POMONA COLLEGE MAGAZINE WINTER 2009 3 4 / Pomona Today / P O M O N a C O L L E G E M F a G I a Z D N I N E a N C E S / O P O S M O N T A

Home , Carl Sautter, Frenemies (Glee), Occidental College, University of La Verne

PoINSIDE: THEm LONG HAUL / FUEL FOR oCONTROVERSY /nRULES OF THE BUa S COLLEGE MAGAZINE Winter 2009

THE TAXISTA TANGO Page 18 Special Issue / GETTING THERE Pomona / Home Page / /Getting There/ PULL! At halftime of fall’s football game between 24 Pomona-Pitzer and CMS (Claremont-McKenna, / FEATURES / Harvey Mudd and Scripps colleges) Pomona’s senior and junior classes competed in a tug-of-war, the

Four Tales from the Road 17 finale of a class spirit competition organized by the

1/ The Taxista Tango in Buenos Aires / BY LAYNE MOSLER ’96 18 Associated Students during Homecoming Week. And Who better than a taxista to lead a food writer to good eats? the winners were—the Class of 2009.

—P HOTO BY CARLOS PUMA .

2/ Rules of the Bus / BY ADAM GARDNER ’04 24 Riding the bus in baseball’s minor leagues requires a little ingenuity.

3/ Flash, Click, Hit the Gas / BY MARK KENDALL 26 26 The drive-by photography of Andrew Bush ’79.

4/ The Long Haul / BY WILLIAM LOBDELL 30 How banker Steve Wilkinson ’82 found happiness as a long-haul trucker.

Fuel for Controversy / BY MARK KENDALL Neil Koehler ’81 is a key voice in the biofuels debate.. 34

On a Wing and an Ear / BY SALLY ANN FLECKER Nancy Simmons ’81 and the flying hunters of the night. 38

30 Fleshpile in the Sky / BY STEVE GETTINGER ’70 A sponsor group helped them grow up. Now it’s helping them face death. 42

/ DEPARTMENTS //CLASS NOTES / Stray Thoughts 2 Notes 52

Your Letters 3 Alumni Families 53 Pomona Today 4 Bulletin Board 54

Pomona Tomorrow 15 Travel-Study 55

Coming Attractions 16 On Exhibit 56 34 Bookshelf 45 Expert Advice 57 New Knowledge 47 Scrapbook 58

