Mighty 690 was awesome! I used to listen as a kid in Camarillo (Ventura County).
Ah Shutuppa ya face!
And before Elvira the movie host of choice was Seeeee-moooooour!
Lived there frmm 1963-1973. Kids under 16 free at the zoo! School trips to the museums in Balboa Park (glowing rocks are cool!). The canyons were the best places to play - snakes, scummy ponds, fossils. Saw my first rattlesnake there
A couple times a year I still get an unaccountable urge for a nasty-ass Jack-In-The-Box taco.
Born at Mercy Hospital in 1950. Stayed in SD until five years ago, when the crowding finally pushed us to retire and relocate.
I remember:
Johnny Downs, before he was a train guy, before he was a jet guy, before he was a boat guy. At the very beginning he was just a guy sitting at a desk or table.
In 1962, I actually won the weekly “Topsy Turvy Theater” count the mistakes contest. “HoddyHoddyHoddy, good to see ya, GOOD to see ya!” And no one could chug a glass of Golden Arrow milk in extreme closeup like Johnny.
Uncle Russ (SD’s other early fifties cartoon show guy.)
Regis Philbin’s Saturday Night talk show at KOGO.
The “Kogoroo”
Mission Valley- 4 lane highway, dairies everywhere.
Silver Strand, the bay side: visible sewage pollution.
College Grove Center, brand spanking new.
Unimart
Padres, Westgate Park- went to a few games
Chargers, Balboa Stadium (north of City College)- went to one game
Bob Dale’s “Early Show”
Ray Wilson
Harold Keen’s “People In The News”
SD Sports Arena, brand spanking new and already a derelict.
Creeping through the Cuyamacas and Lagunas on old HWY 8, two-lane winding road.
The fastest way to LA was HWY 101.
National City- Saturday Morning “Kiddy Matinees” at the Abilee theater.
Alvarado Drive-In theater, whose newspaper ad featured a non-PC cartoon image of a grinning Mexican guy in a sombrero. (I think I remember he looked a bit like the Cleveland Indians cartoon logo.)
I could go on and on, but I’ve had my fun.
I think you mean the Seal Caves at La Jolla Cove, 3-4 miles up the coast from PB.
Ooh! Another memory: Oscar’s drive-in restaurant, owned by the same guy who started Jack-In-The-Box.
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My sister and I inherited the house I grew up in, in Clairmont. (Near here.) My mom set a new basis when she put it in the trust, probably around 2003. My tax guy looked it up on Zillow, and the estimated value is $12,000 higher than it was then (which was quite a surprise to me). I wonder if my sister would consent to selling it when the recession is well-over?
Not really a San Diego memory or ‘You know you’re from San Diego when…’, but the property is something I think of when I think of San Diego.
Remember Moona Lisa’s predecessor?
Cosmosina!
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Could’ve been. Or Sunny Jim Cave, mentioned earlier. I was kind of young at the time. We’d go to PB, OB, La Jolla, Torrey Pines… Hard to remember what was where.
I used to love Belmont Park – even if it did smell like urine.
There was a place in PB called The Crepe Shop. I loved crab crêpes.
Another place was called The Sandbox, a surfing store. Man, I wanted a surfboard! Never did get one, though. But I did have a Sandbox T-shirt.
When I was older my 'rents would take me to dinner on my birthday. What was the name of that place…? The Blue Pearl? The Blue Diamond? Anyway, it was in PB. I liked the Breast & Beef combination; teriyaki beef and teriyaki chicken in a bed of spinach and garnished with Mandarin oranges.
Organ Power Pizza. Wisecracking animated trophy heads, and a real pipe organ and organist.
Naked Man. This was ‘after my time’, but I went to a party in PB. (One of my friends traditionally has three-day birthday parties.) My friend’s SIL’s apartment was between the street and the beach, so one morning while everyone else was asleep I went down to the seawall. This guy comes roller-skating along wearing little more than a thong, a lion’s tail and mask. When I mentioned him, my friend’s 12-year-old niece said, ‘You saw Naked Man!’
I remember Seymour.
Wow, small world. I lived less than 2 miles away on Cannington Drive.
Do you remember Hale Jr. High? That’s where I went. Last time I was by there, it was an adult Christian center.
