I heard that a lot when I moved to Leucadia from Milwaukee in 1976 to start seventh grade. (I was born in Manhattan, lived in upstate NY for third and fourth grades, then moved to Wisconsin for fifth and sixth; the license plates on our VW station wagon advertised our status as new arrivals.)
I got a later start in SoCal than many of you, but I know I’m not the only transplant among our ranks. In fact, I believe our social scene was created in large part by the influx of young families that arrived in San Diego County in the ’60s and ’70s, literally reshaping the sprawling landscape and introducing a booster shot of youngsters to the region just as the nation’s post-war baby boom was giving way to Generation X.
Those all-ages clubs opened their doors to us for a reason, and our suburban anomie was prime territory for “Lord of the Flies”-style social experiments.
Let’s compare notes: Where were you born? Where were your parents born, and when did your family come to San Diego? Where did your family consider “home” when you were a kid?
I was born in NYC, and as a seven-year-old I arrived in San Diego with the full-on “Kwawfee Twawk” accent on top of a substantial speech impediment, an endless source of amusement for my classmates. To this day, every native Californian thinks I’m a New Yorker; no native New Yorker does. I grew to like being an outsider everywhere I went, being adaptable to different surroundings.
My mom actually was a native Californian when that was still quite rare; my Dad grew up in New England. So I have roots in all those places.
My clear memory of the first day in a San Diego City Schools cafeteria:
hmm… what is this “burrito”? My Sesame Street knowledge of Spanish suggested it meant “small donkey”, which I assumed was the literal truth about the dish. “I better not order that….”
I can’t resist the chance to present myself as an international man of mystery, but those of you who know/knew me will readily concede I’m much less exotic than this sounds…
My father was born in London.
My mother was born in Amman, Jordan.
I was born in Bulawayo, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).
My brother was born in Cape Town, South Africa.
Before coming to San Diego in 1973, we lived in Rhodesia, South Africa, England, and Florida.
Although we were raised in Rancho Bernardo, Poway, and Ocean Beach from the ages of 6 and 4, my brother and I were encouraged, I think (particularly by our mother), to think of England as “home.” As a child, I know I overestimated the extent to which I was “English” rather than American, and I imagine that compulsory Anglophilia was one reason among many that I looked outside the mainstream of my middle school for social life and aesthetic satisfaction.
this subject is a long term heartbreaker for me. i was born in san diego and do in large part to the influx of so many people moving to the area for no good reason other than they couldn’t take another winter in palookaville usa i have been forced to become an economic refugee due to the ridiculous cost of housing coupled with the wages in sunshine dollars. it’s ok though because thanks in large part to all the invaders that pushed me out of my home and their cars they must drive everywhere i am getting my revenge in the oil business. 3 more years and i will be retiring to a ranch in tecate.
thank you for starting this topic
i needed to vent
BOogie: Spot-on … The friction between us foreign interlopers and folks who felt displaced in the process was an enormous cultural factor. And it’s funny how quickly we new arrivals started feeling impinged upon by the development that occurred after we joined the population.
5th Generation San Diegan by paternal line. However I was never hostile to tourists and newcomers. Not even while surfing, which I know has been (and still is) a problem in many places. A fair percentage of surfers are just violent dickheads, ascribing to the old surf punks song lyrics: “my beach… go home…” etc. That attitude has been a constant at least since the 1950’s from what I’ve read on surf history. I disliked most of those clowns, but would certainly stoop to feign friendly with familiar faces in order to get waves at a crowded peak. I was instead drawn to hang with the foreign exchange students, artsy types and some of you freaks :).
I did look forward to my San Diego exit in 1983 however: a combination of disliking the suburban sprawl effect and wanting to see and experience the world beyond. I have no regrets on that subject and have no plans to die in my original spawning ground. Oh, and the surf is fine right here in SF, but way too rough for you fair weather San Diegans, so GO HOME :)!
