I have many memories of the upstairs apartment in the two-story house at 2119 30th Street in San Diego where I grew up (from age 4 to 24).
Did my house "watch" and "hear" and "feel" and "remember" my time living there?
I wrote a description of the layout of the 30th Street house, and the downstairs patio, as I recalled it. I described each inhabitant (my father, my mother, me, my two brothers) and some of the daily events that happened in each room, and the patio and the block, over my 20 years residing there, plus some memories of specific events. I created a PDF of that document and attached it to the AI tool to use.
1) The first AI prompt that I used for the free AI tool Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.5 was for story ideas, along with a short description of each idea. Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.5 provided twenty wonderful story ideas - here is one of them (lightly edited for accuracy, consistency, and detail).
2) My prompt today asked "Please write a story by the house about the South Lot on the block" and added some detail about those events in my life.
(Google NotebookLM Infographic -- The South Lot on the block)
The South Lot
A story from the house at 2119 30th Street, 1949-1953
From my vantage point on 30th Street, I had a clear view of the vacant lot that stretched along the south end of our block—a precious piece of open space bounded by a hedge on the north, Hawthorn Street on the south, 30th Street on the west, and Fern Street on the east. The Carringers owned this lot, but for several magical years in the late 1940s and early 1950s, it belonged in spirit to the children and gardeners of the neighborhood, especially to Randy and Stan and their grandparents.
When Randy was six years old in 1949, the South Lot became his and Stan's kingdom—a place where childhood adventures unfolded under the warm San Diego sun and the watchful eyes of adults who understood that vacant lots were too valuable to waste on merely being vacant. It needed to be useful, productive, and most importantly, a place where boys could be boys while learning the value of work and the satisfaction of harvest.
Randy and Stan's grandparents—Betty's parents who lived in the downstairs apartment and owned the property where my walls stood—approached the South Lot with the practical vision of someone who'd lived through harder times and understood that land should produce. They were garden experts, people whose hands seemed to have natural communion with soil and seeds, and they saw in that vacant lot not just empty space but potential abundance.
I watched the transformation begin. What had been scrubby grass and weeds became organized rows of berry plants on the east side of the lot, south of the downstairs house. Strawberries, boysenberries, and raspberries—crops that thrived in San Diego's climate when tended by someone who knew the secrets of proper watering, careful weeding, and patient cultivation.
Randy and Stan "helped" with the gardening, which meant they participated in ways that six- and three-year-olds could manage while mostly learning by watching their grandparents work. They pulled weeds under supervision, learned to distinguish between plants and pests, discovered that gardens required daily attention and couldn't be created through one burst of enthusiasm followed by neglect.
But the South Lot was more than just a garden—it was the neighborhood's unofficial playground, a rare commodity in an increasingly built-up urban area. Fred, recognizing the recreational value of this open space, created a small ball field where Randy and Stan could play with their friends. The equipment was scaled for young players—a small bat, a rubber ball that wouldn't break windows or cause serious injury, bases that existed more in collective imagination than in physical markers.
I could see and hear the baseball games from my windows—the smack of bat on rubber ball, the shouted calls of fair or foul, the arguments about whether a runner was safe or out, the negotiations about game rules that taught democracy and conflict resolution better than any classroom lesson. Randy and Stan learned the fundamentals of baseball on that makeshift diamond, developing skills that would serve them later in Little League and beyond.
A palm tree stood sentinel in the southwest corner of the lot, marking where my house had stood before being moved in 1927—one of those curious facts of San Diego real estate history where entire buildings could be relocated to accommodate changing neighborhood needs. The palm tree became home base for tag games, a marker for kite-flying competitions, and a landmark that defined the lot's geography.
Kites were a particular passion during those years. The open space of the South Lot provided perfect launching area for kites that would climb into the San Diego sky, pulling string through eager hands as wind caught paper and wood and lifted them toward the clouds. I watched Randy and Stan run across the lot with kites trailing behind them, learning about wind patterns and aerodynamics through direct experience rather than textbook theory.
The lizards and bugs that inhabited the lot provided endless entertainment and education. Boys with nets and jars would stalk their quarry with the focused intensity of hunters, learning about local ecology through capture and observation. The creatures were always released eventually—this was exploration rather than collection, curiosity rather than cruelty.
But it was the berry harvest that created the most lasting memories and taught the most valuable lessons about work, reward, and entrepreneurial spirit.
Randy and Stan's grandparents were religious about garden maintenance. Every day, they would water the berry plants with careful attention to providing enough moisture without drowning roots. Weeds were pulled before they could establish themselves and compete with the productive plants. Pests were managed through vigilance and natural methods. The result was berry production that seemed almost miraculous to young boys who hadn't fully appreciated the connection between daily work and abundant harvest.
The boys were tasked with picking the ripe berries every day—a responsibility that combined pleasure with labor. Strawberries, boysenberries, and raspberries at perfect ripeness, warm from the sun, sweet and bursting with flavor. The temptation to eat as many as you picked was enormous and occasionally irresistible, resulting in stained fingers and satisfied smiles that no amount of washing could completely eliminate.
After picking came washing—a more tedious task but necessary to make the berries presentable and safe for consumption. I watched Randy and Stan at the outdoor faucet, carefully rinsing each berry, learning the patience required to prepare food properly, discovering that harvest was only part of the work.
The berries provided fresh fruit for both families—Randy's upstairs household and the grandparents downstairs. Betty would incorporate them into meals and desserts, celebrating the luxury of fresh, free produce that came from family labor rather than grocery store purchases. The taste of sun-ripened berries picked that morning was incomparable to anything store-bought, and everyone appreciated the abundance.
