I wrote a blog post about "My Last Ride" some time ago in "Randy-write" - it is not great writing. I wondered how my AI assistant Claude Sonnet 4.5 would improve it. Here is the result:
(AI NotebookLM Infographic of Randy's Last Ride)
The Geography of a Life: Randy's Last Ride
The van idles in the driveway on Via Trieste, its engine humming
softly in the California morning. Randy settles into his seat,
surrounded by the voices and warmth of his children and
grandchildren. This won't be just any drive through San Diego
County—this will be a pilgrimage through eighty-some years of
living, loving, and belonging.
Chapter One: The Places That Shaped Him
They head east first, then west on East Naples Street, hands
waving at homes where neighbors became family. Randy points to houses
one by one, telling stories his family has heard before but never
tire of hearing—the Valadez’s who always greeted him when he
walked by, the George family whose kids grew up alongside his
daughters, the elderly couple Kurt and Ruth Sax who were Holocaust survivors who loved his daughters. Each wave is a goodbye, each house a
repository of borrowed sugar and block parties and the quiet kindness
of people who choose to care about each other.
Past Kellogg School, where little girls' feet ran to kindergarten
classes, where lunch boxes swung and friendships formed. Randy
remembers dropping Lori off on her first day, watching her walk
through those doors, brave
and terrified all at once. Then Tami, two years later, equally
determined to prove she was a big girl now. The playground equipment
has changed, but the squeals of children at recess sound the same as
they did decades ago.
The van turns north on Hilltop Drive, and there it stands: Chula
Vista Presbyterian Church, its façade holding within it a thousand
Sundays, a wedding day in 1970, baptisms, service as an elder, hands
joined in building campaigns, pastors who became confidants. Randy
can see himself at twenty-six, standing at that altar in a rented
tuxedo, watching Linda walk down the aisle in white lace on her
father’s arm. He remembers the weight of his infant daughters in
his arms during their baptisms, the splash of holy water, the
promises made before God and congregation. He remembers committee
meetings and potlucks, mission trips and Christmas pageants, Forest
Home camp weeks, the architecture of faith built one Sunday at a
time.
"We were married there," Randy says softly, and everyone
in the van already knows, but they need to hear him say it again. His
daughter reaches forward from the back seat to squeeze his shoulder.
Down L Street they roll past Chula Vista High School -- Lori's high school -- its sturdy buildings and green lawns holding four years of
her adolescence. Randy remembers dropping her off for dances, picking
her up from softball and cheerleading practice, attending
parent-teacher conferences where he learned she was doing just fine,
better than fine. He remembers graduation day, watching her walk
across the stage to grab her diploma, thinking how impossibly fast
time moves.
Then to Bay Boulevard, where the Rohr/Goodrich building stands as
a monument to 37 years of engineering work, of colleagues and
projects, of providing for a family. Thirty-seven years of driving
this same route, of meetings and deadline pressures, of designs
created, refined and problems solved. He thinks of Dennis from Stress
Analysis, of George from Thermodyamics, of Stuart from Product Design,
of Christine and other young engineers he hired and mentored who went on to
successful careers. The building looks smaller now somehow, or maybe
he's just seeing it with different eyes.
The Bayfront Marina appears next, and Randy can almost see himself
and George, two friends walking decade after decade, solving the
world's problems one stride at a time. How many miles did they log on
that path? How many conversations about children and careers, about
politics and baseball, about aging parents and aching knees? Randy
swears he can still hear George's laugh echoing off the water.
The route winds through more memories: Hilltop Junior High, where
both daughters navigated those treacherous middle school years.
Hilltop High, where Tami found her happiness and confidence in the
Russian language program. Halecrest School, grades three through six,
where parent-teacher conferences revealed that his daughters were
kind, helpful, good students --everything a father could hope for.
Each building is a chapter in his daughters' growing up, a chapter he
got to witness and guide and occasionally worry through.
Through Home Depot and Costco parking lots they go, these modern
temples of suburban life where Randy spent countless Saturday
mornings. Tools, a lawn mower and weed-whacker, paint for the house
and fence, flowers for the garden. Bulk paper towels, popcorn,
chicken dinners, industrial-sized ketchup bottles, and the $1.50 hot
dog and drink. The ordinary errands that fill a life, that make a
home, that somehow become precious in retrospect.