My parents were mid-west transplants. Dad from Waukesha, WI and Mom from Chicago (pronounced shi-cah-gah). They came to visit SD in 1960. My mother’s Aunt Minnie worked at a hair salon on Bacon Street in OB. Their first meal in San Diego was at Nati’s mexican restaurant! Seduced by the magic of tacos and sunshine, they made the move, buying a house out past Euclid at the end of Laurel Street, (which is now ghettofabulous). I was born at Sharp, you know, off of the 163 where the stork is on the roof?
And if I had a prejudice towards out-of-townies then I wouldn’t have any friends. Nowadays native San Diegans my age are rare. But I’m hoping that with the real estate slump some people will leave 🙂 Or maybe I will. I miss Portland.
My family’s roots are in Scotland, Ireland and Sweden (among small portions of just about every other nationality) way back on the family tree, but in the near history our people came from Massachusetts. My grandpa told my grandma, my aunt and my dad to go ahead to the Bay area in California and he’d meet them there in a week. He never showed up, and my grandma raised them on her own.
I was born at Palo Alto Medical Center near Berkeley, but my family called Oakland home. We left there when I was just a wee kid and relocated to Beautiful El Cajon, where I served my first seven years in the educational system at Chase Avenue Elementary. When I was two my mom and dad split up and my mom raised us as best she could, I suppose. She moved us to P.B. at the end of my sixth grade year in an attempt to keep me out of serious trouble. It didn’t really work, but it was a healthy move anyhow. In 1982 I moved to Encinitas, straightened up and got a job, and was married in like 86. In ’89 I was over the rampant over-development and the changing vibe that many newcomers were bringing in, and after taking a road trip up to Yellowstone and all over Utah, Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, I decided to leave the Golden State forever. I lived in Wyoming for six years, but when my daughter was reaching school age I moved to Kailua Kona, Hawaii, where I will have resided 13 years and 21 days when I move to Oahu Friday after next.
I was a meek little local but I witnessed the blatant localism (a nod to JFA there) pretty regularly in P.B., and so many of the tourists and swabbys didn’t know how to act when visiting someone else’s home I don’t find it too hard to understand the adversarial nature of things surrounding that particular situation. Living in Hawaii I see it all- though here on the Big Island the localism thing is pretty friendly and mellow- just a couple wingnuts here and there who for the most part get shut down by people like me when they’re being rude to people. I was at the receiving end of some localism at Cardiff Reef and Georges once each, and both times I ended up hitting the guy and his friends decided to find an easier target. Once I not only broke the guy’s nose but also broke the fins off of his board. Having been a PB local myself (and a pretty fair one that didn’t hassle people and that received a lot of grief from the older guys for originally being from El Cajon) I didn’t appreciate getting hassled, and reacted pretty decisively. Every time I was hassled in the water between Swamis and Seaside it was Nectar team riders, and every time when they figured out I wouldn’t lay down they tucked their tails between their legs and gave me a wide berth. Such is the nature of bullies.
On a funny aside- I have a son who is half Filipino/Chinese (and a really cool little gentleman to boot) and after I told my dad I’m having another kid and who the mom is he tells me that my grandmother was actually born in Manila, though I don’t remember why they were there.
>>As a child, I know I overestimated the extent to which I was “English” rather than American, and I imagine that compulsory Anglophilia was one reason among many that I looked outside the mainstream of my middle school for social life and aesthetic satisfaction.
Simon: Abetted by my parents, I wildly romanticized my own New York origins throughout my tenure in San Diego. In fact, thanks to my seven formative years there, I’d have likely told you I was a native New Yorker all the way through the 25 years I lived in California! (Although I did embrace San Francisco more willingly as my home town of choice.) It wasn’t until I moved back to the NY area in 2001 — and enjoyed a good, old-fashioned winter here! — that I was ready to admit that California (north and south) reshaped me pretty thoroughly.
