish Street Names Are a Mouthful

By Fred Swegles How would you like to live on Pimple Street? I’m not suggesting that we have a Zit Street in San Clemente. But…

SC LIVING, SC Living Headlines

Coastlines: Now I Know My Uncle Jack Was a War Hero

By Fred Swegles One day, years ago, I paused outside the door entering the community center and my jaw dropped. I gazed at a plaque:…

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Coastlines: Marblehead Coastal Site

A Far-Different 1968 Vision Led to What We See Today By Fred Swegles Try to envision San Clemente’s Marblehead Coastal property as home to three…

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CoastLines: In Search of Mission San Clemente

Exact location of first Catholic mission in Texas remains unknown By Fred Swegles Everyone remembers the Alamo. We learned about it in school. For all…

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CoastLines: Once Again, I’ve Just Seen Everyone’s Favorite Canine

By Fred Swegles Two weeks ago, I casually asked an acquaintance if she remembered a San Clemente dog that used to hang out along Interstate…

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CoastLines: She Taught the Town How to Swim

By Fred Swegles It’s 1952. The Korean War rages on. In America, thousands of children are paralyzed, and some even die, from a spreading plague…

SC LIVING, SC Living Headlines, Video

Coastlines: ‘Just Don’t Call Me Benedict Arnold!’

By Fred Swegles How do you react, upon learning you are a distant cousin to the most notorious traitor in U.S. history? Tell no one?…

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CoastLines: Memories of My Aunt Evalyn and Her Historic House

By Fred Swegles Here’s a little-known story about a San Clemente gem. Casa Romantica is widely known as the elegant home that San Clemente founder…

Opinion Columns, SOAPBOX

CoastLines: Some Place We’re Going, Some Places We’ve Been

By Fred Swegles Time flies when you’re having fun. Somehow, my one-year anniversary as a San Clemente Times columnist flew right past me, without my…

EYE ON SC, News Headlines

Sand art, bodyboarding like you’ve never seen it, and some other Ocean Festival eye candy

Here are some more perspectives of this weekend’s San Clemente Ocean Festival, captured by roving columnist Fred Swegles.

Opinion Columns, SOAPBOX

CoastLines: We’re famous! Our pier is No. 1! Or is it Number Two?

By Fred Swegles You may want to ask our pier’s prolific pigeons which one it is. The city is doing a DNA-based study to try…

SC LIVING, SC Living Headlines

CoastLines: 250 Years Ago, Father Serra Started Something Big

By Fred Swegles As milestones go, 2019 is a blockbuster—the 250th anniversary of the founding of San Diego in July 1769. Modern-day California begins then and…