It’s the same place. I didn’t know about the name change to Sunny Jim until I followed the link.
Elvira was L.A., and I’m guessing Seymour was too.
Cosmosina and MoonaLisa were San Diego, early sixties.
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Bill Bailey for Truman Motors Volkswagen: “Ah tell you neighbors – Come get’em.”
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I think it’s called Sunny Jim Cave because the view looking out of the cave suggests a human profile and someone named it “Sunny Jim”.
I went to Hale Jr. High for most of 7th grade before we moved to San Jose.
I lived just off Friars Rd when I moved into town from Vista. I worked at UCSD Med Center for 10 years. I remember at lot of the stuff mentioned, but I moved there as an adult, I guess that means I’m just and OF.
I’m not from San Diego, but I did spend three-and-a-half years there as an undergraduate. I remember: [ul]
[li] 13K’s van appearing at Revelle Plaza to drum up interest. It didn’t make much sense since they evidently were a typical AM pop station which would garner nothing but disdain from most college students of the era.[/li]
[li] The idea of a fairly large public university campus at the very southern end of California was so delightful, for obvious reasons to “California’s Airline” that PSA gave us the fountain in Revelle Plaza. Today’s UCSD students must scratch their heads, wondering what PSA is or was.[/li]
[li] Before there was the San Diego Chicken, it was just the KGB chicken. [/li][li] KGB FM played fairly edgy hard rock, but KGB AM played soft rock.[/li]
[li]If anyone was there in the late 1970s and remembers seeing two-dollar bills with red seals (=United States Notes), they were probably mine. I used to ask for them at my bank and circulate them like the cash they actually were.[/li][/ul]
Used to go to Tug’s Tavern for lunch before he got kicked out when the city “modernized” Cyrystal Pier. .50 taquitos and a salad w/dressing in a used Almaden wine bottle…Loved that place
Original Jack-in-the-Box located on El Cajon Blvd near College…take the tacos to the Campus drive in instead of paying for their hot dogs…worked at the Alvarado in La Mesa and earned $1.17 per hour but got free popcorn and anything else I wanted to eat. Lots of cats in that lot…manually changed the marquee every Tuesday night, rain or shine.
No one has mentioned “cruising” Oscars, especially in El Cajon…
And of course the drag races in front of Monte Vista. Marked off and everything. Just watch out for the curve at the 1/4 mile finish.
KPRI was the original “underground” edgy FM radio, especially after midnight.
Wasn’t it bitchin’ back then?
I lived in San Diego from 1987-2005. I remember when:
Hillcrest and North Park were shabby, cheap areas in which to live
The I-15 didn’t extend over University Ave; it became a business loop
Much of Miramar/Mira Mesa open land was still . . . open land
The indy cinemas in Hillcrest were truly indy and on 5th Avenue
The Chicken Pie Shop was on the corner of Robinson, not on El Cajon Blvd
Or as my crowd called it- “The Alvy.”
I wasn’t into Oscar’s much, but my wife and her high school hoodlum friends used to cruise to Oscar’s in El Cajon in the early 60’s.
See #24.
As a younger native San Diegan now living elsewhere, I have one to add;
-You know what “carne asada fries” are, and the idea doesn’t disgust you.
You grew up with Captain Mike Ambrose on Channel 10 and his annual holiday toy drives.
Proud third generation San Diego native here!
Horizon Christian Fellowship. Traffic there is now murder on Sundays. My grandparents lived around the corner, and the family home is still there. I go down about once a year. (And a shout-out to Mysterious Galaxy—not there when I was a kid, but an awesome Fantasy / SF / Mystery bookstore.)
Born in Sharp Hospital & grew up in Tierrasanta. I made a reference to “El Cajon Blvd” in class yesterday (discussing Babylonian prostitution in reference to Gilgamesh). Since I’m in Canada, nobody got it.
Re: “Pearson Ford”, one of the ways you can tell the non-natives is how they pronounce “Fairmount” (fair-mont, not fair-mount) and “Jamacha” (hamishaw, not. . . anything you could predict.)
PM me if you have stories of the Proctor Valley Monster. I collect them.
Edit: Saw the Channel 10 post above. We were KFMB folks, and my parents’ store always played B-100 (KFMB fm). I can’t remember the name of the morning guys on the am 760 station, but they were an instition, too.