That sense of “otherness” had its good and bad. On the bad, I’m still puzzling over how I failed sufficiently to appreciate the beautiful climate, beaches, access to Mexico and other really great things about Southern California. ‘Cause, you know, real NY intellectuals don’t like to take their shoes off. (The phrase “insufferable little snob” keeps running through my head.) 🙂
On the other hand, like Simon says, it kept me looking for the bright edge of adolescent culture in San Diego, never getting too placid about the status quo. (Don’t know if that’s in my nature anyway.)
Worse than moving to SD, was moving from Poway to Del Mar (to a rented apartment) in the summer between 9th and 10th grades. Talk about culture shock. I finally gave up trying to socialize in high school and found my soulmates lurking around downtown SD. My mom finally let me get a San Diego phone number because the phone bills were horrendous.
i was born @ grossmont hospital where grandma c. retired as a nurse. granpuh c. retired from convair. pops worked at roar for 30 years. he was born at the pearl harbor va and after the attack gma and pop were sent to settle in sd, while grandpa went to settle a debt with japanese ! i never took living in americas finest city for granted. now i live in fla. was cheep when we got here, aint no more. i will never be able to afford to move back home, so it goes. and thats all i got to say about that
I guess i felt like a hacky sack when I was buisy playing War Games.
My Mom was from Indiana and my Dad was from Illinois. Our heritage is mostly Scottish, and I’ve never looked into it much, but apparently also English, Welsh, Irish and German. My parents met in Chicago and my dad was based for awhile in San Diego when he was in the navy during the Korean war. Back then most people wouldn’t even consider dodging the draft. My dad’s alternative to being drafted as a grunt in the army was to enlist as an officer in the navy. So he liked San Diego in the early 50’s and he convinced my mother to move there in 1960. They bought a house in the upper-middle class neighborhood of Mission Hills at time when it was fashionable to live in an apartment so houses were cheaper. Mission Hills was a beautiful place where nothing ever happened (or if it did, the whole neighborhood heard about it).
Growing up in S.D. I did have a strong anti-tourist, anti-swabby and jarhead attitude but I wasn’t obnoxious about it (save teasing the recruits behind the fence at the Marine Corps Depot). I was a blond haired dude who spent every summer on the beach but still felt alienated from the greater San Diego scene. I gravitated in my musical taste to bands like David Bowie, the Stones, Yardbirds, Doors, Lou Reed and the Stooges. I saw Quadrophenia at 14 but liked the rockers better. I went to punk shows and liked the freaky rebellious people and pounding drums and screeching guitars, but found the music harsh and a fair portion of the people violent. Finding the underground rock scene was like being in a cold indifferent city and walking into a room to find a party going on full of beautiful, welcoming, talented, smart, sensitive freaks that understood where I was coming from.
It seems amazing now, how much I experienced (in a good way) in such a short time.
Where I come from in New York (small town on Long Island), it was mostly people who’d lived there for generations… San Diego was almost all people who’d come from somewhere else… the military in SD had a lot to do with that.
I was 9 when we moved there. When you’re that age, you dont want to stand out… so I lost my accent pretty quickly. There are some terms and phrases that people in New York use, and I can remember kids thinking it was weird when I talked that way. I must have been really embarrassed by it, because when I hear people use some of those terms even now it still makes me cringe. I’ll still say “standing on line” instead of “standing in line” though… my wife loves to tease me about that.
I always kinda liked Poway. It’s all suburban now, but it had a much more laid back, rural feel in the 70s.
>>It’s funny, but I think I’m more agoraphobic and anti-social now than I was back then, though less on an emotional roller coaster.
Paul Allen: I hear ya, and I think there’s something very common about that experience.
