Serving San Diego’s Premier Urban Communities for 22 Years Vol. 22 No. 12 December 2014
Vol. 22 No. 12 December 2014
Portrait of an Artist
BY DELLE WILLETT
Duke Windsor finds mystery, drama in North Park alleys
Erin Holko in her shop, Bee Happy Beekeeping Supply. (Photo by Delle Willett)
Don’t Worry, Bee Happy Erin Holko’s beekeeping store is a honey BY DELLE WILLETT
“By now, most of us have heard that the honeybees of the world are in trouble. Not as many know what they can do about it,” said Erin Holko, owner of Bee Happy Beekeeping Supply. “But I’d like to change that.” Holko started a buzz in November, opening Bee Happy at 2637 University Ave. in North Park with the goal of making it easy for people to help the honeybees. She wants to show people what they can do even in their small backyard that will have a big impact on the bees. Her slogan is, “Helping the honey bees, one backyard at a time.” Many are surprised to learn that honeybees can be safely (and legally) kept
within the city of San Diego. Holko’s bee boutique is swarming with beekeeping supplies geared toward small-scale, urban beekeepers. She carries everything to get a new beekeeper started, as well as to maintain a productive hive. A new beekeeper can get started for less than $200. “With my shop, people won’t have to buy beekeeping supplies on line. Plus, they can stop in to ask questions, tell us all about their honeybees, and take their supplies home that day,” she said. Holko, 35, encourages families to get into the hobby together. She stocks childsize beekeeping suits and encourages kids SEE BEE, Page 8
When Duke Windsor wakes up in the morning he can choose who he wants to be that day: a musician, a 4thdegree Black Belt, an artist, an opera singer, an exhibit planner and designer, an art teacher, a U.S. Marine veteran, a student. He can choose because he is all of these and more. An African-American, Windsor was born in 1960 as Lester Colleen Tumblin in Texarkana, Texas, into a poor family with a single mother who eventually had 11 children. “I was the sixth child in the family, with three older brothers ‘I never thought of art being a career. It was just and two older We something I did,’ says sisters. Windsor. ‘My art teacher were so poor tried to get me to see my that the welpotential; he was a chamfare system pion of my work.’ could not support the care of one more child,” said Windsor. So when he was 3 years old, he was adopted by his aunt and uncle into the Windsor household. “I vividly remember the judge at the hearing asking me if I wanted to live with them. I later knew and understood that this adoption insured me of a better life. I was never without food or clothing, had new shoes every year, and my Christmas was always full
Overhead wires dominate the painting of this North Park alley by Windsor.
of joy, fun and lots of toys,” said Wind- and warplanes. He copied N. C. sor. Wyeth’s paintings from “Treasure As part of the Windsor family he Island” and was fascinated by Norman was free to develop his talents. By the SEE DUKE, Page 4 age of 5 he was sketching battleships
Connections Frankie Webb takes a shine to countless judges and lawyers BY MARTIN KRUMING
More than half a century ago, at age 16, Frankie Webb started shining shoes in a barber shop at 50th and Imperial Avenue. On Nov. 30 he turned 61 and for the past 16 years he’s been shining shoes at his stand in the Men’s Shoe Department of Nordstrom in Fashion Valley. “I found my niche,” says Webb, who grew up in Southeast San Diego and over the years has shined the shoes of countless judges and lawyers as well as Herb Klein, former communications director in the Nixon White House, former San Diego City Councilman George Stevens and businessmen John Mabee and Robert McNeely. As for Stevens, “he showed me how to shine shoes” because that’s what he did to put himself through college. “He shined my shoes.”
But it’s the lawyers and judges who have been a big part of Frankie’s customer base. Some, such as retired U.S. Magistrate Judge Bill McCurine, came to know Frankie as a friend though other connections. When Frankie set up different stands Downtown in the basement of the Westgate Hotel and the Marston Building, he had “lots of lawyers.” He later took over the shoeshine booth at Eighth Avenue and C Street for a veteran shoeshiner named Amos, who was known by “most of the legal community.” Frankie even opened up a stand at Ace Uniform and Accessories, where he shined shoes for many of the police officers attending funerals and other formal ceremonies. “They would get their shoes shined because that was protoSEE WEBB, Page 5
Frankie Webb at work.
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