Then down to 577 Twin Oaks, the house where infant Randy first
came home from the hospital, where his own childhood began. The house
looks the same but different -- new paint, new owners, new stories
unfolding inside walls that once held his first steps, his first
words, his first memories. His parents brought him here as a baby in
October 1943, full of hope and plans for their son's future. He
stands at that threshold now, the future nearly complete, the plans
mostly fulfilled.
The Chula Vista Library passes by -- 38 years of genealogy classes,
research, presentations, roots dug deep into history's soil. Randy
taught countless students how to trace their family trees, how to
read census records and death certificates, how to breathe life into
names and dates. He helped people find their great-grandparents,
solve family mysteries, discover they were related to each other. The
library gave him purpose and community and the deep satisfaction of
connecting people to their past.
Marie Callender's is gone now, like so many things, replaced by
another restaurant. He remembers birthday dinners there, pies taller
than they were wide, the comfortable booth where they celebrated
small victories. But Black Angus still stands on E Street, ready to
serve one more meal. Maybe they'll stop on the way back, order his
favorite steak (filet mignon), let life feel normal for just a little
while longer.
Chapter Two: The Boy He Was
North on I-5, then off at Pershing Drive, climbing up 26th Street
through winding canyons. The van navigates the curves slowly,
carefully, these roads narrower and steeper than Randy remembers. Or
maybe everything shrinks when you return to the geography of
childhood. Golden Hill Recreation Center sits solid and unchanged,
witness to decades of youth sports leagues and summer programs. The
golf course spreads green and manicured, and Randy recalls sneaking
onto it as a boy with his friends, pretending they belonged there,
scattering like startled birds whenever a groundskeeper or angry golfer appeared.
Date Street lies before them, and Randy falls quiet. This was his
paper route, his first real job. He was twelve, maybe thirteen,
waking before dawn to fold papers, to load his canvas bag, to thrust
his Flexible Flyer through the dark streets learning the
responsibility of showing up, of doing what you promised, of earning
money through honest work. Mrs. Johnson always gave him cookies at
Christmas. When he went to collect for the paper, Mr. Stotler would
invite him in, always willing to talk to his young friend and
challenge him to learn something new. The route taught him about
consistency, about all the different ways people live, about the
dignity of work well done.
Down Fern Street to Brooklyn School, its architecture much
different now than the 1950s, its playground cracked asphalt now but
still echoing with the ghosts of kickball games, jungle gyms, and jump rope chants.
Peanut butter sandwiches, an apple and cookies for lunch. Three years
on the school Safety Patrol.
Then up to Christ United Presbyterian Church where Sunday school
lessons planted seeds of faith. He learned the stories of David and
Goliath, of Moses and the burning bush, of Jesus feeding the
multitudes. Mrs. Shaw taught his class, a gentle woman who made Bible
stories come alive, who answered his questions with patience, who
showed him that faith could be both deep and joyful. The youth group
headed by young men who shepherded kids through the basketball court and lake
fishing.
And then: 2119 30th Street – on the block that was home for his
first 24 years.
The van slows. Randy's childhood home stands before them, and the
floodgates open—skinned knees and birthday parties, his parents
young and strong, his brothers and the chaos of growing up. The
jacaranda tree in the back yard is enormous now, probably forty feet
tall. The brick patio with the ping-pong table, basketball stand, and whiffle ball court seems impossibly small now. He remembers his mother calling him in for
dinner, her voice carrying across the neighborhood. He remembers his
siblings fighting over the bathroom, over nothing at all and
everything that mattered.
They walk around the block together, three generations circling a
single point in time, their footsteps tracing paths Randy walked ten
thousand times as a boy. This sidewalk crack—he remembers when the
tree root lifted it. The house across the street is gone now -- the
Cravers lived there, and their son Butch was his best friend until
they moved to Mission Hills – they even took him on the airplane to
Vancouver. Everything is familiar and foreign at once, like a song
you once knew by heart but can only half-remember now.
