They wore the faces of the rich, poor, native-born, immigrant, the highly educated, uneducated, the young and old. When Jeff Pastorino died (“Goodbye to a dear, misunderstood friend,” guest commentary, Sept. 10 Beacon,) at the corner of Rosecrans Street and Avenida de Portugal, where he sat for the last 16 years, no one knew his name. In the two months since, a community has come together in ways no one could have dreamed. \u00a0A few days after he died, someone placed a bouquet of flowers on the bench where Jeff could be found 365 days each year. Soon, another followed, then another. Cards and letters began to appear from people who felt they needed to say goodbye to the friend they never knew. Some said they were sorry they had never stopped and helped him. Others offered prayers. Hand-written notes from children said goodbye to our “Mayor of Point Loma.” People came to the bench to read the cards and letters. It wasn\u2019t uncommon to see neighbors standing at the bench with tears running down their cheeks. New friendships were formed at the bench and the shadow of Jeff Pastorino refused to leave the hearts of many Point Lomans. \u00a0An extensive search finally paid off and Jeff\u2019s family was located near Philadelphia. It was learned Jeff had disappeared 27 years ago. A devastated twin, Chris Pastorino, searched for his missing brother. Chris greeted the news with stunned silence initially. He decided his brother should come home. Jeff was buried next to their parents Oct. 6. \u00a0Chris said he feels a need to chase away the demons of not knowing where his brother has been for more than a quarter century. He was set to arrive in Point Loma today, Nov. 5, with the intent of sitting on the bench which was his brother\u2019s home, of walking the Mayor\u2019s path to his secret sleeping place and of meeting the people who knew and cared about Jeff. \u00a0Father Joe Carroll of Father Joe\u2019s Village \u2014 a champion of the chronically homeless \u2014 will highlight a brief memorial with Chris and caring community members on Saturday, Nov. 7 at 1 p.m. at the corner of Rosecrans and Avenida de Portugal in the village of Point Loma. Chris Pastorino said he will be thankful to anyone who can share any stories \u2014 good or bad \u2014 about his brother. He hopes to reconstruct as much of Jeff\u2019s life over the past quarter century as possible. It\u2019s been a difficult path for Chris, but with the caring people of Point Loma, he will finally have closure. Additional details can be found at http:\/\/www.PointLomaNews.com. Jeff Pastorino, dubbed the Mayor of Point Loma, could never have imagined the impact he would have on the people of his community. No one knew his name, but we\u2019ve discovered that many people cared about our friend Jeff. We\u2019ve learned that people from all walks of life offered a hand to Jeff. From the extremely wealthy to the poorest of the poor, famous professional athletes, conservatives and liberals, Christians, Jews and non-believers, seniors, children, Anglo-Americans, East Indians, Iraqis, French, Mexicans, Africans, Portuguese, Pakistani, people from all walks of life have rallied behind “The Mayor.” Despite their differences, they all have one thing in common; they have demonstrated their love for their fellow man. They have shown that in this world so divided, the spirit of love and caring still lives on and that there is hope for us yet. Thank you Mr. Mayor. I had nearly lost faith. \u2014 Howard Jones is a longtime resident of Point Loma.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
They wore the faces of the rich, poor, native-born, immigrant, the highly educated, uneducated, the young and old. When Jeff Pastorino died (“Goodbye to a dear, misunderstood friend,” guest commentary, Sept. 10 Beacon,) at the corner of Rosecrans Street and Avenida de Portugal, where he sat for the last 16 years, no one knew his […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11561","_seopress_titles_title":"Death of homeless man stirs spirit of Point Loma","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11593,11552,11561,11550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-298206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-no-images","category-opinion","category-peninsula-beacon","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298206\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}