Mesa Musings:

I love TeWinkle Park.

I never thought I’d hear myself say that; but I have — and, I do.

As a lifelong resident, I’ve watched the park grow from nothing into something lovely and praiseworthy. What it’s become is a far cry from what it once was. A massive turn-of-the-21st century refurbishment project did the trick.

I amble daily through the 49-acre park in northeast Costa Mesa while on my early morning constitutional. I see dozens of people of all ages strolling, walking briskly, jogging, riding bikes and doing Tai Chi throughout its bucolic environs.

What I’ve fallen in love with are the park’s showcase lakes and waterfalls, tennis and volleyball courts, baseball and softball fields, amphitheater, picnic tables and, of course, its well-maintained Angels Playground, constructed last year. And, who can ignore TeWinkle’s impressive “hill?”

My family has enjoyed a decades-long association with the park. My four kids played in the park throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s. One of them, early on, accidentally labeled it “Winkletink.” That’s the name by which our family knows it today.

Though not truly a “natural area,” TeWinkle regularly attracts a wide assortment of water fowl, including such rare species as Hooded Mergansers, Yellow-Throated Warblers and Plumbeous Vireos. A few years back, my little grandson — who’s now not so little — felt it the greatest honor to feed breadcrumbs to the “gucks” in the lake.

My parents walked the park’s expanses before it was a park, in the early 1940s. At that time, it was an unspecified plot near the parade ground of the Santa Ana Army Air Base. My dad was a cadet at the base, and later was permanently assigned there. My mom was a civilian employee. They met at the base and had a whirlwind World War II romance.

The late Fran Albers, who was OCC’s first maintenance and operations chief and served the college for 33 years, once told me shortly after the campus opened in 1948 he routinely went dove hunting on what is today Costa Mesa High School and TeWinkle property.

“Each September and October I’d bring my 12-gauge shotgun to campus,” he told me during a 1998 interview (Bet present Police Chief Christopher Shawkey, would frown on that behavior today).

“At about 4:30 or so each afternoon — during hunting season — I’d cross Fairview and head down Arlington toward the old water tower,” Albers said. “There were doves everywhere. It was wide open territory.”

The water tower — installed during the halcyon Air Base days — was east of where TeWinkle’s skate park is today.

Albers said doves flocked to the area because underground water pipes leading from the tower had sprung leaks all over the place.

“There were pools of water everywhere, and that’s what attracted the doves,” Albers said. “I’d bag my limit every day.”

I remember in the early 1960s, being lured to the rusted orange and white-checked tower.

My buddies and I wanted to climb the relic to steal an amazing view of the surrounding area. Fortunately, I realized that the climb would be perilous — not to mention foolhardy — and I chickened out.

The park’s 2002 master plan lists its most impressive amenity as “central hill.” Many people seeing that hill today probably think it’s a natural landform, not unlike Little Roundtop or Signal Hill. Don’t be fooled. It came about much like Berlin’s Teufelsberg (or Devil’s Mountain). Berlin sits in a naturally flat and swampy basin, and Teufelsberg didn’t exist a century ago.

Twelve million cubic meters of rubble — debris from 400,000 buildings destroyed in World War II — were bulldozed after the war into a heap and covered with dirt. It’s become a popular landmark.

TeWinkle’s hill began to appear in the late 1960s — before the area was a park. Much construction was taking place in Orange County at the time, and dump trucks could be seen daily depositing loads of excess dirt and concrete on what became a rather unsightly elongated pile that attracted kids and dogs. I’m not certain that the city of Costa Mesa even approved of the dumping.

But, the pile is no more. Today it’s a graceful hill, replete with trees, grass and waterfalls.

TeWinkle Park is a jewel, and the residents of Costa Mesa should be justifiably proud.

JIM CARNETT lives in Costa Mesa. His column runs Wednesdays.