Being a Kid in Crestline I just got back from an Eagle Scout Court of Honor and enjoyed listening to the two honorees’ stories of their scouting exploits in the mountains. It got me thinking that it would have been fun to grow up as a kid in Crestline. I’m not putting my parents’ choices down, rest their souls, but I think I picked a lot better place for raising my kids. The place I grew up in—Lakeside in San Diego County—was what we called back then, “a drag.” And I’m here to tell ya that the “Home o’ Row-day-oh” ain’t gotten no purtier since I hightailed it outta there nearly 30 years ago. That was about five seconds after my high school graduation ceremony was over. Just ask Gary Webb of The Wild Acorn—he and his brothers grew up there at the same time I did, and he probably has the same fond memory I have of seeing dust between the rearview mirror and Lakeside, California, for the last time. That’s not how you’re supposed to remember the town where you grew up, but I have no attachment to it, and I still don’t know what possessed me to go to my 20th high school reunion. I couldn’t believe how many people had stayed in that town. You could pick out the ones who had stayed there—all of them looked like they were snatched right off of a Marlboro billboard, even the women. A couple of those women were shocked that I could have ever left the town and gone somewhere’s else, and one of them even gave me a little scolding about it. I wanted to say: “You know, I do feel really bad about having gallivanted all over Europe for seven of my younger years. I should have just stayed in Lakeside and married one of you guys.” The 30th reunion is next year and I am not going. But I digress. Before I write something that will get me sued by the Lakeside Chamber of Commerce, let me get back to what I was talking about. I go downstairs, where my eight-year-old son, Austen, is dressed in a safari hat, khaki shorts, boots, khaki vest with pockets filled with gear, a bug catching net and a trowel. He’s not going on a camping trip; he’s just going out into the back yard for a while. In the house where I grew up there wasn’t much to do in the back yard except mow it, which I had to do once a week, or clean up after the dogs. If one of my old neighbors would have looked over the fence and saw me in a get-up like my son had on, I’d have been laughed out of the neighborhood. But here it’s cool, and he can stay busy for hours. That’s just in the back yard. My wife, Shelby, is the queen of planning adventurous birthday parties, but she couldn’t have earned the title without living where we live. Across the street from my house is about 250 acres of land. It used to be Forest Service land, then the water agency bought it, and then someone bought it from them, and then...who cares—it’s vacant forest and hardly anyone ever goes there but us and kids from our neighborhood. It’s a great place to stage adventures during kid parties. During one party for my daughter, Natalie, the theme was Native Americans in the forest. The kids struck out up the hill across the street. They traipsed through the forest, following clues and signs that led them to an area of rocks, where they searched for papier-maché “artifact” bowls that were filled with prizes. Then at a birthday party for my son, where the theme was dinosaurs, the kids searched an area of rocks at the top of the hill for papier-maché dinosaur eggs that, when opened, contained toy dinosaurs. All of these things were hand-made by my wife and the kids a week in advance, of course. Both parties included hour-long adventures that you can’t just do everywhere. Things like this occur to me almost every day of the year. In summer, my kids swim alone with their parents in cool, fresh mountain streams, rather than in crowded, warm chlorinated public pools like I did. Afterwards, they go just up the road to a real, old-fashioned malt shop and sit at the bar for a great family treat. Those are memories that kids down the hill are just not going to have unless they come up to a place like this. I envy all of the rest of the memories that my kids are going to take with them to adulthood. I guess the only thing to do is follow the lead of many of these Boy Scout moms and dads, and be a kid myself—getting inside as many of those kids’ memories as I can.
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