I enjoy the new people I meet, and I’ve had lots of opportunities lately to meet new folks. But I have to confess, forging emotional bonds with new acquaintances my own age now takes a little mental effort … Like, I show up at a party and wonder, “Why do I want to hang out with all these OLD people?” (Answer: “‘Cause all these ‘old people’ are YOUR age, stupid!”) LOL
I don’t know if anybody else recognizes this tendency, but without vigilance, I could see it being my slippery slope to crabby-old-manhood. I just don’t make those instant connections with best friends (for life or just for the length of the party) the way I did at 18. It makes moves — geographical, career, whatever — less traumatic (the youthful emotional roller coaster Paul cites), but I have to watch that my enhanced equilibrium doesn’t come at the expense of real human connection.
Dave F-did you grow up on Mt. Everest? I don’t remember that ever being mentioned? We moved on that street in July or August of 1972. We had just moved from Paris, France where i had just spent Kindergarten. I was born in The Bronx (Castle Hill, top of the food chain). largely an Italian neighborhood at the time, I find it odd that My Cuban father moved out there away from Spanish Harlem. Was it part of the move to suburbia? My wife always jokes that living in Clairemont killed my culture. My Parents shop at Mervyns and Costco, and that is probably IT. If you don’t get items from those two establishments for Xmas, you ain’t getting nothing! They are very suburban, entrenched in all things gardening and figure skating (but not singles, no way).
My Mom is French, having been extradicted by my pops when he worked for for a company that did computer installation for Air France at Orly in the early 60’s. She was a telephone operator and they met as my dad was pretty good with the languages, and she was one of the taller women in France at the time.
They were very supportive of the musical daliances, as many folks on this list can attest. We had a garage converted into a rumpus room. It was very forgiving, as you could turn it up to 11 in that room. We even could throw a few mattresses on or near the drum set, and it recorded pretty well. My younger brother Didier had his band Sub Society rehearse and record in that room, well into the late 80’s.
Tony,
I spent a lot of time in that rumpus room. I’d often hear your mother repeat what I thought was a beautiful pharase in French, which you later explained to me meant, “Speak to my ass, my head hurts.”
Tony: Bien sur, je voudrais ecouter toutes les histoires amusantes de Mme. Suarez. Les scooters … Les guitares electriques … Quelle connerie de jeunesse! 🙂
So … “International blend” fits Simon and Tony, for sure!
>>As I get older I have begun to realize that as nice and friendly as San Diego may seem there is a kind of dark sadness to the city as well.
Oooooh, yeah, Steven. I always found this murky undercurrent to San Diego. My own adolescent mind created some phantasms, and I was undeniably putting myself into some situations that exposed the darker corners — but the San Diego I remember was not all sunshine and Shamu.
PS: I’m seemingly impervious to that miasma now when I visit … It seems a perfectly lovely place!
i was born in mercy hospital in 1966. i grew up in del cerro in a nice strict catholic family. mom was born in crenshaw, raised in l.a. her folks came from the philippines in the ’20s. dad was raised near the green giant in the corn fields of sw minnesota. he moved to l.a. in the ’60s, met mom and they moved to loma portal with my older sister and brother. they moved inland when i was born because everyone had sinus problems, and apparently del cerro is touted as having some of the most ideal weather on the planet. at the time i was really missing the beach and when desperate would ride my bmx bike to south mission. looking back on it, del cerro was an amazing place to grow up, especially for an overactive adrenaline junky like me. skateboarding the hills and ramps, bmx freaking everywhere, canyons galore and the safety factor of sd ’60s-’70s. plus we had one original punk rocker, david rinck- several years my senior, who grew up around the corner. i liked tourists cuz that meant my cousins came out to visit, which brought more beach time and more rock n roll. as soon as high school was out i moved to pb- into the infamous rage cage. i went through a short and humorous period of aggro localism when surfing pb. i say humorous because i’m so anti-localism. growing up east of i-5 being called a valley kook instantly disappeared as soon as i was in my high and mighty position as cashier at the local punk rock 7/11 on grand and mission. what a joke! thankfully i clued in quickly and settled back into a humble soulful approach to surfing. i’ve since been blessed to travel the world and see how many other people live, and have always been received warmly and graciously. i’ve lived in santa cruz, oahu, sydney, nyc, cuernavaca, san francisco, maui, & lake tahoe- and in between i kept coming back. partly because of family and friends, partly because of what sd has to offer. i’ve had a killer old house in morley field for the past 17 years and have been back for about 9 years now. i’ve learned to take what works for me and leave the rest. sd is an awesome place to be for many reasons and it’s a great town to be based in. maybe that’s why a gazillion people have moved here since the farms filled mission valley. is it perfect? no. is anywhere? i’ve found it hard to beat. anyhoo, i’m no longer angry at the outrageous sprawl i’ve witnessed, although i still feel sad when they shave off yet another mountain/hill top or bulldoze another canyon. i’ve felt for years i’ll eventually settle in norcal, hawaii & mexico. til then i’m quite happy to call san diego home again.