Alumni Voices 50 Births & Adoptions 60

Mind Games 64 Obituaries 61 Pomona Blue 64

More at PCM / ON THE COVER ONLINE www.pomona.edu/magazine 42 Cover photo by Anibal Greco of World Picture News Pomona College a / Stray Thoughts / Pomona / Letter Box / COLLEGE MAGAZINE maybe he is the one who has been putting on agree with him “in theory” but there is a very Winter 2009 • Volume 45, No. 2 a show, in a quest for public adulation. dramatic difference between “economic theo - Saints, Sinners —Beatriz Martínez Remark ’77 ry” and “real life.” Last Things First Visit PCM Online at www.pomona.edu/magazine. and Cynicism Germany —Robert Valandra ’89 Los Angeles, Calif. EXECUTIVE EDITOR & ART DIRECTOR/DESIGNER It’s an impressive photograph: tousle-haired Mark Wood ([email protected]) Housing Correction t’s a joke around our office that this introductory column is always the last Professor Wolf attired in sweat shirt casual, I MANAGING EDITOR against the backdrop of Francis reputedly of Another Kind Poetry, History and Henry Lee thing written. In other words, I always manage to put it off a bit longer Mark Kendall ([email protected]) was interested to read online the Pomona attired in hair shirt and cassock. Theatre! was amazed to have first read Gary Smith’s I than anything else. My colleague, Mark Kendall, has suggested retitling it I College Magazine story (“Nothing But WEB EDITOR Professor Wolf’s notion of the “Theatre of article regarding real estate in the New York Laura Tiffany ([email protected]) Praise,” Fall 2006), a couple years old now if something like “Last Things First,” or “A Funny Thing Happened on the Sanctity” (Fall 2008) is interesting, but the Times business section (prior to the fall not more, about the poet Henry Lee ’37. I Way to the Press.” ASSISTANT EDITORS “central mission” of Christianity is not “social Pomona College Magazine ). Having taken Sneha Abraham (Scripps ’00) grew up in the same house in South Pasadena It’s not exactly a case of procrastination—more like waiting for inspira - justice.” That is the distorted reading of liber - numerous classes taught by Professor Smith I Mary Marvin on Milan Ave. In fact I had Henry’s old bed - tion. At last, desperation sets in and I sally forth, hoping to find an idea ation theology and that of a few other hold his views in very high regard. However, CLASS NOTES EDITOR room. While I was a teenager the house was along the way. Johnny-come-latelies. I feel he made a valid point in a rather obtuse Perdita Sheirich used to film a TV series called Family . One Certainly I could write about the alma mater—how the whole contro - For 2,000-plus years the “central mission” way at a really poor time. PUZZLE EDITOR day Henry’s sister, very elderly at that time of Christianity is to “preach the Gospel with I agree with every book written stating versy struck me as silly at first, but how, with time and growing empathy, I Lynne Willems Zold ’67 (or so it seemed to me as a girl), rang the its invitation to repentance and conversion in that timing any market is virtually impossible came to see it differently. I could write loads about that wonderful old CONTRIBUTORS front doorbell, having seen the house on tele - Christ.” Francis is reported to have said, and has its pitfalls. However, it is also impor - term—“generation gap”—and how my generation, once so full of irrever - Christine Berardo ’64 (“Back to Malawi”) is a screenwriter based vision and deciding she wanted to see it again in Los Angeles. “Preach the Gospel. If necessary, use words.” tant to recognize that markets often become ence and disdain for tradition, distrustful of anyone over 40, now frequently in person after many years. Sally Ann Flecker (“On a Wing and an Ear”) is a freelance writer For Francis, Elizabeth and the others men - so skewed that the risk vs. reward becomes far finds itself shouting from the opposite shore. It was a very hard time in my family’s life and editor living in Pittsburgh, Penn. tioned, “social justice, sanctity too much to overlook. I would argue that the but my mother invited her in and encouraged I could write about hard times. About my mother, who grew up during Adam Gardner ’04 (“Rules of the Bus”) pitched in the minor swings in real estate through - her to stay. Her name was Frances. She talked the Great Depression, telling me more than a year ago to get my savings in leagues and kept a blog about his experiences. out history have been far about Henry, dead so many years. We went order because another big one was on its way. How I smiled tolerantly at Steve Gettinger ’70 (“Fleshpile in the Sky”) is managing editor of greater than they have been in National Journal. out back to what was once a stable, where my her (an expression I’ve begun to glimpse on my own daughter’s face once in the financial markets. William Lobdell (“The Long Haul”) is a former reporter and edi - father had his pool table. She pointed to a while) and told her not to get herself worked up because such things sim - Much like shorting a high tor for the Los Angeles Times. woodworking projects of his, still standing. ply didn’t happen any more. tech stock with a P/E ratio of Layne Mosler ’96 (“The Taxista Tango in Buenos Aires”) is a She went upstairs and looked at my bedroom. 1,000, selling a home at a I could start with the cryptic theme of this magazine—getting there— freelance writer and blogger based in Buenos Aires Stood there in the doorway. It was carpeted value of 300 percent more than and branch out in any of a dozen directions. Getting there as journey. David Scott (“The Making of a First Novel”), former director of by then and had flowered wallpaper, but she stewardship for Pomona College, now lives and works in it was worth four years ago and Getting there as arrival. Getting there as progress. Getting there as success. had photos of Henry in it, and it had wood- Chicago. renting an exact replica across How America has always been about getting there—the West, the moon, plank floors and bookcases and, if I remember the street for one quarter of the top of the heap. CONTRIBUTING STAFF correctly, a mounted animal head, or at least what the mortgage of the home I could dredge up something out of memory, something with a touch Ben Belleto Janet Ma ’11 decor that suggested such, and she stood Adam Conner-Simons ’08 Pauline Nash you just sold would be, can be there crying. of humor and pathos and symbolic resonance. Like the first time I crossed Cindy S. Hernandez ’10 Cynthia Peters incredibly logical. In other She gave us a picture of Henry in his mili - the Atlantic, aboard the old SS France. And then the time, some 30 years words, although Gary’s “home Pomona College Magazine is published three tary dress taken outside the dining room win - later, when I boarded her again in her new guise as the SS Norway, and and deliberate poverty” were dividend” concept is valid there times a year. Copyright 2009 by Pomona College. Send letters dows before he deployed. She gave us first spent seven days cruising through my own memories and mythmaking, try - and submissions to: Pomona College Magazine, 550 North merely byproducts of the radical exchange in is another side to his argument. Leaving out editions of Nothing But Praise , and I’ve had ing to tell the two apart. College Avenue, Claremont, CA 91711 or [email protected] . their conversion to Christ. what median home prices have done over the mine all these years. She told us how the orig - For changes of address, class notes, scrapbook photos, or There’s adequate skepticism and cynicism last 10 years vs. median wages is in my opin - I could simply use this column as an old-fashioned magazine introduc - notice of births or deaths, phone: (909) 621-8635; fax: (909) inal poems had been dug up after he was in the piece to pass muster with the contem - ion downright deceptive. tion. Talk about a few of the things included in the issue, enlarge upon the 621-8535; or e-mail: [email protected]. For other edi - dead. She needed to talk about it, to tell the torial matters, phone: (909) 607-9660; fax: (909) 621-8203; porary culture of academe. However, Francis, Gary’s argument that all real estate is local theme, poke a little fun at myself along the way. That’s always safe, if a bit story in depth, and returned to see us several or e-mail: [email protected]. Magazine policies are available at: Elizabeth and the others mentioned would and that much of “middle America’s” home boring. times. I’m just grateful my mother, at one of www.pomona.edu/magazine/guidelines. not have seen themselves as saints, but sinners values have not spiked in value is also I could write about the process of putting together a magazine. The the lowest points in her own life, managed to with enough humility to seek the confessional valid. Again, a very important point that Pomona College is an independent liberal arts col - open her door and make tea for a wonderful ever-popular behind-the-scenes glimpse of how things come together. when “dark birds” flew about. seems to be missing from his work is how lege established in 1887. Located in Claremont, Calif., it is lady who shared a wonderful story. Or—the ultimate cop-out, I suppose—I could write about the process the founding member of The Claremont Colleges . —Dorothy Towne (parent ’74) absurdly overvalued both coasts’ real estate Cheers! And thanks for the story on of writing a column. Something like a Charlie Kaufman screenplay. About Colorado Springs, Colo. values were when his article came out. If his PRESIDENT Henry. He was my “ghost,” growing up, and how ideas come and go. How one eventually sticks in the net. After all, David W. Oxtoby argument is still that home values in Los I love him. that’s how my mind works best—with the written equivalent of thinking ith all due respect, I believe it is absurd to Angeles were selling at reasonable rates I will VICE PRESIDENT FOR INSTITUTIONAL ADVANCEMENT W —Gretchen Jaeger out loud. Christopher B. Ponce call the lives of the saints, a “theatre of sancti - take the other side of that argument. Sonoma, Calif. ty.” Either Professor Wolf doesn’t get it, or In essence Gary appeared to me (and per - Someone once said that essay-writing is the mind in motion, and a fin - NONDISCRIMINATION POLICY I’m missing his point. ished essay is a map of thought. So maybe I should just start writing and see Pomona College complies with all applicable state and federal civil haps many others?) to be making a pitch for P.S. I am not a Pomona alumna. I went to rights laws prohibiting discrimination in education and the work - In any case, the saints did not live lives for where the map I’m drawing leads me. Someplace interesting, I hope. Or homeownership at the absolute peak of the Scripps but transferred before graduating. My place. This policy of non-discrimination covers admission, access their self-promotion, but, rather, for “the market. Meanwhile, I was selling my clients maybe just on a scenic tour of my own rather cluttered brain. and service in Pomona College programs and activities, as well as cousin graduated from Pomona. Greater Glory of God.” (some of whom were Pomona graduates) out —Mark Wood hiring, promotion, compensation, benefits and all other terms and conditions of employment at Pomona College. As a Roman Catholic, I pray that one day, of their homes and real estate investments at Alumni and friends can send us your letters at the he will find a saint whose humility and sinceri - incredible profits at the exact same time. I address at left or e-mail us at [email protected]. ty will so impact him that he will realize that completely understand his argument and Letters may be edited for length, style and clarity.

