I miss fishing from the pier off Mission Beach. I also miss boogieboarding. I liked camping in the Mojave, too, but that ended (where I liked it) with Feinstein’s Folly. They ran us off and threatened to ticket us.

I don’t miss leaving the windows in my little Ford Ranger open with a sticker on my Kraco stereo saying “LEAVE ME ALONE! I’M CHEAP!” while I fished. I always had the coil wire in my tackle box, too.

We didn’t leave until we found ourselves checking out a condo purchase in Santee. Two years of saving to afford an APARTMENT? 22 miles from my job. 35 for the wife. And no beach. The serial killer in our Clairemont Apartment complex had something to do with it, too. Especially after I found out I’d loaned him my toolbox in order to get his dead car out of my parking spot. This was in a 2500 unit apartment complex on Clairemont Blvd. That was between victims 4 (first four all in our complex) and then 5 and 6 (University City), a two-fer, mom and daughter. My wife had been carrying a revolver (illegally) for weeks by then. We had a decorative “Home Sweet Home” panel hanging on the inside of our entry door. The pistolized pump 12 guage lived under that. In our home.

Cleophus Prince. You can look him up. Those Canadians; they crack me up sometimes.

It was more a ‘last straw’ moment than anything else. Good luck, Golden State!