Do They Miss San Diego?

Bill Walton, Boston Celtics center:

“Sure, we’re homesick. We love San Diego--we still have our home there. We plan on spending the summer there. But we’ve got a job to do in Boston.

“We really enjoy Boston. We’ve had a great time here. Basketball is the main reason why. What a great team to play for. (The Celtics, who have the best record in the National Basketball Assn., will soon enter the championship series.)

“But San Diego--hey, that’s us. (Walton is married, with four children.) Balboa Park, Mission Beach, North County, the ocean, the desert, the people--what can I say? We love it all. Of course, we miss the family too. My mom and dad came up to Milwaukee for the playoff series. It was great just seeing them.

“There isn’t so much any one thing I miss in San Diego. It’s mainly a compilation of a life style. It’s an area I grew up in and can’t wait to get back to. (A native of La Mesa, he graduated from Helix High School in 1970.) Now I’m away working, and I do have a great, great job. This may sound funny, but getting up in the morning, I can hardly wait for practice to start.

“We Celtics have some very important work to do in the next two, three weeks. Nothing will keep me from losing focus on that. We’ll just have to put coming home on hold until the championship is over--and we can wear that championship ring home to San Diego.”

Sen. Pete Wilson:

“I will always consider San Diego my home, so technically, I can’t be homesick. But I do spend most of my time now in Washington, D.C. And there are a number of things I miss about ‘America’s Finest City.’

“Mexican food, the climate and the Pacific Ocean are certainly at the top of my list. I also wish I could be there to enjoy the fruits of my labors at City Hall--like Horton Plaza and the Gaslamp Quarter.

“I hope to return to play host to the Republican National Convention when the convention center is completed. But I’m trying to discourage the notion that it should be named after me. I am aware of the City Council policy that restricts naming buildings--for individuals--to those who are dead.”