2 POMONA COLLEGE MAGAZINE WINTER 2009 3 4 / Pomona Today / P O M O N A C O L L E G E M F A G i A Z D n I N E a n c e s / O P o S m o n T a

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l ' n s 0 - t i e s t - n - - / Pomona Today /

Controversy / The Alma Mater would no longer give money to the College if the alma mater got the ax. Omission, Memory, Mystery “Just as I had feared, political correctness is threatening to despoil a cherished memory and a wonderful college tradition,” The alma mater controversy started off as a debate over whether— wrote Merv Nerling ’51 in a letter. “For many of us, over 50 and how much—the circumstances of the song’s birth matter years removed from graduation, while memories grow muted, today. But along the way the song’s origin came into question, A Time the melodies linger on as we replay the old songs. Please don’t adding a new and confusing twist to the discussion. remove or modify this key song.” It had been understood that the alma mater was written by Student opinion was in the other direction. The Associated Richard Loucks ’13 as the finale for a blackface minstrel show put Students voted unanimously to urge the College to decertify the on as a fundraiser for the baseball team in 1910. The evidence to Sing alma mater, and The Student Life also came out against the song showing Loucks wrote “Hail, Pomona, Hail” for the January in an editorial: “To keep ‘Hail, Pomona, Hail’ as our alma mater 1910 show comes from an undated letter from Loucks (quoted in would undermine the supposed ideals of the institution, because the liner notes of a 1954 college songs album), note cards he wrote “H ail, Pomona, Hail” will remain Pomona College’s alma it would ignore the strong objections of a part of the communi - for a 1958 Glee Club talk and interviews with and articles by mater, but—at least for the present—students won’t be singing ty. People don’t have to like the alma mater, but it is essential Loucks in subsequent years. it at the key ceremonial events of the school year. President that nobody feels threatened by it.” “It’s more likely to be true than false,” said Cyrus Winston ’10, David Oxtoby announced his compromise decision in December The matter even reached The New York Times after a a student who was charged with studying the song’s past as a sum - after months of debate over whether the song is tainted because Claremont McKenna alumna ran the issue past ethics columnist mer research project. “I’m pretty certain that the song was written it is believed to have been written for a blackface minstrel show Randy Cohen, who urged Sagehens to “sing out—full-throated, for a blackface show.” held nearly a century ago. clear-conscienced,” while also lauding the school for cultivating But alumna Rosemary Choate researched the matter as well, In a letter to alumni, many of “in its students an alertness to the historical origins and cultural and she contends that Loucks got his facts mixed up decades later. whom spoke for keeping the alma implications of things around them.” She draws on a different set of documents, noting that the 1910 mater, Oxtoby said his move “is A twist came in the form of research by Rosemary Choate Student Life article about the minstrel show makes no mention of based upon a conviction that tradi - Retouching “Torchbearers” ’63, which raised doubts as to whether the song really was per - “Hail, Pomona, Hail” and lists “The Blue and White” as the tions—like people—should be formed at and written for the minstrel show. (See accompanying show’s finale. Also, “Hail” didn’t make it into the college hand - n the matter of “Torchbearers,” a Pomona judged on their merits, not on the O story.) book until 1911-1912, while it could have gone into the earlier song with roots in the late 1800s, President basis of historical associations Since making his decision, Oxtoby reports receiving hun - 1910-1911 handbook. And the song was given a featured place in Oxtoby went with the recommendation of the unconnected to their actual charac - dreds of e-mails from alumni, with the largest bloc supporting the 1912 Pomona College Song Book . With this timeline, she con - plurality of the committee that wanted to ter. All are agreed that there is no the compromise, followed by others who thought the whole cludes that “Hail” was written at a later time than the show and revamp potentially offensive lyrics. Wrote harmful meaning in either the ry and therefore fails in its basic business was a waste of time. In the former camp was Julianne that Loucks’ memory failed him many years after. Oxtoby: “This is appropriate because portions words or the music of ‘Hail, function of serving as a unifying Flora-Tostado ’76 who wrote: “The reasons behind your com - “Sole reliance on human memory, without substantiating or of the song make reference to Native American Pomona, Hail.’” element for the Pomona commu - promise make sense to me. I’m glad that the song will still be supporting evidence, often leads to error …, ” writes Choate. “The traditions in ways that are, at best, stereotypical At the same time, Oxtoby said nity.” sung during Alumni Weekends.” acknowledged ‘truth’ that Pomona’s alma mater had its beginnings and, at worst, offensive. It is worthy of note that “given the divisive nature of The announcement from But Kim Bruce ’70, the computer science professor who co- in a minstrel show nearly 100 years ago is simply incorrect.” that these words have already been rewritten the controversy over the song on Oxtoby capped months of emo - chaired the songs committee, said he was disappointed because The Committee on College Songs took a different view, voting once, in 1930, so this is consistent with our our campus” it will not be sung at tional debate over the song’s fate. the move, in practical terms, leaves the college without an alma unanimously that “it was more likely than not” that “Hail, past practice. I will consult with the Music fac - Commencement or Convocation The issue came to light in February mater. He had wanted the College to choose a new song. “To Pomona, Hail” was written for the 1910 minstrel show. In an ulty to explore how the rewriting may be done for the present. “In these special, 2008 after fliers were posted have an alma mater that is no longer sung by the students, means analysis of the research, committee co-chair Kim Bruce turned the in a professional fashion.” student-focused settings, unity and around campus noting the song’s we don’t have an alma mater, and I find that sad,” said Bruce. argument around, citing the apparent lack of objections from a sense of mutual respect are para - purported origins. According to his President Oxtoby said that, in some ways, the alma mater has Loucks’s classmates, many of whom would have still been living mount,” he wrote, also noting that own accounts, Richard Loucks, been slowly lost over the years as it has been sung less often by when his accounts of the alma mater’s origins appeared in the “one cannot impose a tradition, and who entered with the class of 1913 students, who he says “these days are simply not that interested 1950s. efforts to do so generally fail.” but didn’t graduate, wrote the song as the finale to a blackface in learning songs and that type of tradition,” noting that there “In spite of the many documents we have sought on the Oxtoby’s decision set aside the proposal of the Committee minstrel show held on campus in 1910 as a fund-raiser for the was no groundswell of students fighting to keep singing the history of the alma mater, we have uncovered no documentary on College Songs he had appointed to advise him on the matter. baseball team. This piece of history was not a secret, but it was song at Commencement and Convocation. evidence earlier than 1954 indicating that it originated in a black - The committee had voted 9 to 1 to call upon the College to certainly not widely known, especially among current students, “It’s not really a very aesthetic song for someone in my gen - face minstrel show,’’ writes Bruce. “The question is whether or not replace the alma mater with a new one, while also recommend - until the fliers went up. eration,” said Cyrus Winston ’10, a student who was charged we trust Loucks’s own account of the history of the song he com - ing unanimously that “Hail, Pomona, Hail” continue to be sung After meeting with a group of concerned students, Oxtoby, with researching the history of the song with the help of two posed—a history that was never questioned until September of at alumni events. with the support of the Board of Trustees, last year suspended professors. this year.” “While all of us happily and proudly sang “Hail, Pomona, performances of the song by student groups and appointed a Winston would like to see the College dig deeper into its his - President David Oxtoby, meanwhile, took a stance somewhere Hail” before knowing of its origins, many now find it hard to committee comprising alumni, faculty, students and staff to con - tory. And that’s an area where both Oxtoby and the committee between those of Choate and the committee. In announcing his think of the song without associating it with pictures of students sider “Hail, Pomona, Hail” and other college songs. agreed, calling for Pomona to provide better resources for decision to keep the alma mater, Oxtoby noted that the evidence in blackface,” the committee wrote in its report. “With this Reaction from alumni was swift and strong: Concerned that exploring its past. Said Winston: “If these things were talked for a connection between the minstrel show and “Hail, Pomona, association, the song no longer reminds many of the best of the the suspension would lead to a ban, hundreds spoke out in favor about more it wouldn’t be so big of a controversy.” Hail” is “contradictory and open to interpretation.” College, but instead a portion of its history that is less exempla - of keeping the song, with some going so far as the suggest they —Mark Kendall