Ava: I totally remember that Mission Valley farm! I have two strong memories from my childhood of Mission Valley: the farm and the huge statue of a girl in a bikini (that rotated!) above a strip club on Mission Gorge Road.
I was born in Eugene but moved to La Mesa when I was only a year old. My Dad (from Iowa) took a job for the Navy on Point Loma as a psychologist after he earned his PhD at University of Oregon. My Mom (from Queens) was a stewardess for Eastern Airlines in the 50s, quit to raise a family, graduated from SDSU in the early 70s and then was a travel agent until she retired.
no way, dean… we switched spots over the last 40 years! where are you now?
yeah, that farm, i still remember the headlines of the paper when he was refusing to sell to the city so they could build that monster interchange. i was only a tiny kid, but that all stands out, because, you know, i loved those cows. and, i think, i remember my grandpa being on his side. because my gpa would tell me stories of the drive downtown on the TWO LANE road of highway 8. stop lights and everything.
i remember the farm well and loved seeing the cows on the way to the beach. i thought it was an elderly woman who held out til the bitter end(not sure?) if memory serves the last farm was still there even after they opened the 805, on the north side of the 8. oasis skatepark was where todai seafood is now. i skated there lots. one time a car tire came flying off the bridge and barely missed me. great skatepark. crazy locale. ava: never met you but i spent mega hours playing on those fields at p. hearst. love ashland- plz say hello.
will do, mister anderson (said in best hugo weaving voice). and really? you played on the hearst playground? my grandparents lived in the green house right behind the school. to the left of the gate. i loved the swings there and spent so many hours on them. oooh, and my gpa was a pilot and flew over the school to “say hi” from time to time. it kept me happy and made the other kids jealous.
was that farmer a woman? i could have sworn it was a guy. whoever it was was a hardass and really stood up to “the man”…
i’m not sure at all about the farmer’s gender. the woman bit is hearsay. i remember thinking it was so great that whoever it was stuck it out as long as they did.
oh yes the hearst school grounds were quite the haven for me. i had to go to st. therese so it just felt good to be on “normal” school grounds. i spent most of my time terrorizing the dirt fields and hills on my bmx bike. we pulled out the ice plant to make trails and would launch off from the upper level to the lower. also remember kite fights from the pavement.
i grew up down past p.hearst in the maze where outsiders got lost. breton way, lancaster dr., to hampton ct. great place for kids to play.
no. way. keith, i have distinct memories of getting into it with the bmx’ers and having ice plant fights! that ramp was awesome for rollerskates, too (if you didn’t mind gravel in your knees/palms from the occasional fall). i also loved the upper yard for the desert like expanse. all in all a first rate playground/school yard. i would hide in the bushes (there was quite a bit of space in there) and read during recesses when i felt antisocial. and i never got lost down in the maze. my gpa had a best friend on breton. the beatty family. del cerro was a good place to get raised. for sure.
