3 Miles in Stockton

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I think the first time I heard of Stockton, California was in 1989 when a lone gunman open fired on an elementary school.  Much later, it was featured on “60 Minutes” at the start of the housing crisis, when people talked of walking away from their homes.  For five years, it was just another city we passed through on that dreaded drive up the I-5 to UC Davis. Then, earlier this year the city filed for bankruptcy.
So maybe my mental picture of Stockton was tainted, but after spending a couple of days there last weekend, I now think I misjudged the place.

I flew up for my daughter’s white coat ceremony at University of the Pacific.  Our other daughter drove down from Sonoma County to join us.  It’s a pretty campus, though we spent little time there.

Instead, we hit a lot of strip malls and department stores, de rigueur for my visits. The students like to talk of how ghetto Stockton is, and how limited its retail, restaurant and recreation options are, but I think Stockton is just like every other mid-sized city. It has its nice parts and its seedy side. It has its townies and its transients. Truthfully, its main drag reminded me of Rosecrans or Midway streets in Point Loma, which look pretty tacky to tourists too.
Fortunately, my daughter moved to one of the nicer parts so Saturday morning I went exploring for three miles on a short run.  Every neighborhood was gated, save one. So I headed in to admire the three-car garaged homes with impeccably groomed yards. This is a community that cares. It was the kind of subdivision our family might have ended up if we weren’t always moving out instead of moving up.

I lasted only 30 minutes. My daughter commented when I called to be let back into her gated complex that she was used to me being gone longer. I still live in fear of falling when my bad leg gives out on me like it did last month, so I played it safe.  
There was a community park nearby that I hit towards the end of the run, after I’d followed a river and turned around at the country club. The park had open bathrooms, functional water fountains and a continuation of wide sidewalks that I later realized were to accommodate both pedestrians and cyclists. I passed several of both during those three miles, and every single person called out “Good morning.”

I responded in kind, because truthfully, it was.

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