Re “Mayor Todd Gloria’s massive warehouse shelter will again be debated, but behind closed doors” (Dec. 15): Rather than buy another albatross, the San Diego City Council should consider refurbishing the 101 Ash Street building for a homeless shelter. We already own it! Both the Middleton warehouse and the Ash Street building have issues with lead paint, but more importantly asbestos materials. Use the projected $1 billion in lease agreement funds to do so. There would be plenty of room for supportive services onsite as well as accommodations for the homeless. Mayor Gloria and the City Council shouldn’t even consider spending $1 billion on another property. Utilize the one we already own!

— Katey Hoehn, Escondido

Roger Lee Kaehler

OBITUARY

Roger Lee Kaehler passed away on December 2, 2024, with family by his side. He was born in 1940 as the youngest of four, and at three years old, his family moved from Minnesota to the San Francisco Bay Area to find work in the shipyards. After graduating from UC Berkeley, Roger spent two years in the National Guard and two years in the Peace Corps (serving in Nigeria), before teaching math and coaching boys basketball at Kennedy High School in Richmond, CA. In the 1990s, Roger formed a partnership with a friend in Scheller Construction in Novato, CA, and started a new career in real estate development. In his semi-retirement, he and his wife Aggie returned to San Diego County, and Roger spent as much time as possible in his happy place in the Anza-Borrego desert.

Roger is survived and remembered by his wife Aggie; daughter Patsy West; daughter Tammy Kaehler and son-in-law Chet Johnston; daughter Desiree West and son-in-law Vicente Bacilio; granddaughter Isabel Bacilio; honorary grandchildren RJ and Ashley Engler; and dozens of other family and friends who keep his spirit and legacy alive. We will forever remember him as a man with a huge heart, a sharp mind, a smart mouth, a mischievous smile, and more than his fair share of optimism. He usually managed to find the humor in any situation, and in doing so, he brightened the lives of those around him.

Originally appeared on E! Online

“Home Alone” director Chris Columbus finally put an end to the incessant wondering as to where Kevin McCallister’s parents got the funds to afford their beautiful—and massive — Chicago mansion.

“Back then, John [Hughes] and I had a conversation about it,” Columbus explained to The Hollywood Reporter in an interview published Dec. 24, “and we decided on what the jobs were.”

So what did Kevin McCallister’s parents do exactly? Well, the movie actually included a few hints. If you took note of the dancing mannequins Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) placed in the window to ward off the criminals Harry (played by Joe Pesci) and Marv (played by Daniel Stern), you may have guessed that Catherine O’Hara’s Kate McCallister “was a very successful fashion designer,” according to the director.

As for John Heard’s Peter McCallister, the details are a bit more fuzzy.  

“The father could have, based on John Hughes own experience, worked in advertising,” the 66-year-old noted, “but I don’t remember what the father did.”

He did, however, know one thing for sure: Peter did not have a talent for forensics.

“Not organized crime,” he added, “even though there was, at the time, a lot of organized crime in Chicago.”

And with the mystery solved, you can finally practice your “Kevin!” pose in peace. After all, Culkin and Brenda Song’s sons are already doing the same.

“He thinks he’s Kevin,” Culkin recently told E! News of his oldest Dakota, 3. “I’m like, ‘Do you remember going down that down the stairs on the sled?’ He’s like, ‘Mmhmm, yep. Sure do.’ I’m like, ‘Do you remember when he had yellow hair?’ And he’s like, ‘Uh-huh, yep.’”

“‘You’re a lying liar who lies,’” he recalled joking to his son. “That was me!’”

But Culkin’s brother Kieran Culkin — who shares daughter Kinsey, 5, and son Wilder, 3, with wife Jazz Charton—hasn’t quite had the same experience with his kids. In fact, he recently revealed that his children have yet to even see the movie.

“There’s still some scary parts,” the 42-year-old explained to E! News earlier this month. “For the 3-year-old, there’s the tarantula [and] there’s the guy at the end who said, ‘I’m gonna bite off all your fingers.’ That’s scary for a 3-year-old.”

However, the “Succession” star did tease that the first-ever family screening may be coming soon.

“We think they might be ready for “Home Alone” this year,” he revealed. “If not, next year.”