Thankful for a La Mesa Upbringing

Note To Reader:  I hope other La Mesa kids will be inspired to share their childhood memories after reading a few of mine.  We are very lucky to have been born and raised right here in La Mesa, CA.

I loved my childhood.  I'm thankful for:

La Mesa's beautiful location.  I've always loved driving Interstate 8, up from Mission Valley and before you drop down into El Cajon Valley.  Snugged on a ridge with lots of hilly residential areas that are my fond memories of walking to school everyday, and yes I did walk up hill both ways.  Jessie Ave. and Pomona Ave. were my daily disciplines.

I think the statute of limitations has run out so I can confess to riding my dirt bike in the Williamsburg Square field — before Williamsburg Square was built.  Every summer day my brothers and I rode our motorcycles, making fun tracks and jumps — in a field where years earlier we would catch tadpoles in the many waterholes. 

Funny story:  My friend Gwen Desnoyer and I were out catching frogs and tadpoles when we discovered "Sea Monkeys."  Now we had bought those packs of Sea Monkeys at the store and enjoyed hatching these little creatures so when we discovered we could just catch them in the ponds, man, we thought this was the greatest thing ever!  We caught a whole bunch and put them in her family's large aquarium in their living room.  Of course, when her house filled up with mosquitoes her mom was not pleased with us!

My childhood home on Ohio Place had a basement — one of three houses in a row that had basements.  My folks remodeled it when they bought the house adding my brothers' bedrooms and a large bar for entertaining.  My folks had huge New Year's Eve parties every year.  Us kids decorated, directed the guests, and then sat back and watched adults become stupid. You learn a lot watching that happen year after year.

Our basement suffered greatly when Williamsburg Square was built.  The sewer lines were not large enough to support all those new apartments and you can probably guess what happened — our basement was the lowest point along the sewer line so it all came up in the basement...ugh!  We lost some treasured things when three feet of sewage collected in our basement.

I remember the drive-in at El Cajon Blvd. and Baltimore,  and the shenanigans we pulled at the Helix Theater.  Memories of Debbie Wojczynski and I, trouble from the very start.  A full bottle of Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill accidentally knocked over and we listened in horror as it rolled down the cement floor all the way to the bottom of the theater, and the smell of splashing wine the whole distance. We never laughed so hard!

Riding bikes to the top of Mount Helix and then losing my brake pad on the way down!  I was in shorts, no shoes.  My husband, Mike While (boyfriend at the time) is yelling "Hit the wall!"  I'm going faster and faster, dragging my bare feet to try to slow down, and that wall does NOT look like an option to me, it's made of ROCK!  and have you looked on the other side of it — it's a steep drop-off.  I see the cars zooming fast on Fuerte, at the bottom of the hill where my life is about to end.... but in a moment of clarity I turned right on a little residential road and up the first steep driveway and finally came to a stop at the house's backyard.  Whew!  To this day my husband and I still joke, "Hit the wall!"  Sound advice, he claims.