6 POMONA COLLEGE MAGAZINE WINTER 2009 7 / Pomona Today /

Before Pomona / Gap Years Mississippi., “After almost exactly two months in the Delta, I am totally sure I made the right decision,” says Berman, who tells of experi - ences ranging from sleeping on A Special Year the floor of unfurnished houses to protect the copper wiring On a year-long jaunt to Beijing on a fellowship, Julius Taranto from theft to finding out the took advanced classes in Mandarin Chinese while working for an hard way that there’s lye in environmental NGO and then a law firm. He blogged for cement. “Everyone here has a NBC’s Olympic site about happenings in the city, and then story, everyone is connected and joined the action as a translator during the games. Somehow, he everyone wants to share,” says also found three weeks to backpack through Mongolia, Berman. “I think I’m learning Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. so many of life’s big lessons in This wouldn’t be a shabby overseas experience by any a way that I could learn Sagehen standard, but Taranto, Class of 2012, did all this on a nowhere else.” “gap year” taken before his first semester of college. The experi - Rose Comaduran ’12 found a ence has helped him to focus and make the most of his time in slice of home—in meeting some college. “I got here, and was able to say honestly that I waited a family members for the first time—while spending the first year to take some of these classes,” says Taranto. “It seems that C A R

L half of her year studying Spanish

most people don’t appreciate their education except in retro - O S

P language and literature in

spect, and getting to the ‘real world’ early, on a gap year, is a U M Rose Comaduran ’12 A Oaxaca. “I’m half Mexican, and I got to meet a bunch of family good way to enjoy and appreciate college while members for the first time while I was there,” says Comaduran, still in it.” who then went to Peru, volunteering at an orphanage and A handful of incoming first-year students teaching English. hold off on starting school each year, according “I was always very involved and busy in high school,” says to Dean of Admissions Bruce Poch. “In some Comaduran. “And I wanted to take a break from academics to Paws on the Quad cases, unique opportunities have surfaced, be more spontaneous and explore other things in life.” At fall semester's end, the Committee for Campus Life & Activities which clearly fall into the ‘once in a lifetime’ Maria Whittle ’12 also wanted to distance herself from the arranged for 20 loveable puppies to be brought to campus to help category,” says Poch, citing the experience of academic grind before entering college. She applied for the students "de-stress" before finals, according to organizer Morgan Gabriel London ’00, who as an intern in the Rotary Exchange Program, which appealed to her “due to its Hargraves '09. Some 200 people showed up for the afternoon White House during the Clinton years wrote a low costs and its spirit of volunteerism,” explains Whittle. She event, with some waiting 20 minutes for the chance to play with the speech for the president during the federal gov - lived in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky on the Kamchatka Peninsula pups in an open-air pen. Due to popular demand, Hargraves hopes ernment shutdown of 1995. in eastern Russia, accessible only by a nine-hour plane ride from to do it again next semester. Let's just hope it's not a ruse to revive “The stories brought back to campus are Moscow, for nine months with two host families, attending high that old pooch excuse: the dog ate my thesis. —PHOTOS BY CARRIE ROSEMA often quite stunning, and the growth for many school and enjoying full immersion in the language she studied of the students is valuable and can bring great throughout high school. perspective to their undergraduate interests,” “Culture shock and homesickness made my first months in says Poch. Russia difficult, but the people I met and the things I learned Common in the United Kingdom and while I was away made this difficulty well worth it. I doubt I Australia, gap years are gaining increasing will ever again have the chance to spend a year just talking to acceptance in the U.S., says Holly Bull, presi - people and absorbing the culture the way I was able to last dent of gap-year consulting firm The Center for year,” says Whittle, whose host families took her on cultural Interim Programs. Gap year fairs are held at excursions and camping trips, and even made a special meal to high schools, and universities are welcoming the help her celebrate Thanksgiving. idea of more mature, responsible first-year stu - “Living on my own helped prepare me a lot for college life. dents. “They know it’s not just a year off or a [It] taught me how to be self-sufficient and manage my own vacation; it’s something of value and colleges expenses, to learn to deal with a lot of situations independently C A

