THE CONSENSUS AMONG THE DELEONS is that this farewell sunset photo from our vacation in San Diego to visit my sister Denise, her husband, Stu, and their fabulous daughters Whitney and Kassidi, is that this should be called "Pepsi Sunset." Either that or "Ultimate Product Placement."

I won't tell you where we stayed (Sunset Cliffs) or how much it cost (free) or how that happened (connections) but I will say it was pretty much perfect. Having said that, I wish to apologize to any San Diegans who took offense to my last column in which I suggested that their wonderful city "has not suffered enough."

I was speaking in the "baseball" sense, or course, but I also meant in the "city prestige" sense. The only people who knock San Diego live in San Diego. Sound familiar? However, San Diego doesn't draw the reflexive "Ewww" that some people who have never been to Philadelphia, or have been once, seem willing to share with strangers.

I used to be defensive about Philadelphia. ( If you think THIS is defensive, you shoulda seen me then.) It's been a long time since I worried about Philadelphia's image. Philadelphia can take care of itself. How I feel about Philadelphia, on the other hand, can be wounded. On the airplane back from San Diego most of the people got off in Chicago and when the flight attendent mentioned that the plane would continue on to Philadelphia some guy in the seat in front of me stood up and made a crack about being glad to get off the aircraft.

No, it wasn't Wilson Goode.

It was just a guy making a bad joke to two buddies. But it made me feel bad. And that made me feel foolish to feel bad. And that made me think of the letter I got from a reader who thought I was picking on San Diego.

For the record, I love San Diego. I love Ocean Beach, which is the South Street neighborhood of San Diego, except their Pacific Ocean is our Delaware River. I love that the barber shop where I got my head shaved was called "The Chop Shop" just like the one on South Street near Fifth. In fact, the owner (I think) of the O.B. Chop Shop said he'd been to to the Chop Shop on South Street, and then declared, without an itch of East Coast irony, "I love South Street. . . and Manhattan."

Did I say shaved? Yeah, more on that later.