North County Film Fans to Enjoy the Reel McCoy

It may not exactly rank up there with the likes of a new fine arts museum (Vista does have a steam engine museum) or concert hall (there’s a band shell at Escondido’s Kit Carson Park), but North County is expanding its cultural horizons.

The 4-year-old Cinema Society of San Diego is opening up a North County chapter for 500 members to enjoy private sneak-previews of first-run movies.

“North County is ripe to have a cultural arts organization of this type for its very own,” says Andy Friedenberg, director of the parent Cinema Society, based at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art.

The North County group will meet at the Edwards San Marcos Cinemas, which boasts among its half-dozen screens a 500-seat theater with Dolby sound and 35-mm projection.

The new group will parrot the mother organization, which meets monthly to preview new films in private screenings, followed immediately by either a guest speaker or a moderator who will facilitate a group discussion of that film.

At its last gathering, for instance, the Cinema Society of San Diego viewed “The Princess Bride” and afterward bantered with Doris Rubin of Rancho Bernardo, who is the mother of actor Mandy Patinkin, who played the role of the Spanish sword fighter Inogo Montoya.

The screening was Rubin’s first opportunity to see her son in the film. She gave thumbs up, natch.

Still Pulling Rank

Margaret Kuhn saw a story in The Times a few weeks ago about family visiting day at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego. The story quoted one Scott Padon, 19, of Overland Park, Kan.

Kuhn, of Los Angeles, remembers baby-sitting for Padon 11 years ago when she, too, lived in Overland Park.

Padon is now a private first class, but Kuhn figures she still wields the upper hand. Kuhn joined the Marines herself five years ago, and is now a first lieutenant.

Back From the Dead

Mission San Luis Rey in Oceanside is not only a peaceful getaway for a weekend retreat or a romantic place for being married but it’s not a bad place to be buried, either.

Bill Eddy has cleaned up the cemetery, which dates back almost to the mission’s founding in 1798 but had gone neglected for much of the 20th Century.

Most of those buried there are Indians or Mexicans, but in the past two or three years about 30 other people have been either buried there or have had their ash-filled urns placed in the mission’s columbarium niches.

“It’s a wonderful place, even for non-Catholics,” Eddy said. “It’s so historic and so serene.”

Eddy figures there’s enough space in the small cemetery for 500 more bodies in double, vertical vaults.

Ground burial in a his-and-her vault, including the opening and closing of the vault twice, a headstone marker, engraving and perpetual care, costs $2,400. Cremated ashes can be stored in an urn-for-two for a one-time cost of $850.

You’ll be the last stop on the self-guided tour of the mission grounds. Tourists will walk by you as they stroll from the Madonna chapel to the parking lot.

Tortilla Fats

Not all bids taken by the San Diego Unified School District are for textbooks, computers and school buses.

The other day, the district signed a $215,410 contract with a Fullerton outfit for more than 1,320,000 burritos and chimichangas for the school year.

Fear and Loafing

Construction of the new City Hall in Escondido is moving along slowly but surely, and debate continues over just what goodies to include inside.

The city has decided, you might recall, to install shushing noise makers in ceiling vents that sound like rushing air and are intended to help drown out the more distracting sounds of typewriters and office conversations.

Then there was the tiff over expensive chairs and the mayor, Jim Rady, saying he didn’t need $1,000 chairs to sit in. He opted for cheaper ones.

Now, to Councilman Doug Best’s disappointment, the City Council has decided not to spend $9,000 for a “panic button” for the council chambers. Best said the button was needed as a hot line to police in case “some crazy” shows up at a council meeting, but Rady said Best was paranoid.

Which isn’t to say the council meetings won’t still be a panic.

Parting of the Wives

Jan Berg-Johnson works at the Rancho Bernardo Convalescent Hospital, where there are six married couples among the 90 or so patients.

So she’s decided to set up a married couples club, so the folks can get together and do what old married people do when they get together.

Like what?

“They can talk about the soaps or their problems, or share their life experiences,” Berg-Johnson said. “We have to be realistic. They won’t be square dancing. But maybe there are some speakers who we can bring in to talk to them.”

She said the married patients will set their own agenda, and that all she wants to do is be the catalyst for getting them together.

That might not be all that easy, she admits. “Some of our husbands and wives don’t necessarily want to be together. A few of them have separate rooms by their own request.”