R are publicly recognizing this,” says Bull. and on instinct,” says Whittle. “I feel I am much more self con - R I E

R Micah Berman ’13 chose to stick a little fident and self sufficient than I was before simply because I had O S

E to be last year.” M closer to home for his gap year, volunteering A for Habitat for Humanity in Clarksdale, —Laura Tiffany Julius Taranto ’12

8 POMONA COLLEGE MAGAZINE / Pomona Today / HELLA Outside the Bubble / Favorite Places Buckhorn Lodge AWESOME! I’M JUICED! in Mount Baldy Village LET’S Whitney DeVos ’08 THAT’S DANK, On Friday and Saturday nights, you’ll find the BE OUT! Hanging Out best live music around at The Buckhorn Lodge on Mount Baldy. The owner was a huge star in YADADAMEAN? Vegas decades ago, and will often get on the dance floor, donning sparkly dress and feather espite the renowned “Claremont Bubble,” D boa, to perform a priceless number with the Pomona students don’t spend all of their local band, a collection of talented, mountain- time on campus. Here, a few students share dwelling individuals that are timeless in their their favorite off-campus spots for hanging own right. Though most are bearded, flannel- around. wearing Dylan-playing old-timers, one of the gui - tarists is college-age and brings a modern twist to the group. Shopping and Dining in Rowland Heights Jamie Low ’09 There’s a little shopping area right off the high - way called Diamond Plaza. We go there a lot. It’s a collection of stores, restaurants and cafes that mostly cater to a Taiwanese/Chinese my freshman ears were constantly picking up new words and crowd, but there are also a few Japanese, Thai, Talk of Campus / The Verbal Melting Pot phrases from my classmates. I had never heard someone say they Vietnamese, and Indonesian businesses thrown made “hella bank”—that’s lots of money—or tell me that my in. I love Rowland Heights because so much of room looked “ill” before. I remember raising my eyebrows the business there is open late. It’s not like when someone first told me the time was “10 of 12” instead of Colloquial Shock going to the 24-hour diner at 3 in the morning “10 to 12.” and you’re the only ones there; in Rowland Likewise, the way I said things was also coming under scruti - eing college students, my friends and I spend a lot of time Heights there’s actually a vibrant community B ny. Besides being in the minority for wanting “pop” instead of talking, about everything from the nuances of The Big Lebowski that’s active at almost all hours of the day. So if “soda,” I was also made aware for the first time that I had an to the quirky comments our biology professor made during you’ve got a late night craving for boba, grab a accent, subtle as it was. My friends would sometimes smile and lecture. But one age-old question always seems to persist: soda few friends and take a 20-minute drive down point out how I drew my “a’s” out when I used words like or pop? the highway. “black” or “cat.” Coming from Michigan, I’ve always said ‘pop’ without think - I started to track how my friends talked relative to where ing twice. And since everyone back home used it, it never they came from. I noted whether they told me they had “wicked crossed my mind that it might be the Union Station, fun” when they returned to Boston or “wrong” word. “kicked it” back in Seattle. I got used to Los Angeles Until I got here. Now every time I hearing New Englanders say “dank” for awe - Hangar 18 Leah Steuer ’11 order a pop, at least one of my East or DANK – (New England) awesome some, and the Bay Area crowd say “juiced” West Coast friends shoots me a disbeliev - HELLA – (Bay Area) adds Zak Feldman ’11 I’m an art student and a native New Yorker, so I when they were excited for something. ing look. “ Pop ? Who says that? You emphasis (really, very, etc.) appreciate aesthetic beauty in the public trans - But as we reached the end of our first …My favorite off-campus spot that I actually mean, soda?” portation system. I was sure L.A.’s Union Station JUICED – (Bay Area) excited, semester, not only had my friends and I go to weekly is Hangar 18, the climbing gym These reactions made me realize that it would be a tight tangle of shining metal and pumped up grown used to the melting pot of regional in Upland. I like climbing because it’s a medi - wasn’t just the international students that glass. But when I stepped off the train from slang and colloquialisms, I had started pick - tative sport. Static footwork, body tension, experience culture shock at Pomona. As LET’S BE OUT – (Bay Area) Claremont, I immediately was halted with a ing up some of their words as well. When I and control are the most important elements the College draws more out-of-state stu - “let’s go” nearly supernatural force. I had come face to went back to Michigan, I got quizzical looks of climbing. I zone into the wall - saving dents—fewer than a third are now from MAD – (New York area) adds face with one of the largest and most beautiful every time I told my high school friends every calorie of energy is crucial. I also feel California—everyone brings a culture to emphasis (see hella) murals I had ever seen. Standing by the east something at college was “hella” awesome. like climbing is logical for me. If I put in the the campus that is new to someone else. portal entrance, I studied the art—which con - WICKED – (New England) adds My out-of-place lingo signified that Pomona, training and the time I get noticeably better. This is most noticeable in the way we sumed most of the ceiling—with open awe. emphasis (see hella, mad) in some ways, had already become more of a It’s not quite the same for me with other talk. From the slang to the colloquialisms Depicted was a plethora of human beings of YADADAMEAN – (Bay Area) home than where I had come from. sports that I’ve played for a while, like soccer. to subtle differences in regional accents, various ages and ethnicities, their faces awash “you know what I mean?” —Janet Ma ’11 Climbing is off the wall!

