I recently met a real true North Park native.  It was fun hearing her memories of growing up here in the 50's.  Joyce Abram was born in a hospital which once existed in North Park; I believe she said Mercy Hospital on Illinois Street (??) and moved into her family home on Gregory Street street in 1949.  She was 3 years old.  Her family still owns the house, which was a mere 4 years old when they bought it and moved in! 
She talks about what a wonderful life and idyllic childhood she had in North Park.  It was, as she puts it, "...just like the Ozzie and Harriet kind of families we watched on TV".  The neighborhood was filled with young families.  It was an innocent era with children playing in the streets.  McKinley Elementary was a top-notch school.  She remembers attending school and community events in the ampitheatre that used to be on the campus.  She attended McKinley from 1951-1958 and is thrilled that it has once again become a school to be so proud of.  Though she now resides in La Jolla, she has remained active with McKinley over the past 50 years.  She's done a great deal of work on behalf of the students and faculty there, including starting a foundation with private donations which eventually became the McKinley Parent Committee.  She's looking forward to the McKinley alumni reunion on May 1st.


She remembers fondly how North Park was the place to be.  Everyone who was anyone in San Diego lived in North Park, like local politicians and other movers and shakers.  As she says, "It was truly the center of the city."  University Ave was a vibrant area.  As a child, she often went to movies at the now restored North Park Theatre, as well as at another theatre that was located across the street.  She skated at the Palisades Roller Rink.  (Now The Palisades mixed use condominium building.)  She bowled at Aztec Bowl on 30th.  (So did I before the tore it down and erected condos.)  One of her teachers from McKinley used to routinely take the students to "Thrift Day" at the B of A; it was located on 30th where Cafe Calabria is now.  (She told me you can still see the vaults in there.)  Another teacher rewarded students for good behavior by taking them over to Carnations Ice Cream Store for, of course, ice cream.  (I think she said that was on University Ave.)  She remembers when the library on 31st & North Park Way was built, and what a huge event it was when Longs went in on University & 32nd.  She shopped for her school clothes at Penny's (where Pic-n-Save used to be) and at Schlass (now A&B Sporting Goods - still in the same location on University.)

At the little commercial corner of 32nd & Thorn she recalls the Pigley Wiggly Grocery Store and Roy’s Groceries.  The neighborhood kids bought their candy at Chris' Market on Myrtle & Boundary, which as most of you know, is still there today.  When Joyce was a kid they called it "Amelia's".  She was Chris' daughter and worked the counter.  There was another small market over by McKinley called Sterrett's Market (or something like that) but I was unable to dig up any info about it.

Thank you, Joyce, for sharing your memories.  It's a good reminder that North Park has so much interesting history.  It's one of the things that draws so many of us to the area.

Dick & Alberta Wagoneer moved to North Park 21 years ago.  Since then, they have been creating and maintaining what I would call the most striking garden on my street.  (My photos are not doing it justice!)  I've been walking by and admiring it for 8 years and I finally had the pleasure of meeting them today.  It was another reminder of why I love living in North Park; it's the people.  Okay...maybe it's the flowers, too.



Dick and Alberta lived for many years in El Cajon where they both worked as Elementary School teachers.  When they retired, they wanted a smaller home and something closer to the kinds of activities they enjoy, like going downtown to the symphony and walking at the beach.  North Park offered just that.  (They nearly purchased a condo in Mission Hills, but Dick plays the organ and the HOA wasn't sure they wanted him sharing walls with others; this led them next to our neck of the woods.) 
When they bought their North Park home back in 1988, it needed a ton of work.  (It had been built in the 40's by the family that also owned the house next door.)  Dick and Alberta worked on it for a year before it was ready to move into.  They have completely transformed it and, I might add, did so before North Park became a "trendy" place to live.   They had vision.



Naturally they've seen things change around here.  They joke that they used to the youngest people in the 'hood.  Many of their neighbors were original owners from the 30's & 40's who were elderly and unable to maintain their properties.  (But they loved their neighors, who were all welcoming and neighborly.)  Gradually those original owners were replaced by new, younger ones who restored and improved the historic  homes.  They find it amusing that they've now become the "old" people on the block.

They call North Park the "10 minutes from everywhere" neighborhood.  I couldn't agree more.

The capability of the brain to permanently flash freeze certain memories into long term storage is pretty interesting.   Come Monday morning, almost everyone we talked to in San Diego had a story about what they were doing at exactly 3:40pm, when the 7.2 earthquake struck a few hundred miles away in Baja California.   One of the more interesting ones we heard was about a person driving on the I-805 / I-8 interchange who thought they were having serious car trouble, only to pull over and see that everyone else was doing the same.

Chloe and George happened to be in the backyard enjoying the late afternoon sun.  George was recounting his dream from the night before (in which strangely figured an earthquake) when both of us had the sensation that the other was pushing on their chair.  Soon enough we came to the realization that it was an earthquake in progress.   The whole thing was as if in slow motion; we had time to tune into voices across the canyon shouting about an earthquake, take stock of our rumbling surroundings, and note with amusement how another neighbor's lawnmower just kept droning right on through the whole event.  The scary thing about an earthquake is you never know how long it is going to last or how bad it is going to get.  In fact it's probably exactly that frightening uncertainty that overloads the brain's circuits and fuses those memories into the mental hard drive.