1987: Theba pisana and Rites of Passage

News from the June, 1987 editions of the Lemon Grove Review.

To the Ramparts:  Crawling in our midst of an early summer's eve, silent, ravenous and utterly without redeeming social value was Theba pisana.

Not an Italian B movie, not a cheese soufflé, not, mark you, another brand of fajita.  Theba pisana was that most serious of pests, the white garden snail.

Juan Cortez, the orchard oracle to whom 'Grovians fled for counsel, advised that the white snail forsook the Mediterranean for its New World counterpart, La Jolla, about 1914, where it fed on old stock certificates and cast-off securities until it was finally eradicated by a steady diet of low interest rates.  Only then did it keel over.

Lo, in the summer of 1985, Theba pisana emerged anew in divers locations of San Diego County.  Whence came this scourge of milady's begonias?  Did it arrive thinly disguised as escargots in a bath of garlic butter?  Or did it simply bum a ride on a passing freight and leap off when it spied a convenient citrus orchard?

Aye, there's the rub.  Theba pisana adores citrus and will chomp down foliage, bark, twigs, blossoms and fruit until nothing is left but a haggard stump.

Picture the carnage.  Our fair city, devoid of both Lemon and Grove, reduced to a wasteland, its residents stalking haunted through the vacant streets, searching in vain for that lost symbol of civic pride, the 3,000-pound plaster lemon now replaced with -- horrors -- a gargantuan white snail!

But, courage, oh, ye of little faith.  Help was on the way!  The County Agriculture Department, the State Department of Food & Agriculture, ditto, the Federal Agricultural Department, urged all good 'Grovians to call 463-1591 for the lowdown on the White Garden Snail Eradication Project.

Heedless 'Grovians could mope in their jacuzzis if they must, but, they'd be joined therein by slews of snails, who love the damp and, even better, slithering up the stem of a Margarita flagon.

Locals were advised to check their mailboxes for a yellow flyer bearing a cunningly executed portrait of Theba pisana -- a nasty little brute described as "dirty white with a non glossy surface, unequal brown bands and lines appear as dots and dashes."  Is there a more repugnant appearance?  Only Quasimodo, poor lamb, had less appeal.

Chuckles aside, Theba pisana is with us yet.  A serious infestation of this petit monstre, with its prolific reproductive record, is a byproduct of the cool, moist late spring/early summer of a Mediterranean climate like ours.

If you cherish your citrus, prepare to save it now.  If you spot a snail army on your trees, fences or walls, call the county ag folks at 800-300-TRAP and report that grievous fact.

Pucker Up:  On a typical day in 1987, Americans puckered up to 23,500 bushels of lemons, ate 400,000 bushels of bananas and munched 6.5 million gallons of popcorn.  Forty injured themselves in trampoline accidents, but no one had yet died of this.

Rites of Passage:  In June, 1987 a significant academic change came to Lemon Grove.  Those venerable alma maters, Lemon Grove and Palm Junior High Schools, lost their monikers and became known as Middle Schools--new homes for grades six to eight.

This prompted a spate of changes in year-end ceremonies at the city's elementary schools:  All featured fifth, as well as sixth grade promotions, as both levels made the quantum leap to middle school status.  

Donn Griffiths, San Altos School principal, scheduled June 11 as Educational Games Field Day and "fly up" promotions for fifth and sixth graders on June 15 and 16.

Frank Patrick, principal at San Miguel, schlepped his fifth and sixth graders to the La Mesa Family Fun Center for a day of merriment prior to the promotion ceremony.

Ronald Clayton, principal at Mt. Vernon arranged a week-long book fair in advance of the promotion ceremonies.

Van Heiserman at Vista La Mesa scheduled an athletic Field Day before sending his fifth and sixth graders on their way.

Gordon Newton at Monterey Heights brought in San Diego Councilman William Jones to speak to sixth graders and Susan Lilley, Mt. Miguel honor student and product of Lemon Grove schools, to address fifth graders.

All five schools sent 19 students to the District Science Olympics coordinated by Zoanne Bisson at Mt. Vernon.

The Big Kids:  And those eighth graders?  They all graduated on June 15 and 16 to strains of "Land of Hope and Glory" played by the Lemon Grove Junior High orchestra.  Then they went to the La Mesa Recreation Center pool and dove in.  Onward to Mt. Miguel and Helix High Schools.

Plus ça change:  Twenty-six years on, our school district experienced another sea change thanks to Proposition W and demographic fluctuations.  Gone are the Middle Schools in favor of Lemon Grove and Vista La Mesa Academies (K-8) and four elementary schools.  A special new resident is Literacy First Charter High School located in the former Palm Junipr/Middle School. 

Do the Math:  The old pro, Max Goodwin, editor of the Lemon Grove Review, occasionally laced his acerbic column, "The Dimmer View," with a chuckle or two, including this little conundrum that'll cause you to pull the ivy from the walls of Yale:

  "A farmer with a wolf, a goat and a basket of cabbages wanted to get across a river.  His boat could carry only two, i.e., the farmer and one of his belongings.  How could he take them safely across (one at a time) without the goat eating the cabbages or the wolf eating the goat?"

Now, don't all speak at once.

And so it went, dear readers, in June 26 years ago when a garden scourge from foreign lands was thwarted and our progeny flew onward and upward. 

About this column:  Compiled by Helen Ofield, president of the Lemon Grove Historical Society, from newspapers archived at the H. Lee House Cultural Center.  Each week, we take a peek at the past with some news and advertising highlights from a randomly chosen edition of the Lemon Grove Review.  In 2012 Ofield was awarded second place in non-daily reporting and writing from the Society of Professional Journalists for the column.