BONNIE FRANKLIN (not THAT Bonnie Franklin) contacted me about Pacific Beach Elementary School, where her daughter is in kindergarten. She said someone had uncovered an old photo of the student body in front of the school and it didn’t look the same at all. “Was there another school on this site?” asked Bonnie. I tried to email her the details but finally decided that “desperate times called for desperate measures” and devoted the entire June issue of the PBHS newsletter to the subject. If you’d like to see the original 1943 student body photo, the 2008 version photographed by Robert Thuleen, and the whole history of schools in Pacific Beach, you’ll want a free copy of the newsletter. Contact me at one of the numbers at the end of this column.
IF IT WASN’T FOR EVE ANDERSON I’d have NO recall of “recent” history. Her column about the late Mike Gotch brought back a lot of fond memories of what I consider the “Golden Age” in Pacific Beach, when a vibrant town council worked closely with a receptive city councilman. I spent a little time helping out in the former pizza parlor that served as Mike’s campaign headquarters. Almost every day someone would come in the door, take out their wallet, and prepare to place a pizza order before realizing that something wasn’t quite right.
Bumper Snicker: “If I wanted to hear the pitter-patter of little feet around the house I’d put shoes on my cat.”
Artistic Licenses: I’m still not sure about “BYWITCH,” but the license plate frame said “We Make The Magic ” Walt Disney Imagineering.” I wondered if “LNGFELO” was a poet but decided it was all about his Ford F-150 longbed pickup.
50 Years Ago: An advertisement in the June 16, 1958, Evening Tribune noted that every Tuesday from noon to 5 p.m. would be “Dime Day” at Bigger and “Better Than Ever” Belmont Park in Mission Beach: “Rides 10¢, Kiddie Rides 5¢.”
75 Years Ago: Mrs. Fred T. Scripps, “following her annual custom, opened her home and gardens at Brae Mar, receiving members of the Pacific Beach Woman’s club and their friends.”
100 Years Ago: The first link in a county system of highways got underway when “thirty men and teams” began work south of La Jolla on a “boulevard” to San Diego. County surveyors were at work planning the route from Pacific Beach “almost to the race track” (where Balboa and East Mission Bay Drive cross today).
John Fry may be reached at (858) 272-6655 or [email protected].