Step Right Up, Folks, If You Have a Meteorite

Not to be too corny about this, but the thing the Del Mar Fair is selling is passion.

Everywhere you look, somebody is describing/pushing/tending something they’re madly in love with.

A prized pig, a revered rose, a magic potato peeler that doubles as a surgical instrument, the ultimate cinnamon roll, even the voices of the carnies vibrate with urgency.

But even by these aroused standards, Bruce Wegmann stands alone.

This is his sixth straight fair, seven days a week, standing in front of his display case in the Gem & Mineral Show, describing the size, weight and other characteristics of those sky rocks known as meteorites.

Wegmann, 40, a bachelor who lives in East San Diego, is a machinist, by trade. He found employment too confining, so he gave it up.

Now, he chases meteorites full time. He travels the country attending rock shows, prowling for meteorites and handing out his “Starhunter” business cards.

Ah, but the Del Mar Fair is the pinnacle of his year. That’s when he gets his best shot at educating the public.

He hopes a meteorite-savvy public will take him where no meteorite enthusiast has ever been: to a meteorite that has fallen in San Diego County.

He knows, just knows, that somebody has one on their property in Ramona or their attic in Clairemont, if only they knew what to look for.

He came close last year when a man from San Diego, after hearing his pitch, returned with a meteorite he had found while prospecting in Baja California.

“It was a 333-gram fusion-encrusted stone,” remembers Wegmann, savoring the memory. “Now, I understand how people feel who go to Florida and pick up a gold doubloon off the beach.”

Each meteorite, Wegmann says, is a “piece of the big jigsaw puzzle” that will tell us about the age of the solar system and how it was created.

Right now, he’s tracking a rumor (“There’s a very good meteorite grapevine.”)--that a local rock has been taken for verification to Arizona State University.

“The people who found it didn’t know of me,” Wegmann said. “How that happened, I’ll never know.”

Now You Know

You said it.

* Great moments in security.

Capt. Don Merry of El Camino Security, quoted in the San Diego Union, after a robbery and fatal shooting at an Oceanside restaurant:

“The killers executed their plan to get into the restaurant with precision. However, they’re obviously dumb, because the armored truck usually comes by here about 2 p.m. for a cash pickup. “

Good point, those robbers were sure dumb not to know that the armored truck usually comes by here about 2 p.m. for a cash pickup.

* A mouth and a foot.

At a candidates’ forum hosted by the Harvey Milk Democratic Club, a gay group, San Diego City Council hopeful the Rev. George Stevens tried to refute criticism that he seems unaware there are a large number of gays in the heavily black 4th District.

Not so, said Stevens, associate pastor at Calvary Baptist Church:

“If you remove the gays from the black community, then you probably won’t have any piano players or organ players in the churches.”

Groans and a sarcastic comment from the audience: “Not to mention beauty shops.”

That Makes It OK

Words, words, words.

* Even the rich have drought guilt.

Signs facing the road from the super-green golf course at Fairbanks Ranch Country Club: “Well Water Being Used.”

* Press releases we released immediately:

“A happy Maj. Gen. Robert C. Thrasher, adjutant general of the California National Guard, will have nice things to say to the San Diego County Board of Supervisors.”

* North County bumper sticker: “See You in Court!”

* Pity the postman.

In Rancho Santa Fe, the Mulligan family lives next door to the Milligan family, which lives next door to the Milliken family.