C in soulful peacefulness ... This year I declared A R

R art as one of my majors, and still return often to I E R

O that spot to gain artistic appreciation and stimu - S E M

10 POMONA COLLEGE MAGAZINE A l a t i o n . WINTER 2009 11 / Pomona Today /

Sports Roundup / Fall 2008 Student Power / The 2008 Vote Men’s Soccer son ranked second in receptions per (10-7-3, 8-5-3 SCIAC) third place game and receiving yards per game The men’s soccer team secured them - behind Kelley, and was ranked first in selves a place in the inaugural SCIAC the conference in all-purpose yards. tournament with a 3-0 win over Caltech. Senior Tyler Barbour was second in the Election Night The No. 3 seeded Sagehens defeated conference in interceptions. Jake Caron No. 2 seeded La Verne Leopards 1-0 in and Kevin Kelley were named to the All- the second round, then fell to confer - SCIAC first team, and R.J. Maki, Tyler at Pomona ence champion Redlands 2-1 in double Barbour, Augie Lagemann and Steve overtime. Senior David Martin, junior Collisson were named to the second Students were here and there on election night, gathering Andrew Stamm and sophomore Eben team. in the columned Carnegie Building to watch the returns roll Perkins were selected to the all-confer - in, but also tracking news online and chatting with friends and ence first team, and junior goalkeeper Men’s Cross Country family thousands of miles Charlie Balter and senior Andrew (6-1 SCIAC) third place The Men’s Cross Country team finished away. Even as NBC’s Brian Jacobsen were selected to the second team. in third place at the SCIAC Williams loomed in the Championships, with senior Torrey big-screen background, Women’s Soccer Olson (fourth) and Brendan Randall- the real action was on lap - (9-8-1, 6-5-1 SCIAC) fifth place Myers (seventh) both earning all-SCIAC tops and cell phones. The Sagehens closed out the season on first team honors, while Tristan Roberts Alison Blume ’11 was a three-game winning streak, beating (16th), Brian Gillis (17th) and Charlie busy with phone to ear regional rival UC Santa Cruz 3-2 and Enscoe (19th) earned all-SCIAC second providing the latest elec - securing a winning season for the fifth team honors. At the West Regional tion news to her brother consecutive year. Juniors Claire meet, Olson took fifth place, qualifying Cameron Blume ’06, serv - McGroder and Elli Seo were selected to for nationals. Olson, Randall-Myers, ing in the Peace Corps in the All-SCIAC first team, freshman Katy Roberts, and Ian Monsma were all selected to the West Region team. Kyrgyzstan. In another Metcalf was selected to the second team, and senior Lily Hitchner received room of Carnegie, where the Brine Award of Distinction. Women’s Cross Country four different news (6-1 SCIAC) second place Websites were projected Men’s Water Polo Senior Anna Scharfen won the SCIAC onto a screen, Rose Green (8-2 SCIAC) conference champions championship meet, helping her team Entering into conference tournament as finish in second place, despite the the No. 2 seed, the Sagehens defeated absence of 2007 SCIAC Runner of the ’12 was scrolling the New York Times on her laptop, zeroing La Verne, Whittier, and Cal Lutheran en Year Alicia Freese due to injury. The in on counties in her home state of Colorado, while also keep - route to their second consecutive SCIAC team then went on to finish in second ing in touch with a friend in Vermont and her boyfriend in championship. The title earned Pomona- in the regional meet, just one point Nevada, who had to work that night. “I’m texting him and Pitzer the No. 8 seed at the Western behind the winners, and qualified as a updating him all the time,” she said. Water Polo Association Championships, team for the NCAA Championships. At Low tech was contained to the lobby, where an energetic consisting of teams from Divisions I, II the NCAA Championships, pacing all Isaac Kastama ’11 worked a blank-white wall map, coloring and III. The Sagehens placed eighth at SCIAC runners, Alicia Freese, recently the WWPA Championships. Sophomores recovered from injury, earned All- states red or blue with markers only after students agreed that Ben Hadley and Ryan Balikian were American honors finishing 22nd in the enough media outlets had made the call. But Kastama also named to the All-SCIAC first team, while women’s race in the season-ending had his laptop open to Time magazine’s political blog, The senior Grant Cooper was named to the championship. In the team standings, Page, which just after 7 p.m. was already declaring Obama the second team. Pomona-Pitzer finished 22nd with 462 winner: “The networks won’t tell you but The Page will.” points after entering the meet ranked The gathered still needed a communal media moment. As Football 26th in the nation. This was the team’s the West Coast polls closed at 8 p.m., the party banter dimin - (2-7, 1-5 SCIAC) sixth place first appearance at nationals since ished and all eyes turned to the TV to watch the networks call The team finished ranked first in the 1982. the election for Obama. Hugs and hollers and general jubila - conference in passing offense and sec - Volleyball tion ensued, spilling out the doors, even as a much larger ond in passing efficiency. Sophomore scene of celebration unfolded on the big screen. Wishing he quarterback Jake Caron was ranked first (20-9, 9-5 SCIAC) third place in the SCIAC in average passes per The Sagehen’s 20 wins matched their could be there, Chicago native Jose Acevedo ’10 wistfully game, total offense, and second in highest total in 18 years, and their nine watched the coverage of the masses gathered in Grant Park in passing efficiency. Senior wide receiver losses are the fewest since 1998. his hometown for Obama’s victory speech. Acevedo was over - Kevin Kelley was ranked first in recep - Senior Ruchi Patel was named to the heard talking on his cell phone, asking his mom back home: tions per game, receiving yards per All-SCIAC first team. Senior Mega n Prior “Why aren’t you there?” game, and second in all-purpose yards. finished her career as the all-time career —Mark Kendall Sophomore R.J. Maki finished the sea - leader in block assists, tallying 70 this

12 POMONA COLLEGE MAGAZINE PHOTOS BY JOHN LUCAS WINTER 2009 13 / Pomona Today / First Person / Opening Convocation Address / Pomona Tomorrow /

