And there were older couples in touristy attire - floppy hats, floral prints, even an occasional fanny pack - holding each other’s hands or gripping canes. There were teen boys on skateboards and entire families on bicycles, the majority of them rented from one of the handful of nearby bike rental shops.
(It is officially known as Oceanfront Walk, but everyone calls it “The Boardwalk,” even though it’s not made of wood but, rather, paved concrete.) On my last visit, during the February heat wave, there were pairs of young girls roller-skating in bikinis, their tans so even they looked airbrushed. The Mission Beach Boardwalk could be a commercial for San Diego summer – even when it’s not summer. Bike rentals, skate repair, T-shirts, swimwear, towels, and whatever else you might need for a day in the sun, sand, and surf – it’s all there, as it has been since brothers Dan and Ray Hamel first set up shop in a former beachfront gym back in July 1967, the Summer of Love, with a starting inventory of twenty-four used Stingray bikes (purchased at a police auction) as well as two dozen surfboards. And Hamel’s Action Sports Center, situated in a waterfront building remodeled many years ago to resemble a cartoonish castle, remains its soul. The foot of Ventura Place - which is what West Mission Bay Drive is called as it stretches west for one more block past Mission Boulevard - remains the heart of Mission Beach. But the coaster was resurrected in 1990 as the cornerstone of a new shopping center that also saw the refurbishment of another historic relic, the Mission Beach Plunge, a huge indoor swimming pool. Spreckels, the historic wooden thrill ride fell into disrepair and became one of the city’s first homeless encampments after the 1976 closure of the Belmont Park amusement park. The Giant Dipper roller coaster still beckons visitors from the southwest corner of Mission Boulevard and West Mission Bay Drive.īuilt in 1925 by sugar magnate John D. Unlike Downtown, Old Town, Little Italy, and North Park, Mission Beach hasn’t been made over or “reinvented.” Drive down Mission Boulevard, which bisects the narrow isthmus south of Pacific Beach, or walk two and a half miles along the oceanfront Boardwalk, and you won’t find many changes from what things were like a generation ago. Welcome to Mission Beach, where time has stood still - sort of. Arnold (fourth from left) judging the 1986 Miss Mission Beach bikini contest with 91X's Rob Tonkin (second from left) and consultant Joel Stevens (seated, right, with hat). It’s his knowledge, his courage and his Southern charm that makes Slomo such an interesting and admirable man.Suns out, tongues out? Author Thomas K. Kitchin does creep into the conversation, particularly when Slomo talks about his unique style of skating an how three pieces of cartilage in the middle ear can make the body think that it’s flying.
Reinvent myself…I found out all I really wanted to do was the basic things and skate…It was the only spiritual part of my lifeĪt times Dr. At the beginning it seemed like it was about 90% spiritual and as the years went by it got about 90% financial…and then I had the opportunity to stop…So I was thinking if I’m going blind, losing my vision and it’s affecting my work, and my work is very unsatisfactory to start with…why don’t I just cash it in and start a whole new life. I remember I would leave the office and I would think to myself how much of today promoted me spiritually and how much did it promote me financially. I was lost in a rational world…I was hardworking, thinking only about material things, a 12-cylinder BMW, a Ferrari, an exotic animal farm. The words of a chance encounter with an older man many years before and his failing vision, spurned the doctor into reinventing himself to be who he really wanted to be. John Kitchin, who renamed himself “ Slomo“, who decided to quit a successful career as a neurologist in order to do the one thing that made him happy – inline skating along the Pacific Beach boardwalk in San Diego, California. This wonderful film by Josh Izenberg via The New York Times, tells the story of Dr.
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