Interesting Stuff

In case you were wondering. Here is the place Lillian and I now call home.

Camarillo is a city in Ventura County, just north of Los Angeles County, along the California Coast. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 70,741. Camarillo is named for brothers Juan and Adolfo Camarillo, prominent Californios who owned Rancho Calleguas and founded the city in the early twentieth century. Note: Californios (singular Californio) are Hispanic Californians, especially those descended from Spanish and Mexican settlers of the 17th through 19th centuries. California State University, Channel Islands, is housed on the former grounds of the Camarillo State Hospital.

The climate in Camarillo is next to perfect. The mean temperature is 63, with it rarely getting over 100 in the summer and never getting lower than freezing in the winter. We get thirty-six days of rain per year, totaling twelve inches.

A few of Camarillo’s notables were:

• Duncan Renaldo was the Western actor best remembered for playing The Cisco Kid.
• Mike Parrott was an MLB pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles (1977) and Seattle Mariners from 1977-81.
• Mad Mike, musician.
• Marla Runyan is a Paralympic gold medalist and one of only five athletes to participate in both the Paralympics and the Olympics.

The Pleasant Valley School District is the largest employer, with 729 employees. The next largest employer is St. John’s Hospital, which has 611 employees. Mike’s Farm Labor Contractor LLC employs 200 people.

Now, the numbers:

Number of books in the public library – over 200,000

Number of parks – 26

Number of bars – 24

Number of churches – 57

Number of gas stations – 24

Number of donut shops – 10

Number of nail salons – 51

Number of beauty parlors – 139

Number of barbershops – 54

Number of restaurants – 181

Number of real estate offices – 185

Number of dog groomers – 31

Contrast these numbers to the small town where Lillian and I lived for several years. Rock Hall is on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. It sits on the Chesapeake Bay, looking back towards Baltimore. In the summertime, the town has more sailboats than people. Rock Hall is the home for 1,357 residents. The town had three police officers when we lived there, but they probably have less today. The best part of Rock Hall is that it is only three feet above sea level, which makes everyone who lives there high!

Now you know.