A friend of mine once said; “Palm trees are the pinnacles of North Park.”  I loved how he said that.  They are, without question, one of the most integral parts of our landscape.  I can’t imagine North Park without them.  They’re regal and robust and diverse.  Besides being fun to look at, they provide all kinds of wonderful things, like habitat & food for local wildlife and those soothing sounds they make when they blow in the breeze.  And they’re OLD; some are so old that they’ve been here much longer than any of us.  The one in my yard has been here for about 80 years.

I moved into my first North Park home in 1985/1986.  It was just a few years after the infamous San Diego PSA crash of 1978.  We had rented a small rear-house on Boundary which is close to where the crash occurred; in the vicinity of Dwight & Nile near Chris' Market on Myrtle & Boundary.  I was a young woman in my early 20's back then, and while I knew of the tragic event as did everyone in San Diego, I was a busy and preoccupied young mother with other more "important" things on my mind.  It was a sobering and expanding experience for me when I began to hear first hand accounts from my new neighbors about the day flight 182 landed in their front yards... and changed their lives forever.  I'll spare you the unpleasant details they often needed to share, but suffice it to say, these long-time NP residents became people I admired a great deal.  They were heroic and generous in a situation where I concede I might not have done as well.  They weren't the old codgers I'd first made them out to be. Uptown News did a story about the events here

They helped me learn that the little "oh so important" world I lived in was not, after all, the center of the universe. Life altering things happened to other people everyday...even in my own backyard. 

Last week Chloe mentioned that we had put an offer on a North Park home and were awaiting the results.  Well, after much excitement and financial chess, we ended the game casualties of a bidding war.  So the search continues, but we learned quite a bit in the process.

Ever drive by, like me, and wonder what it is that happens inside Hal's Pharmacy?  It's such an unassuming, nondescript storefront.  I've always known it had something to do with compounding...but what exactly is compounding, anyway?  Well, a woman who has worked with Hal for 15 years, Debra, shared some interesting information with me about the place.  Mystery solved.  Here's what she told me...