Hometown Notoriety

Greetings from a suburb of San Diego, Ca.  Ok.  As I get deeper into this blogging thing I am putting more clues to my location.  I was hoping to keep it rather generic (So. California) but that is proving to be difficult.  There is so much I want to write about that details are leaking through.

Tonight on the CBS sitcom,  $#*! My Dad Says , my hometown was mentioned.  It is not surprising considering that the show itself is set in San Diego and El Cajon is a suburb, a small town about 8 miles away.  There should be a sense of pride when your hometown gets mentioned on a national television show, but not tonight.  Tonight, this show mentioned my hometown as the "anus of America".  It really isn't.  (My wife and I have in the past referred to it as the "armpit of America", but really only in jest and, kind of affectionately.)  At any rate, it was nice to be mentioned. 

In all fairness, I should state that El Cajon is really a nice little town. 

• At one time in the 1990's the mayor wanted the city to be known as "The City of Trees" and he suggested that we all plant trees. 
• The words "El Cajon" in Spanish mean "the box".  El Cajon sits in a small valley that is shaped like a box. 
• It is the home to Parkway Plaza Mall and the airport, Gillespie Field, (which has an annual air show and a flight museum) http://www.sandiegan.com/airports/gillespie-field/. 
• El Cajon is home to the Olaf Wieghorst Museum and Western Heritage Center http://www.wieghorstmuseum.org/.  My wife and I used to live a half a block from this old house.  We always wondered what it was.  It was an old house with a strange looking wall around the yard.  It wasn't until years later that we realized it was the home of a famous Western artist.  And then they made it into a museum. 
• We used to have an amusement park (Frasier's Frontier - before that, Marshal Scotty's) but it closed.  
• We used to have a race track, too.  But it closed too.  

Ok, well that about covers it.  Come and visit sometime.  Enjoy the weather. 

D.

Update, November 20, 2010:  El Cajon also has the annual Mother Goose Parade, which has been called the largest parade "in San Diego County and the largest of its type west of  the Mississippi" River.