wow ava, what a trip! no, you wouldn’t have gotten lost in the maze- you were local. it was the random people who were trying to find i8 after visitting someone who’d stop and ask how to get out.
i wonder if we threw ice plant at each other? classic. not sure when this was all happening for you. i graduated uni in 1984, so as a grade schooler and junior high kid i was out n about playing all over del cerro.
did you swim at the dc pool? i was hanging out with brett ellis, james griggs, curtis conklin, jon heathman, kristine and karen ortleib, holly duncan. also later hooked up with the older stoners- andrew sloter and gary sterner.
this may be tmi, but the bushes you sought refuge in with your books were probably the same ones i had to ditch into when the bathrooms were locked and i couldn’t make it home! hope you never came across my accidents (how does one type a face that says, “ooops… sorry!” with raised eye brows and a squiggly mouth? )
mom’s still in the house where i was raised. so i pass lambda quite often. it’s trippy that our generation has been moving into dc for the past several years. i always remember it as a hood with older folks. as you said, it’s a great place to raise kids. cheers!
how i miss that old place. my grandmother moved up here to ashland a few years ago to be near me and henry, so we sold the house to the family that lived directly behind us. they opened the fence and made it more or less a family compound. but i miss it. every day. that house was awesome.
i never did come across anyones… um… leftovers, shall we say? but i always noticed a faint aroma of not so great in those bushes. didn’t care, though. easier to hide from the ridiculously rude kids who lived up on the mountain and treated me so poorly. elementary school was not the greatest time for me. but i made up for it in junior and high…
if you were the kid i threw ice plant at, i’m sorry i wasn’t ever the best rival. i usually gave up after a while of three on one and bailed. but i gave it my best shot, really.
so dc is becoming a nice spot for the 40 somethings, eh? really? back in the day i had a hell of a time getting anyone to drive me home from pb or presidio because dc was “soooo far” and “hey, do you have gas money?” haha.
Every time you folks mention Lambda, I picture the lesbian and gay advocacy group!
lol… considering that my moms folks, who lived on lambda, were my dads greatest advocates after he came out, yeah, i make the association, too.
ha! matthew, i sure do adore you. your wit.
I was born in La Jolla when the clinic was still on Prospect. My dad had lived in LJ for nearly a decade, having moved here from New York (via service in WWII and living in Palm Desert for several years). (FWIW, my dad was a local architect, and he had one pretty noticeable building in the North Park/Hillcrest area: if you were driving westbound on University, just after passing Texas street you’d see a building up on the hill with a parabolic roof. It was a Christian Science church that he had designed.)
My mom moved to La Jolla in ’58. She was a British citizen, but was born in Ireland as her dad was in the British army and had been stationed in Ireland where he met my grandmother. My mom grew up an army brat, spending time in England, Ireland, and India (though most of the areas of India she lived in are now part of Pakistan). She met my dad in late ’62 or early ’63.
4th generation native on the maternal side. Both mom AND dad were born in SD. My dad used to carve tikis out of palm trees, and some of them were still around in yards in PB and a few were at G&S surf shop for a long time. They were gone before I could get my hands on ’em. Dang it. My dad graduated from Mission Bay High School in 1958 & I still have his yearbook.
I was born at Sharp’s hospital (with the big stork). I’m about as native as they get. And BOogey, I’m right there with you, brother! — vent away! I hated the influx of snowbirds moving to my beloved city and I hated the changes I saw happening to it as I grew up. Traffic, smog, clueless crowds at the beach beyond belief. As kids we were pretty ruthless. Tourists would ask “Which way to the beach?” and we’d smile and direct them due east.
As an adult I’ve softened, but I still resent all the transplants to California. I long for the glory days of cheaper housing and wider streets, cleaner air and uncrowded beaches. I moved to Santa Barbara in 1985 and never looked back, but it’s expensive here too, and I’ve seen a lot of negative changes in the last 26 years. Progress? Or am I just cranky? Ha ha.