ACROSS THE LINES - Archive (2006-2020)

Imagine the First Lady of the United States punching a hole in the fence on the U.S.-Mexico border.   Imagine her publicly lamenting that there was a border fence at all. In fact this scenario doesn’t need to be imagined … because it happened forty years ago right here in San Diego County.   The date was August 18, 1971 and the location was “Friendship Park,” the small cement plaza on the U.S.-Mexico border, at the southwest-most corner of the continental United States. The First Lady was Pat Nixon, who had been a prominent champion of our state’s public parks when her husband Richard Nixon was Governor of California, before being elected President of the United States.    She came to Friendship Park to inaugurate the surrounding area as California’s Border Field State Park.    After planting a tree as part of the inauguration ceremony, Mrs. Nixon approached the large stone monument which sits at the heart of Friendship Park.   The monument commemorates the first meeting of the U.S