It is a bright and balmy Tuesday in San Diego. The route here was once the most popular way to travel through Southern California. As a child I had been on Highway 1 every summer, to and from our vacation house in Newport Beach. Corona del Mar through Laguna Beach, San Clemente, Dana Point, Leucadia, Encinitas, Carlsbad, Cardiff by the Sea, Solana Beach, Del Mar, La Jolla. Then back onto the I-5 speedway for a quick trip to Vicky's house in San Diego. And of course, more Ruby time.
On the refrigerator door are four charts that serve as the "game plan" for the next three days. Everyone has been assigned duties and a time slot for the completion of said duties. My duty for today is to prepare a sweet potatoe casserole using Vic's recipe. Even the job of polishing the silverware has been assigned and that chore is to be completed this afternoon. These people are WAY too organized! However, if there are going to be 23 guests at your house I guess you better have some idea about how you're going to get all these things done.
Yesterday after doing some banking business we went over to see the old beach house that was sold 4 years ago. The new owners have done a bit of remodeling, planted a lovely new garden, painted the house, and generally upgraded. We parked the car and took the same walk along the beach "boardwalk" that I had walked since I was about 6 or 7 years old. Remember that Newport Beach was, for the most part, a summer resort, so most houses were shut up during the winter or used only on weekends or holidays. Not anymore. Some of the houses along the oceanfront walk are lived in year-round or rented year round and there are very few of the little single story wood frame style homes left. They have been razed and in their stead are two- and three-story jobs built out to the full extent of the lot lines. There is probably three feet between the houses so none gets any side light. The front opens directly onto the sidewalk; almost no front gardens, definitely no side or back gardens. Of course, the view is from here to Catalina on a clear day, the blue ocean and sandy beach across the street. I guess that makes up for a lot. In the old days the boardwalk was exactly that; a board walk. It is now a wide cement walkway that has bike riders, joggers, skateboarders, roller skaters, and the occasional intrepid walker who tries to stay out of everyone's path! We walked down to the Newport Pier, then out to the end to see if the optimistic fishermen had caught anything. In all the years I have been walking that pier I don't remember seeing any catch; the pleasure seems to come from the trying. At the end of the pier is a little cafe where my father would take me early in the morning after we had walked from our house to the little market to get an LA Times. Mother would say, as we left, "Now Don, don't buy her any coffee. You know how she gets!" And so we would sit at one of the little tables, Daddy with his coffee, me with my cup of 1/3 coffee, 2/3 milk, reading the paper and watching the fishermen pull their boats up on the beach and unload the morning catch to be sold at an open fish market at the foot of the pier. The fish market is still there, still a bustling place early in the morning.
Forty-two years ago today John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Interesting what you remember.
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