Randy wishes he could go inside his former home – the one built
by his great-grandparents, added onto and moved in 1927 to its
present site -- to climb the stairs to his haven, see his Lionel
trains run again, read the World Book encyclopedia in the dining
room, listen to music on the radio -- KDEO and KCBQ, stand at the sunroom window where he
watched the world and dreamed about who he might become. But the
house belongs to strangers now, holds their furniture and their
arguments and their love. His memories will have to be enough.
Grape Street Park sprawls green and timeless, echoing with phantom
home runs and flag football games, and canyon adventures that seemed
to last forever. Randy played here nearly every day -- pickup
baseball games in the summer where they chose teams and played three
flies up, where hitting one over the fence meant you lost your
baseball to the driving range. Flag football in the fall, the canyons
beyond offering endless territory for exploration and mild rebellion.
He learned about friendship and competition and the pure animal joy
of being young and tireless.
Morley Field pool appears, and Randy can smell the chlorine, feel
the shock of cold water on summer-hot skin. He remembers swimming
lessons, the terror and thrill of jumping off the high dive, Marco
Polo, races to the other end, and the way the sun sparkled on the
water's surface like diamonds scattered by a careless god. Theodore Roosevelt
Junior High rises next, its halls once walked by a younger Randy
navigating the treacherous waters of adolescence -- algebra and acne,
first crushes and social hierarchies, the painful process of becoming
someone.
They drive south past the San Diego Zoo, where school field trips
and weekend excursions on his bike meant exotic animals and freedom
from desks, where the world revealed itself to be larger and stranger
than he'd imagined. The Natural History Museum, the Science
Center -- each one a door opening onto wonder, onto the universe's
complexity, onto his eventual path toward aerospace engineering. The
Spanish buildings from the 1915 and 1935 expositions line El Prado
like a daydream, their ornate facades and red-tile roofs a romantic
vision of California's past, of a city that always knew how to
celebrate itself.
The Aerospace Museum stands as a harbinger of Randy's eventual
career path. He remembers standing in its exhibits as a young
engineer, looking at planes and rockets, at the engineering that made
flight possible, and feeling something click into place inside him --
the recognition that this, this is his life's work.
San Diego High School appears, his alma mater, where he became
whoever he was going to be. These halls held his transformation from
boy to young man, held his struggles with Latin, calculus and
chemistry, held the first stirrings of adult ambitions. He graduated
from here in 1961, full of certainty that the future would be
everything he hoped.
The new San Diego library at K Street makes him remember the old
one on E Street, where teenage Randy spent daily hours among the
stacks, hungry for knowledge. He'd go there after school, lose
himself in books about space exploration and engineering principles,
about history and philosophy, teaching himself that learning was a
hunger that could never quite be satisfied. The librarians knew him
by name, saved new books they thought he'd like, treated him like the
scholar he was trying to become.
Chapter Three: Our Team, Our Town
Imperial Avenue leads to Petco Park -- season tickets from 2004 to 2021,
hope renewed every spring, heartbreak weathered every fall. The Tin
Fish restaurant, Harbor Drive, Seaport Village, the Midway Museum, the Star of India -- the
city's waterfront unwinding like a ribbon. Harbor Island offers one
last panorama: city buildings gleaming, Navy ships at anchor in
Coronado, the whole beautiful maritime sprawl.
Scott Street to Shelter Island, around the island past the fishing
pier where Randy's grandfather taught him patience and the feel of a
rod bending. Up Talbot to Armada Terrace, to 825 Harbor View
Place—his grandparents' home built in 1951 where Christmases and holidays were
spent, and where his parents lived the rest of their lives. The view from Lucinda Street, the steep descent, Westminster
Presbyterian where the church couples group went to plays and they held
his mother's memorial service in 2002 to celebrate a life well-lived.
South on Catalina Boulevard to the Cabrillo Monument to view the
city to the north and east, to see the Palomar, Laguna and Cuyamaca
mountains on the horizon, then to Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery. The van stops.
Randy walks to his parents' graves, his family giving him space and
time. "Thank you," he whispers, "for everything."