Annual Giving / Star 47 reach more alums than any other depart - “The Arts hold a special place in my heart. The warm, rich, ment on campus.” intimate beauty of Rembrandt; the dazzling and weird spectacle of Reaching out to potential donors Brueghel; the alternate realities of Dali were all new to me as an became easier with the acquisition of a undergraduate and intrigue me to this day. But nothing intrigued me Web-based software system that elimi - more than music. As a listener I was transported to other worlds more nates most of the paper shuffling and lets wondrous than Titan or Mars. They were as vivid, extensive, and The Ringers students have access to information about engrossing as Tolkien’s Middle Earth, as a Rembrandt self-portrait, as alumni majors and jobs, giving them Hamlet’s Elsinore Castle, as a chart of the solar system—but words or Raising money is the top priority for the what’s the special Pomona number. I ways to strike up a conversation. They’re pictures or charts of data could not come close to describing, let alone Pomona “Star 47” students. It’s what said, ‘Smiley, 47,’ and then he said, ‘OK, also able to quickly answer questions explaining them.” —Professor of Music Thomas E. Flaherty, Sept. 2, 2008. In this they’re paid to do, and during the eco - I trust you; I’ll give my credit card infor - about football schedules, speaker series photo, he conducts the audience in a musical experiment with a couple of flashlights. nomic downturn this fall, they defied the mation.’” and other campus events by accessing the odds by beating last year’s total by Students also hear about new babies Pomona Web site. $35,000. Wearing headsets and working and job changes and get advice and Although the fundraising positions are from computers in a small building encouragement about majors or careers. among the better-paying student jobs on behind Renwick House, the students One even landed an internship during a campus, asking for donations can be diffi - spend several hours a week calling alumni phone conversation. And most of the cult and hang-ups can be discouraging. and parents for the Annual Fund. parents and alums have a keen interest in But the students try to put it into per - Sometimes, the work is more than just what’s going on at the College, particu - spective. “It’s tough to ask people for money, especially now,” says MARK WOOD Elisha Nuchi ’09. “Recently, we called young alumni, who Down on the Farm / Raising Chickens them to eat pests and harvest the eggs.” are still trying to find jobs or The year-old chickens came from are in grad school, so it’s hard Myra House, a holistic living center a few for them to give. But you get miles from campus. Norlen laughs when better at talking to people and he remembers how he, Christopher it gets easier to ask for money. Fine Feathered Friends Gomes ’09 and others were schooled in And you do talk to some the art of chicken handling by owner interesting people. I’ve had a Egg production may be paltry—one or Norlen ’10. “I feel like I’ve created a Myra Sohn: “None of us knew how to couple of great conversations two per day per hen—but students say bond with the chickens and I think that grab a chicken. Chris grabbed one, and with alumni about my major.” they’re getting a lot out of the experience bond is part of what animal husbandry is the owner said, ‘No, no no. You grab For Bustamante, working of raising poultry at the College’s about.” them by the wings so they won’t flap.’” for Star 47 also is a way to Organic Farm. Adds Paul Ort ’09: “To see these little The rest they learned from reading books give back to the College. “I Day in and buzzards squawking around at the Farm about raising chickens and from feel it’s something really day out, the reminds me of the simple joys of Pomona’s Farm Technician Juan Araya. good, and that I’m helping members of life, of tak - The student-farmers hope to add out Pomona and making it a The Order of ing care of more chickens to reach a total of 12. And better place.” the Sagehen take our fellow while the students gain valuable experi - In a couple of years, the turns attending to creatures ence caring for the birds, the chickens, callers will be on the receiving their three birds: and taking too, may find their horizons broadened end of requests for money. letting the chickens responsibility for from living on a college campus. The stu - What will they want to talk out of their coops others .” dents are trying to attract artists to help about when they get their first before 9 a.m. each day, It was Ort, an environ - decorate the coop. Already, last semester, Silvia Bustamante ’09, Ben Yarbrough gift requests from the next and back in before sun - mental analysis major from art major Rody Lopez ’09 placed a movie ’09 and Elisha Nuchi ’09 generation of Star 47 stu - down, changing their food Oreland, Penn., who lobbied screen inside it, handed out small bags of CARRIE ROSEMA dents? “I’ll probably want to and water and collecting the last spring for permission to add popcorn to the chickens and showed the another campus job. larly this year, when the future of the know if the student likes it there; if eggs. For folks raised on a chickens to the Farm, set on two film Chicken Run, in which cooped-up “It can be fun,” says Silvia alma mater was being debated. Professor Hazlett and Professor Burke farm, these are known as and a half acres at the southeast birds escape a cruel owner who plans Bustamante ’09, who was a caller for two “The students are great ambassadors are still teaching; if they’re building any - chores, but they are a edge of campus. He sensed some - to turn them into pies. “The chick - years and is now a manager. “I’ve learned for the College,” says Jim Hofbauer, thing new on campus, and how the Star labor of love for this dedi - thing was missing in this mini-Eden. ens were watching it and then they some history about Pomona, especially assistant director of annual giving, who 47 program is going,” says Ben cated group. “We needed chickens at the Farm just got bored and left,’’ recalls Ort, unde - when I mention that I lived in Harwood. oversees the group of about 30 student Yarbrough ’09. “I will definitely be giv - “Spending time watching them run because they are animals,” says Ort. “We terred. “We really want to encourage I talked to one alum who wasn’t sure I callers and managers. “They’re a way for ing. I know it can be pretty stressful for around in their pen has made me believe needed them to be able to feed them more art projects.” was from Pomona and started to quiz alumni to reconnect and find out what’s the kids who are making the calls.” that chickens are beautiful,” says Carl scraps of food, get their compost, use —Cindy S. Hernandez ’10 me—what’s the oldest dorm on campus, going on with Pomona. We probably —Mary Marvin