But some days, the harvest exceeded what two families could reasonably consume. Baskets of berries accumulated faster than they could be eaten or preserved, and Randy and Stan faced a delightful problem: what to do with surplus abundance?
The solution they devised showed entrepreneurial thinking that Fred must have recognized and appreciated from his insurance business perspective. Why not sell the extra berries and earn some spending money in the process?
The Piggly Wiggly grocery store on Juniper Street became their primary market. I can imagine the scene—two small boys with baskets of fresh berries, positioning themselves near the entrance where shoppers would pass, calling out their wares with the enthusiasm that only children can sustain for hours without exhaustion.
"Fresh berries! Picked this morning! Better than the store!"
Some shoppers would stop, charmed by the young entrepreneurs and enticed by berries that were clearly superior to the grocery store offerings just inside. Quarters and dimes would exchange hands, the boys learning about pricing, negotiation, customer service, and the satisfaction of earning money through your own labor.
Sometimes they'd set up across the street from the Piggly Wiggly, catching shoppers before they entered the hardware store—a strategic positioning that grocery store managers probably didn't appreciate but tolerated because the boys were local kids selling home-grown produce rather than commercial competition.
Other times, Randy and Stan would go door-to-door on their own block and neighboring streets, carrying their berry baskets and offering them to neighbors who knew the boys and their grandparents and were happy to support young entrepreneurs while getting genuinely excellent fruit.
The money they earned—probably modest by adult standards but significant to children whose income was otherwise limited to allowance and occasional gifts—went toward the treasures that mattered most to boys in the early 1950s. Baseball cards with their sports heroes and stick of pink bubble gum. Candy from the corner store, selected with the careful deliberation of someone spending their own hard-earned money. Gum that could be chewed until all flavor was exhausted and then chewed some more out of sheer determination to get every penny's worth. Marbles, toy soldiers and small games too.
The berry-selling enterprise taught lessons that would serve Randy and Stan throughout their lives. Supply and demand—when berries were abundant, prices had to be attractive. Customer relations—friendly service meant repeat customers. Quality control—only the best berries should be sold if you wanted people to come back. Marketing—positioning near the Piggly Wiggly was more effective than random door-knocking.
But perhaps most importantly, the South Lot berry business taught them the connection between work and reward. The daily picking and washing wasn't just a chore imposed by adults—it was necessary labor that produced something of value, something people would actually pay money for. This understanding that effort could translate into tangible benefit was a foundation for later success in paper routes, jobs, careers.
The South Lot era lasted until 1953, when Randy was ten years old. That year, the lot was sold and apartments were built where the berry garden and baseball field and kite-flying space had been. Progress came to 30th Street, transforming open space into housing units, trading childhood playground for adult accommodation.
I felt the loss when construction began. The clear view I'd had of the South Lot became a view of new buildings. The sounds of baseball games and kite-flying children were replaced by construction noise and eventually by the more mundane sounds of apartment living—cars parking, doors closing, adult conversations.
Randy and Stan's grandparents sold the lot and moved to the Point Loma house they built in 1951. The boys lost their primary playground but not the memories of strawberry-stained fingers and quarters earned from Piggly Wiggly shoppers. Fred's little baseball field disappeared but the skills learned there continued developing in school, the park, Little League and beyond. Betty and Fred enjoyed the quiet time when the boys were on the South Lot.
The South Lot had served its purpose—providing several years of education disguised as play, entrepreneurship disguised as berry sales, and family connection disguised as gardening assistance. The grandparents had shared their expertise with grandsons who learned that plants grew when you cared for them, that work produced harvest, that abundance could be shared or sold, and that empty lots weren't really empty if you had imagination and initiative.
From my perspective, watching the South Lot's transformation from vacant land to productive garden to apartment complex, I understood something about neighborhoods and time. Nothing stays the same. Open spaces get built upon. Playgrounds become housing. Berry gardens give way to concrete and foundation.
But the lessons learned in those spaces persist. Randy carried forward the understanding that work produces reward, that quality matters in business, that customers appreciate freshness and value. Stan learned the same lessons, though perhaps less consciously, absorbing them through years of berry-picking and door-to-door sales.
And I, having witnessed the entire cycle from my vantage point on 30th Street, held the memories that human participants might forget or distort over time. The exact location of Fred's baseball diamond. The particular palm tree that marked where a house once stood. The rows of berry plants that produced such abundance under expert cultivation. The sight of two small boys with baskets of berries, learning capitalism through strawberry sales at the Piggly Wiggly.
The South Lot era ended, but its influence continued. When Randy later demonstrated business acumen in his professional life, some of that confidence traced back to successfully selling berries to grocery store shoppers. When Stan showed responsibility and follow-through, some of that development came from daily berry-picking regardless of whether he felt like it.
The vacant lot that wasn't really vacant, that was instead a classroom and playground and garden and business location—that was the South Lot of 1949-1953. And though apartments now stand where strawberries once grew, I remember every detail, hold every lesson, preserve every memory of a time when two boys and their grandparents turned empty space into abundant harvest and childhood play into early entrepreneurial education, all on a lot bounded by hedge and streets on the south end of the block on 30th Street in San Diego, California.
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3) The Google NotebookLM Video Overview of this story is below:
4) These events really happened over a period of time and the names and events mentioned are real. After the South Lot was repurposed to apartments, we used the wide 30th Street for our football and basweball games, dodging buses and cars and the occasional fire engine.
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