For loving him, for life itself, for lessons learned, for making him
who he is.
Chapter Four: Young and Endless
West down Hill Street to Ocean Beach, where waves crash eternal
and surfers carve their temporary lines. Through Ocean Beach to
Mission Bay, a loop around SeaWorld's parking lot, then Mission Beach
and Belmont Park – remembering the rides, the boardwalk,
bodysurfing and teenage summers that felt like they'd never end,
watching girls and pretending not to.
North through La Jolla, winding to the Cove where seals bask and
waves perform their ancient theater. La Jolla Shores, then UCSD where
graduate work expanded his mind and credentials. The university
buildings look both familiar and foreign, the way the past always
does.
Chapter Five: The Work and the Passion
East to I-805, south to I-8, then to what used to be Qualcomm,
then SDCCU, now Snapdragon Stadium—Padres games from 1969 to 2004
and Chargers games from 1968 to 2016, the roar of crowds, victories
and defeats, the communal religion of sports. Across the freeway sits
the Family History Center, 25 years of Saturday mornings reviewing
microfilms, tracing bloodlines back through time, connecting the
present to the distant past.
Up Montezuma Road to San Diego State University, where in 1966 an
aerospace engineering degree opened doors to a career. Dr. Shutts, the wind tunnel, the challenging classes. The campus has
transformed, barely recognizable, but the feeling of accomplishment
remains.
South on I-15 to Highway 94, onto I-5 south, and across the San
Diego-Coronado Bay Bridge one final time, the bay spreading blue and
endless below.
Chapter Six: Family Joy
Down Orange Avenue past Lamb's Players Theatre -- 20 years of
season tickets, of stories told on stage, of culture and community.
Randy and Linda had date nights here, usually with church friends,
leaving the girls with babysitters to watch musicals and dramas and
Christmas productions. They'd hold hands in the dark theater,
transported by storytelling, reminded that life could be art and art
could illuminate life. Twenty years of shows, of intermission
conversations, of driving home dissecting plots and performances,
culture enriching their marriage.
Past Miguel's restaurant, where the margaritas were always perfect
and the carne asada was the best in San Diego, where they celebrated
anniversaries and promotions and the ordinary miracle of another Saturday night together. Then to the Hotel del Coronado, that grand
Victorian lady by the sea, its red turrets and white walls an icon of
California elegance. They walk through the inside rooms together --
Randy moving slowly now, but determined -- marveling at the polished
wood and crystal chandeliers, at the history contained in these
walls. Outside, the ocean breeze carries salt and the cry of gulls,
and Randy breathes it in deeply, committing the sensation to
permanent memory.
Five miles down the Silver Strand to the State Beach, where
decades of family memories accumulated like seashells: sand castles
rising and falling with the tides, bodysurfing, picnics, sunburns and
laughter. This narrow strip of sand connecting Coronado to Imperial
Beach became their summer sanctuary. Randy remembers teaching his
daughters to bodysurf, to read the waves, to time their entry just
right. He remembers Linda in her beach chair with a novel and a sun
hat, looking up periodically to count heads and make sure everyone
was safe. He remembers sandwiches that somehow tasted better at the
beach even though they were just ham and cheese, the crunch of sand
in every bite a small price for paradise.
The coolers packed with drinks and fruit. The umbrellas that
wouldn't stay anchored in the wind. The time Lori got stung by a
jellyfish and Linda made a baking soda paste while Randy comforted
his crying daughter. The hermit crabs collected in buckets and
released at day's end. The sunsets painting the sky orange and pink
while they shook sand from towels and gathered their things,
exhausted and content, skin tight from salt and sun.
Several miles more to Imperial Beach, where grandchildren now make
their own beach memories. Randy watches them run toward the water
with the same fearless joy his daughters once had, the same abandon
he remembers from his own childhood. The cycle continues, generation
after generation finding happiness in the same simple pleasures—water
and sand, sun and family, the timeless call of the ocean.
