MISSION bAY in Postcards 4

For years I worked near Mission Bay and walked through it on the way to work. As a child, I had a very vague memory of miles of sloughs where the bay is now. It was a totally wild land right in the heart of the city.

The San Diego river, which created these tidelands, was tamed into a straight channel in 1800. And so it stayed until 1944 when the city began turning this marsh into a a unique water park. They dredged, dug, built, and created the Largest man made park in the country, and the largest municipal park. It did help diversify the city’s economic base from all military to a partial military/tourist.

I was taught in my small grade school, that birds migrated up and down the state utilizing the sloughs and marshes along the coast and in the great central valley. Now this last great coastal marsh was gone.

Slowly a last corner area of the tidelands showed signs of restoration. In 1972 a small marsh area appeared, and slowly grew over the years. Once I awoke to what we lost through our diversification efforts, I began watching this bit of marsh. Mentally I encouraged each blade of grass, each clump of marsh.

I don’t work in Mission Bay any more. But I still drive through it and use it twice a week. Do you have an area near where you live that’s been changed so that it is unrecognizable? Let us know.
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• Himself: Work, shower, meeting, and build space stations in a galaxy far, far, away.


• Myself: Yesterday struggled to get the right inhaler send to me. Today. Read, write, shower, read some more. Slept terribly again.


• Photo: Mine


• Reading: Pryor.


• Gratitude’s: G