Billy Culver Keeps His Promise, Returns for La Mesa Centennial After 55 Years

William Culver lives half the year in Mooers Forks, NY, only miles from the Canadian border. The other time he spends wintering in San Jose de Cabo, near the southern tip of Baja California.

But Culver—a 66-year-old retired professor at State University of New York in Plattsburgh—was back in his childhood home of La Mesa on Tuesday to complete a mission given him at age 11.

In 1957, when his father, Watson Culver, was president of the local Chamber of Commerce, he took part in the inauguration of La Mesa’s civic center on Allison Avenue.

Watson Culver showed off young Billy and said he would return to open a time capsule buried with the new City Hall.  Billy was given a key to open it.

When? At La Mesa’s centennial in 2012.

Flash forward 55 years.

City officials had a news clipping, which told the story of Billy and the centennial promise. But where was Billy? 

La Mesa city officials couldn’t find him. At the same time, Culver remembered that long-ago vow and contacted the city.

So Billy was back Tuesday, regaling 130 centennial celebrants at the fountain near the Spring Street trolley station, where minutes they cheered the arrival of a specially designed trolley hailing the city’s 100th birthday.

Culver, who met his Chilean future wife Carmen in La Mesa and became a Latin American politics expert, told of riding bikes with his friends around the Jewel of the Hills.

He spoke of his natural appreciation for the town and being aware of the tensions of the time—with polio felling a friend and Sputnik’s launch bringing new worries about the Soviet Union and the nuclear bomb he thought was targeting La Mesa.

But mostly, he told civic leaders and celebrities including Helix basketball legend Bill Walton how much he enjoyed La Mesa as a safe place to grow up.

Culver was sandwiched by music led by Don Dodson of Mount Helix, whose 10-man band combined two groups (East Winds and Streamlined Saxes).

A brief ceremony in chilly but sunny weather was led by former radio newsman Wade Douglas and Assistant City Manager Yvonne Garrett, who noted Feb. 14  was the 100th anniversary of the first board of trustees meeting in the new city of La Mesa.

After a half-hour, many in the crowd walked a couple blocks to the City Council chambers, where Culver spoke again and some brief business was done.  But mostly it was a series of congratulatory speeches, a poem about La Mesa read by Councilman Mark Arapostathis and proclamations presented by state and federal lawmakers.

Adjourning at 4:45 p.m., the council chambers emptied and flowed to the community room of the new police station, where a 100th birthday cake was ogled, photographed and then served in small slices.

But what of Billy Culver and the key to the time capsule?

He lost the key, he said.

And city officials lost track of the time capsule—apparently discarding it with the dirt moved while preparing land for the police station, according to La Mesa historian James Newland.

But Culver might make up for it.  He says his son Wallace, 46—a longtime La Mesan—lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with his own two sons—3 and 5 years old.

In 2112, they could return to the place of their father’s origin and grandfather’s fond memories—to celebrate the bicentennial of La Mesa cityhood.