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Back To Southern California: San Diego
Returning to San Diego never gets old.
In fact, your plane might have just been hurled into a tornado, a comet could have grazed the planet, and the ozone layer might have been torn open to the extent that you now hand out the serial number of your Whirlpool fridge to your friends as a permanent address, and it still won't change the fact that San Diego will be sitting on the bay in cloudless and 75 degree weather under an unblemished blue sky when you get there. Death, taxes, and 70 degree weather in America's Finest City. That sounds about right.
The approach into Lindbergh Field is quite interesting in itself. There will be desert, desert, and more desert until you're convinced you're looking at Thunderdome and not Southern California when finally – presto – the first green shrubs appear at the edge of Cleveland National Forest, the green grass intensifies in color the further west we head (although a lot of it belongs to some cursed golf course), and finally culminates with the discovery of Balboa Park beneath you. While I was living in San Diego, I could have sworn that either a rock launched by a slingshot, or the impact of a flock of migratory birds (honestly – where would they migrate to from here?) could bring down those 747's – that's how low they appear to be strafing over the park and finally Little Italy on their descent into Lindbergh Field. Even the pilots admit landing in San Diego can be quite a challenge. I am less philosophical about it. I just enjoy the skyline - if there is such a thing as a hometown in the US, then this is it.
When we leave the plane, it's time to locate the Hertz bus that will take us to the rental cars and from there to the freedom Southern California can only afford us on wheels.
I could easily take the Interstate 5 and watch those ugly cranes and ships looming by the bay but instead opt for the Coronado Bridge, which I take to Coronado Island.
People will swear up and down that that riding the Golden Gate or Oakland Bay Bridge into San Francisco is a magical moment that compares to seeing Time Square in New York or Las Vegas in the desert by night for the first time, but I'm sure a lot of these people have never crossed the Coronado Bridge, its curvy road resembling a giant wave as it tastefully reaches over the San Diego Bay. To the south, it's Mexico and uninspiring warehouses and Navy shipyards – but to the north, it's downtown, endless water, and Point Loma in the distance – this picture postcard evidence enough for scores of people to fold up their tents and head west.
Coronado itself is a nice little community located on a peninsula mostly owned by – you guessed it – the US Navy. The beach itself there is second to none in the US according to numerous surveys, although I have to admit the fighter jets taking off and landing at the nearby airbase have tainted that top step on the podium somewhat.
From Coronado, we head to Imperial Beach and my Dad's house in Nestor (still the city of San Diego, unlike Imperial Beach) where I spent my childhood. On Coronado Avenue, the same park is there (now called Egger Park) as well as the same Jack in the Box and donut shop that were probably there before we moved in 1972. St. Charles' church spire looms above the building hosting a Rite Aid and what used to be an Alpha Beta supermarket, then an Albertson's supermarket, etc. until today, when I actually fail to see a supermarket there for the first time. There are nothing but boards now where the long windows with the grocery sale specials of the day taped to their screens used to be. Hard to imagine.
While Liebi gets our Jack in the Box order and the boys are asleep in back after such a long flight plus a long drive, I stare at the children playing at Egger Park across the street. One of those kids used to be me nearly forty years ago. I remember our Dad taking the kids to that grassy slope and hitting us fly balls with his bat that we would camp out under until we'd hopefully guide them safely into our gloves. Mom would take us to St. Charles, where I recall receiving First Communion (I still have the photo). But not everything I remember rides first class on a gravy train. I shamefully eye the former supermarket in the rearview mirror and recall how I would shoplift little things from there when I was a kid. Little things like candy bars or packets of gum, but it was shoplifting, no less.
Memories all gone, but not forgotten.
Memories all gone, but not forgotten.
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