El Cajon, California is my home town; well, as much any place can be a home town to a Navy brat. I spent most of my high school years there. Went to several grade schools there. I have memories of walking to the El Cajon theater with a quarter and that would get me into the Saturday Matinee with enough left over for popcorn and a coke. When I was six or seven I would walk from my Aunt Essie's house to the Donut Center on El Cajon Boulevard and buy a dozen for a buck or so. I used to walk all over the town, the whole valley. There was a Jack-in-the-Box across the street from the theater and in those days they served Chicken-in-a-Basket and Shrimp-in-a-basket as well as hamburgers (wrapped in white napkins and waxed paper) and fries.
Highway 80 bisected El Cajon and crossed Magnolia, marking the center of town. North of Main (as the highway was called in town) on Magnolia there were a couple of drive-in restaurants (drive-ins were the cultural center of nightlife in Southern California in the 50's and 60's), the Vaquero and Oscar's. My mom worked as a carhop at the Vaquero; I remember the skin- tight brown pants, the low-cut blouse, and the bag of coins she brought home every night (I was allowed to help her count up her tips, occasionally skimming a dime or quarter in the process). Later in life, as a teenager, I always got a twinge of guilt when I would hang around at the Vaquero and ogle the 'hops...but it didn't stop me from ogling.
When I was in high school I would walk the three miles or so to Oscar's with a buddy or two and sit and watch the cool cars cruising in and out. When I finally got my driver's license I would cruise in and out, too. Cruising (sorry Martin, in them days it was just driving around in a car looking at girls) was a huge part of Southern California social life for teens then. Our "cruises" expanded from El Cajon out to Lemon Grove, La Mesa, Spring Valley, and into San Diego and the beaches sometimes.
Another big part of teen society then was the drive-in theater. There was the Aero in El Cajon, the Ace in Lemon Grove, and the Big Sky, the Alvarado, and lots of others in nearby towns. One of my buddies could get free passes to the Aero and sometimes in the summer we would go see the same movie two or three times in a week; half the time we would turn the sound down and make up our own dialogue...or just listen to music on the radio and joke and giggle.
I mentioned the Jack-in-the-Box; they had great tacos, too. Mel's Root Beer had two locations in El Cajon; one was across the alley from the back door of Thrifty's. They kept the mugs in a freezer and when they brought you your mug of root beer there was a rime of frost and frozen foam in it. The second location was on El Cajon Blvd near Madison. Mel's Root Beer Barrel had great tacos and burgers as well as root beer...no frozen mugs, though. There was a MacDonalds on Second Street but no one I knew would go there. There were a dozen or so non-franchise little burger stands that were pretty good, though. For Pizza we went to Pernicano's on Broadway; for submarines we went to Marichario's on Second Street. There was a bar-b-q place on Madison that my mom loved. The best Mexican restaurant was Rosarita's on Cuyamaca. By today's standards, most of the burgers weren't much but they only cost a quarter or even less.
El Cajon was one of what the Congress on Racial Equality called a "white island". A bit of a misnomer, there was a sizeable Mexican population there, but I don't recall ever seeing a black person living there until long after I left home...in fact, the only blacks I ever saw in El Cajon was visiting athletes at school games.
I guess I have made my point; even though I traveled around a lot as a youth, El Cajon is my home town, just like all ya'lls home towns.
So whenever I had a leave, or a Change of Station, or any other opportunity, I went back to El Cajon and cruised with my buds and ate at our places and went to our movies and went out with the girls, just like any returning homey would do. I was able see the changes that took place, some so subtle that the locals didn't notice. I watched as the downtown area became sleazy in the seventies, the El Cajon theater went porn, the infusion of bars and the disappearance of so many of the things that once made it a cool place. In the late eighties a move was made to clean up and rebuild the downtown area; it was looking better all the time.
My dad died in '97 and we sold his house. Most of the time when I am home, we drive by the house to see how things look. The Chief was a meticulous groundskeeper and his house always looked carefully groomed. The new owners seem to be pretty careful, too.
On the day we left San Diego this month, we decided to do a quick leaving-town cruise. My sister told me that things were looking better than ever in downtown El Cajon. Dad's house was well cared for, but there was a change that was totally unforseen...just east of Main and Magnolia, the town has transformed. Signs are everywhere written in squiggly (my quaint name for Arabic writing)...businesses and cafes have a definite middle-eastern look...right down to the old Chicken Shack which is now the "Bagdad Cafe". The area is home to one of the largest Chaldean populations in California. When my sister told me that, I didn't even know who Chaldeans were...I thought they were an extinct race out of the Bible. Seems they are a people from an area in Iraq roughly around Mosul. They are Christians; Catholic, in fact, and they don't like being confused with Arabs. There are roughly 100,000 Chaldeans in the US...most are in Detroit, but there are a few thousand in California, too. American Chaldeans are proud Americans and are a hard-working lot...at least according to their propaganda. It is just a twist to the old homestead's evolution that I could never have envisioned. As open-minded as I strive to be, this one thing is exceedingly upsetting to me. Bagdad Cafe...gad.