In 1960 I was brought home from the hospital to 4071 Eagle St. It was a white stucco craftsman bungalow with 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom and a one car garage. The basement was mostly dirt crawlspace, but a tiny section had a concrete floor and a concrete retainer wall. This area housed the gas heater and water heater.
There was a tiny front yard with a sloping lawn in front. Growing on the south side of the house were a couple of citrus trees. On the North side, a tall Eugenia bush that ran the length of the neighbor's driveway served as a privacy hedge.
The backyard was entirely concrete, some patches were grey and some were pale pink. A low brick wall was all that separated one from the canyon, which was overgrown with foot-tall fox tail weeds. If you were brave enough to wander down about 100 feet, there were Brazilian pepper trees and patches of cactus. If you continued further down the canyon side, through thick brush, you would eventually reach the bottom, where a seasonal creek flowed.
It was told to me that in the 50s, when the Warriners moved into the house, there was horseback riding stables and archery on the other side of the canyon. That was long gone by the time I got there.
Missions Hills is a big area consisting of many hills and canyons. The canyons all lead to Mission Valley, which, when I was born, was mostly undeveloped acreage and farms, with the San Diego River running from the eastern part of the county all the way to the Pacific Ocean. There was one mall that had just been built. The valley was still natural and beautiful and hadn't been utterly ruined by freeways, retail, condominiums, and tons of trash, drug paraphernalia, vomit, urine, and feces left by hundreds of feral people who have colonized the San Diego River Banks over the past 10 years.
During the 60s and 70s, there was a lone white deer that roamed the canyons of Mission Hills. It was thought that she escaped from the San Diego Zoo, but no one knew for sure. Wherever she came from, the White Deer was very illusive. She was rarely seen. She lived a lonely existence, sharing the canyons with silver fox, skunks, snakes, lizards, and opposum.
In 1975, some do-gooders were worried that the White Deer was going to get hit by a car if she tried to cross the freeway. So the professionals at Animal Control decided to rescue her with a tranquilizer dart. Instead of getting her out of harm's way, they killed her with too large a dose of the drug. She was buried at the top of Presidio Park with a nice little marker.
Lesson to be learned from the White Deer's experience: Don't ever trust the Department of Animal Control.