East on Palm Avenue all the way to Otay Mesa, to 755 Coleman
Court—their first home, where the adventure began. The house looks
smaller than Randy remembers, the way first homes always do when you
return to them years later. But this was where they started their
married life, where they learned to be husband and wife, where they
furnished rooms with dark wood furniture and big dreams. Where Linda
told him she was pregnant with Lori, both of them terrified and
thrilled. Where they brought their firstborn home from the hospital,
two young people suddenly responsible for a tiny human life.
The neighborhood was young families just like them. They grilled
hamburgers in the postage-stamp backyard. They painted walls
together, argued about color choices, laughed at their own
incompetence with home repairs. This house was where they became
parents, where they grew from kids playing house into actual adults
building a life.
North on I-805 back toward Chula Vista, the circle beginning to
close. The freeway passes familiar exits, each one a thread in the
tapestry of their San Diego life. The van grows quieter now, everyone
lost in their own thoughts, feeling the weight of this journey
settling into their bones.
Chapter Seven: The Hardest Stop
Off the freeway at H Street, past the YMCA where
Linda swam every day, through College Grove and Eastlake to Salt
Creek and Duncan Ranch Road. The van slows at the memory care
facility. Randy goes in, and his family follows.
Linda sits in her wheelchair, beautiful despite everything,
despite memory's cruel theft. He takes her hands, tells her he loves
her, that he has always loved her, that she made his life complete.
They play three games of Uno (he lets her joyfully win), cards
shuffled slowly, laughter coming easier than it should. He kisses her
goodbye, lingers in the doorway, commits her face to memory one final
time.
Epilogue: Home
West on Telegraph Canyon Road, to the shopping center on Palomar
where they ran a thousand errands, bought a thousand necessities, ate
lunches and dinners at Lolita’s, lived the ordinary life that
somehow becomes extraordinary when you realize it's ending. Past the
softball field on East Naples where Randy coached his daughters'
teams for ten years, where fundamentals and sportsmanship mattered
more than winning, where he taught young girls not just how to throw
and catch but how to support each other, how to handle victory
graciously and defeat with dignity.
He remembers practices on spring evenings, the smell of cut grass
and the sound of aluminum bats. He remembers Lori pitching, the whip
of her arm, her face serious with concentration. He remembers Tami
being a catcher with fearless determination. He remembers team
parties at McDonalds and the pizza parlor after games, win or lose,
teaching them that the joy was in playing together, in being part of
something larger than themselves.
And suddenly, miraculously, they're home again on Via Trieste. The
van pulls into the driveway, and for a moment no one moves. They've
traveled through eighty-some years in a single afternoon, visited a
hundred places that held pieces of Randy's heart, traced the
geography of an entire life. The journey feels both endless and
impossibly brief.
Inside, surrounded by familiar furniture and accumulated stuff, by
his genealogy work and family tree charts, Randy settles into his
favorite chair—the one worn in exactly the right places, that holds
his shape like an old friend. The Padres game plays on TV—they're
losing, but that's okay, there's always next season. Except for
Randy, there might not be. He watches anyway, refusing to surrender
hope, the fan's eternal curse and blessing.
He opens his family tree one last time on his laptop computer, the
branches spreading across the screen like an intricate map of blood
and DNA. There's his great-great-grandfather James Richman who came
from England in 1855. There's Isaac Seaver, the only ancestor who
fought in the Civil War. There's Devier Lamphier Smith, adopted and a
wanderer, the children who died young, the uncle who disappeared
west, the cousin who became a doctor. Years of research condensed
into this digital tree, connecting him backward through time to
people he never met but who made him possible.
His daughters sit beside him, his grandchildren close by, some on
the floor, some draped over furniture with the casual sprawl of
youth. They're all here, all present, bearing witness to this moment.
Randy feels the profound satisfaction of a life well-lived, of work
completed, of love given and received in abundance. Not a perfect
life -- whose life is? --but a good life, an honest life, a life that
mattered to the people who mattered most.
The Padres rally in the eighth inning, and Randy allows himself to
hope they might pull it off. Outside, the San Diego sun begins its
descent, painting the western sky in shades of gold and rose. The
same sun that rose on him as an infant at 577 Twin Oaks, that shone
on him delivering papers as a boy, that watched him graduate high
school and college, that witnessed his wedding, his daughters'
births, every triumph and heartbreak.
