San Diego
More specifically, Mira Mesa. I grew up in this small community in the north of San Diego city limits. We moved to this area from the North Clairmont area (just 5 miles south) in 1971.
Mira Mesa Wiki
I left in 1981 only to return a few times over the last thirty years.
The changes to the area over the last twenty years have amazed me. Though the neighborhoods have not changed that much, the demographics have. A few people still live in the home that they purchased new on my block, my father included. Visited a longtime friend that has lived in their home since new, and her home was they same as it was the day I left in 1981, still neat and tidy, of course some things had been updated over the last 30 years. But the overall feel was the same. It was a bit surreal.
Now my fathers place looked the same, except he had replaced the weeds in the front yard that I meticulously took care of as a teen with a desert look with cactuses and sand. Looked a bit out of place in the green of Mira Mesa; in fact it would have looked more at home at our home in 1971 when Mira Mesa was still a shrub infested coyote hangout.
The house I grew up in still has the look as I left it, but was now a new color. The outside wood was showing its' age and you can see the repairs that had been done over the years. As my step-father and I have a sorta strained relationship I was not invited in, maybe later this week I can check out the inside.
Out front sat the car I learned to drive. Not the first car I drove, I can thank Lisa Davies for that. She let me drive her little orange Baja Bug around Mira Mesa streets before I had my permit. My dad was surprised when I had the clutch theory down when he let me first drive the Charger. I never let him know that I was not the clutch virgin he thought I was.
The Charger was painted a different color blue than it came from the factory with. Dad purchased that car new in late 1968. 318 cid V8 with a "3-on-the-tree" shifter. Of course by the end of the year, and countless street drag races with my buddy Chris, I had tore up the linkage to that shifter so bad it was unusable. So he installed a 3-speed Hurst Indy Shifter. Unfortunately the coolness of the floor shifter was wiped away at his inability to install the shifter correctly. The shifter now had a reverse pattern. So to this day the pattern is backwards. Very difficult to drive when you are used to a normal H pattern!
I drove around the Mira Mesa area this morning. It was funny seeing the Burger King is now a Taco joint. The Jack In The Box where Robert Harris kidnapped and later killed John Mayeski and Michael Baker, school friends of mine, was still there.
One of the first gas stations in the area is still there and still a Union 76 joint! Looks as it did thirty-five years ago, except now you can buy gas on any day. Anyone remember the Odd-Even days of gas rationing? The last number of your license plate was used to tell you what day you could buy gas on. And no top-offs!
The mall is still there with the beloved Vons grocery store. Most stores have changed names, but Vons is still there.
There seems to be a lot of fish markets / stores there now. But that goes in hand with the 40% Asian population.
The traffic in this area is insane. But since I live in an area with zero traffic, any traffic would be considered a lot! I think what I don't like is how long the lights take to change. You can sit in traffic a long time, and you are really screwed if you time the lights wrong!
I had this memory of a section of Mira Mesa Blvd, where it meets Westonhill, from the trafic lights to a certain house I could hit 45 MPH in my 1973 Vega. I decided to try that sprint again, to see how much faster I could go... I was laughing out loud at how much faster I was in the Spyder. I was close to that before I was out of the intersection itself!
I drove down by the San Diego Stadium, which is called something else today. It was cool seeing something that I remember being built in the late 1960s.
More later as I investigate "America's Finest City" in more detail... or slower speeds.
Mira Mesa Wiki
I left in 1981 only to return a few times over the last thirty years.
The changes to the area over the last twenty years have amazed me. Though the neighborhoods have not changed that much, the demographics have. A few people still live in the home that they purchased new on my block, my father included. Visited a longtime friend that has lived in their home since new, and her home was they same as it was the day I left in 1981, still neat and tidy, of course some things had been updated over the last 30 years. But the overall feel was the same. It was a bit surreal.
Now my fathers place looked the same, except he had replaced the weeds in the front yard that I meticulously took care of as a teen with a desert look with cactuses and sand. Looked a bit out of place in the green of Mira Mesa; in fact it would have looked more at home at our home in 1971 when Mira Mesa was still a shrub infested coyote hangout.
The house I grew up in still has the look as I left it, but was now a new color. The outside wood was showing its' age and you can see the repairs that had been done over the years. As my step-father and I have a sorta strained relationship I was not invited in, maybe later this week I can check out the inside.
Out front sat the car I learned to drive. Not the first car I drove, I can thank Lisa Davies for that. She let me drive her little orange Baja Bug around Mira Mesa streets before I had my permit. My dad was surprised when I had the clutch theory down when he let me first drive the Charger. I never let him know that I was not the clutch virgin he thought I was.
The Charger was painted a different color blue than it came from the factory with. Dad purchased that car new in late 1968. 318 cid V8 with a "3-on-the-tree" shifter. Of course by the end of the year, and countless street drag races with my buddy Chris, I had tore up the linkage to that shifter so bad it was unusable. So he installed a 3-speed Hurst Indy Shifter. Unfortunately the coolness of the floor shifter was wiped away at his inability to install the shifter correctly. The shifter now had a reverse pattern. So to this day the pattern is backwards. Very difficult to drive when you are used to a normal H pattern!
I drove around the Mira Mesa area this morning. It was funny seeing the Burger King is now a Taco joint. The Jack In The Box where Robert Harris kidnapped and later killed John Mayeski and Michael Baker, school friends of mine, was still there.
One of the first gas stations in the area is still there and still a Union 76 joint! Looks as it did thirty-five years ago, except now you can buy gas on any day. Anyone remember the Odd-Even days of gas rationing? The last number of your license plate was used to tell you what day you could buy gas on. And no top-offs!
The mall is still there with the beloved Vons grocery store. Most stores have changed names, but Vons is still there.
There seems to be a lot of fish markets / stores there now. But that goes in hand with the 40% Asian population.
The traffic in this area is insane. But since I live in an area with zero traffic, any traffic would be considered a lot! I think what I don't like is how long the lights take to change. You can sit in traffic a long time, and you are really screwed if you time the lights wrong!
I had this memory of a section of Mira Mesa Blvd, where it meets Westonhill, from the trafic lights to a certain house I could hit 45 MPH in my 1973 Vega. I decided to try that sprint again, to see how much faster I could go... I was laughing out loud at how much faster I was in the Spyder. I was close to that before I was out of the intersection itself!
I drove down by the San Diego Stadium, which is called something else today. It was cool seeing something that I remember being built in the late 1960s.
More later as I investigate "America's Finest City" in more detail... or slower speeds.
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