This afternoon, as I walked along Mississippi Street, about a block-and-a-half South of El Cajon Blvd, a gentleman coming towards me wished a hearty “Happy Father’s Day!” He passed, I turned around, and I called, “Are you a dad??” So that I could return the sentiment. He isn’t one yet.
So, I asked how old he is. Thirty-one. He hopes to be a father someday, but he’s still single, and he is but six months into the current relationship; I heard hope in the man’s voice regarding the woman.
We’ll call him JB, for his initials. He is a mechanical engineer living in La Jolla, originally from Washington, D.C.—from where he moved to San Diego County. Hell, those are my old stomping grounds. Employment brought him to Southern California. I joked that mechanical engineering is one of the safer professions from Artificial Intelligence displacement. JB says his dad calls mechanical engineering “AI proof”.
I wondered and asked what brought him down city way. I can see the allure. Adjacent neighborhoods Hillcrest, North Park, South Park and University Heights bear more resemblance to their counterparts around the D.C. metro area. By contrast, North County is full of cookie-cutter neighborhoods that were majorly developed one after another within the last 50 years.
Residences closer to city center were built in several waves before, during, and after both world wars. Architecture is often distinct one property to the next, and many of the older homes look more like something seen anywhere in the Northeastern United States.
That said, JB got out of his neighborhood to get out of himself, so to speak. All his family is back East, and he had to wish his dad a Happy Father’s Day by phone. JB wanted to say the same to someone present, which is how I got so lucky.
We exchanged phone numbers, and I used Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra to make the Featured Image. Vitals: f/1.4, IISO 64, 1/5015 sec, 23mm (film equivalent); 1:49 p.m. PDT.