The geography of his life -- every street and building and beach
and field -- has led him here, to this moment, to this peace. He
thinks about the map lying on the table, the one he prepared for his
descendants -- the Randy Seaver San Diego Memory Tour. Maybe they'll
follow it someday. Maybe they'll stand outside 2119 30th Street and
try to imagine him as a boy. Maybe they'll walk the Bayfront Marina
path and understand something about persistence and friendship. Maybe
they'll take their own children to the State Beach and build sand
castles that the tide will claim, and think of Great-Grandpa Randy
who once did the same.
"Give me a minute," he says, opening Facebook on his
tablet to post his goodbyes. His fingers hover over the keyboard,
uncertain. What can you say to sum up a life? What words encompass
eighty-some years of love and happiness and learning and friends and
travel and memories? How do you distill it all down to a status
update?
He types simply: "It's been a great life. Thank you all for
being part of it. Remember to tell the people you love that you love
them. Time moves faster than you think."
He hesitates before hitting post, wondering if there's more to
say, but decides that's enough. Sometimes the simplest truths are the
deepest ones.
Randy looks around the room at his family -- these faces that hold
pieces of his own face, these people who carry his DNA and his
stories forward into whatever future awaits them. He's so proud of
his daughters, of the women they became, of the parents they are.
He's proud of his grandchildren, of their potential unlimited and
glorious before them. They share his blood, his persistence, his
sense of humor, his love of learning. They'll be wonderful workers
and spouses and parents and grandparents, he's certain of it. The
tree he's mapped on his computer will continue growing, branching
upward through time, long after he's gone.
His only wishes? That the Chargers were still here -- he misses
them fiercely, feels the betrayal of their leaving like a wound that
never quite healed. That the Padres had won a World Series -- he's
waited his whole life, and while hope springs eternal, his time for
waiting is running out. That one of his descendants would catch the
genealogy bug, would understand the profound importance of knowing
where you come from, would take up the research and carry it forward.
But you can't control what captures someone's heart, what ignites
their passion. He's given them the tools. Maybe someday one of them
will use them.
The Padres get the tying run on base, and Randy leans forward
slightly, invested despite everything. His daughter squeezes his
hand. His grandson brings him a glass of water. His granddaughter
asks if he needs anything, and he shakes his head, smiles, says "I
have everything I need right here."
And it's true. This room contains his riches -- not material
wealth, but the wealth that actually matters. Love and family and
memory and home. The Padres strike out to end the inning, and Randy
settles back in his chair, content. There will be other games, or
there won't. Either way, he's been a fan, loyal to the end, which is
all anyone can ask.
Glen Abbey Memorial Park in Bonita will be his final address,
close to his roots, near his memorable places, within the geography
he's loved. His body will rest there, close to the soil that shaped
him, but his real monument is this: the lives he touched, the family
he built, the love he gave freely, the memories he leaves behind like
treasures scattered through San Diego's streets and beaches and
buildings.
The geography of a life, mapped in miles and moments, in places
and people, in ordinary days that somehow become sacred when you
string them all together. From Via Trieste through all of San Diego
and back to Via Trieste, the polygonal circle complete, the journey
done.
Outside, the sun slips below the horizon, and the first stars
begin to appear. Inside, Randy closes his eyes, the voices of his
loved ones washing over him like waves at Mission Beach -- eternal,
comforting, home. The map lies on the table, ready for those who come
after, an invitation to understand, to remember, to trace the
footsteps of a man who loved well and lived fully in this sun-soaked
corner of California.
All leading home. Is the journey over?
======================================
This seems pretty maudlin to me. Perhaps it would be better written as a dream? This is really my memories of my life in San Diego to date. I'm still here, but now this story is written in case something happens to me. I hope my descendants take me for this last ride.
Here is the Google NotebookLM Video Overview about my life memories about San Diego:
==============================================
Links to my blog posts about using Artificial Intelligence are on my Randy's AI and Genealogy page. Links to AI information and articles about Artificial Intelligence in Genealogy by other genealogists are on my AI and Genealogy Compendium page.
Copyright (c) 2025, Randall J. Seaver
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