14 POMONA COLLEGE MAGAZINE WINTER 2009 15 / Coming Attractions /

Theatre. By Reginald Rose. Directed by Theatre & Dance Tom Leabhart. Tickets are $5 for faculty, Season theatre subscriptions are $20 for fac - staff, students and senior citizens, $10 for Calendar / Spring 2009 ulty, staff, students and seniors, $30 for gener - general admission al admission. Box Office: (909) 621-8525 or April 2-5 “The Liar” —8 p.m., April 2-4; Readings, Lectures (909) 607-4375, 11 a.m. –4 p.m., Mon.-Fri. 2 p.m., April 4 & 5. By Pierre Corneille. . and Debates Feb. 5-8 “Zoot Suit” (A Revival) —8 p.m., Directed by Leonard Pronko. Tickets are $5 Music More Information: (909) 607-2671 Jan. 29 Lecture: “Millennial Hope: Climate Feb 5-7; 2 p.m., Feb. 7, 8, Seaver Theatre. for faculty, staff, students and senior citi - or [email protected]. Change and the Far Horizon of Possibility” — Luis Valdez’s landmark production. zens, 11 a.m., Rose Hills Theatre, Smith Campus Directed by Alma Martinez. Tickets are $5 Piano/Harpsichord/Toy Piano —8 p.m., April 30, May 2-3 Dance Concert — Feb. 7 Center. Professor David Orr, chair of the for faculty, staff, students and senior citi - Bridges Hall of Music. Genevieve Feiwen Lee, 8 p.m., April 30, May 2; 2 p.m., May 3, Environmental Studies Program at Oberlin zens, $10 for general admission. Pendleton Dance Studio, Scripps College. A piano. Music by Couperin, Beethoven, Smith, College. Organized by The Hart Institute for March 5-8 “Twelve Angry Jurors” —8 p.m., joint Pomona and Scripps College dance Wolfe, Albeníz, and Debussy. American History. March 5-7; 2 p.m. March 7, 8, Seaver concert, featuring student choreographers Feb. 14 Bobby Bradford and the Mo’Tet — Jan. 29 Lecture: “Deja Vu All Over Again or a 8 p.m., Bridges Hall of Music. Bobby Bradford, Brave New World?—The Recent India-Pakistan Crisis cornet/trumpet; Chuck Manning, saxophones; Viewed Through the Prism of Past Patterns ”— Ken Rosser, guitar; Michael Vlatkovich, trom - Noon, Oldenborg Center. Arun R. Swamy, bone; Roberto Miranda, bass; William Jeffrey, adjunct asst. professor of diplomacy and world Feb. 18-19 The Geology Department’s 29th Horse Comics. drummer; Don Preston, piano. An evening of affairs at Occidental College. Sponsored by the Woodford-Eckis Lectures —7:30 p.m., Feb. 18; Literary Series: Poet Will Alexander — jazz for Family Weekend. March 3 Pacific Basin Institute. 11 a.m., Feb. 19, Rose Hills Theatre, Smith 7:30 p.m., Ena Thompson Reading Room, Campus Center. Dr. Lonnie Thompson (Ohio Feb. 18 Traditional Korean Music —4:15 p.m., Lecture: “Discontented Air: The Crookshank Hall. Poet Will Alexander, author Feb. 4 State University), will deliver two lectures: Lyman Hall, Thatcher Music Building. Hyun- Atmosphere of ‘The Rape of the Lock’” — of Towards the Primeval Lightning Field “Global Climate Change: A Paleoclimate Myung Trio. Korean folk tunes and court music 4:15 p.m., Ena Thompson Reading Room, (1998) and Vertical Rainbow Climber Perspective from the World’s Highest performed on the kayagum (twelve-stringed Crookshank Hall. Jayne Lewis, professor of (1987). zither), ajaeng (bowed zither) and haegum Mountains” on Feb. 18; “Climate Histories from English at UC Irvine. Lecture: “Green to Gold: How Smart (two-stringed spike fiddle). Tropical Glaciers and the Evidence for March 12 Feb. 10 Literary Series: Poet James McMichael — Asynchronous Glaciation” on Feb. 19. Companies Use Environmental Strategy” — Feb. 21 Ussachevsky Memorial Festival —3 p.m., 7:30 p.m., Ena Thompson Reading Room, 11 a.m., Rose Hills Theatre, Smith Campus Feb. 20 History/Politics Lecture: “Mass Murder Lecture/demonstration; 8 p.m., Concert, Crookshank Hall. Poet James McMichael, author Center. Daniel Esty, professor of environmen - by Mosquito: The Vaeyama Malaria Reparation Lyman Hall, Thatcher Music Building. Lucy of Capacity (2006) and Each in a Place and tal law and policy at Yale Law School. Campaign 1989-1997” —3 p.m., Hahn 108. Alan Shelton (’65), soprano; Genevieve Lee, piano; Apart (1994). Organized by The Hart Institute for American Rachel Rudich, flute; Rachel Huang, violin; Christy, associate professor of history at UC History. Jonathan Wright, violin; Cynthia Fogg, viola; Feb. 12 The Great Debate: Free Speech — Santa Cruz and author of the forthcoming book, Literary Series: Poet Martha Ronk — Tom Flaherty, cello. Music by Ronald Perera, 8 p.m., Edmunds Ballroom. Nadine Strossen Ethnographies of the Self: The Formation of March 30 7:30 p.m., Ena Thompson Reading Room, Rob Smith, Bill Alves, Eric Moe, Steve Reich, (former president, ACLU) and Mari Matsuda Japanese Native Ethnology , 1910-1945. (Georgetown University) debate the limits, if Crookshank Hall. Poet and memoirist Martha and Tom Flaherty Feb. 23, 24, 25, 26 47th Robbins Lecture any, that should be placed on free speech. Ronk, author of Displeasures of the Table Series —Jennifer Doudna ”85, vice president of Feb. 22 & March 1 Music of the 20th & 21st Sponsored by the Pomona Student Union. (2009) and In a Landscape of Having to Centuries —3 p.m., Bridges Hall of Music. research biochemistry and biophysics at Repeat (2004). Rachel Huang, violin; Tom Flaherty, cello; Feb. 11 Artist Lecture: Fritz Haeg —11:15 a.m., Genentech, a member of the national Academy Lecture: “Chocorua’s Curse: Indians, Rachel Rudich, flute; Joshua Ranz, clarinet; Jack Lyman Hall, Thatcher Music Building. Los of Sciences, will deliver four lectures: “The April 9 Angeles-based architect, artist and activist Fritz Many Lives of RNA, ” 8 p.m., Feb. 23; Native Place, and the Making of the New England TALES Sanders, guitar; Joti Rockwell, mandolin; Lucy Landscape” —11 a.m., Rose Hills Theatre, Shelton (’65), soprano. Music by Toru Haeg will lecture on his project Animal Estates “Hijacking the Ribosome: How Viruses Use RNA Smith Campus Center. Karen Halttunen, pro - Takemitsu, Tom Flaherty, Karl Kohn, and 5.0, Portland, which is presented in the sudden - to Control Protein Synthesis,” 4:30 p.m., Feb. fessor of history at USC. Organized by The Stephen Funk Pearson. ly exhibition. (See exhibitions.) 24; “Dissecting Dicer: Towards an Understanding of DNA-Regulated Gene Hart Institute for American History. (909) FROM THE Feb. 12 Avery Lecture: “Globalization and the Feb. 27 Pomona College Orchestra —8 p.m., Expression,” 4:30 p.m., Feb. 25; and “RNA: 607-9435 Bridges Hall of Music. Raymond Burkhart, Nation-State: The Future of Failures” —8 p.m., 4 Drugs and Human Health,” 4:30 p.m., Feb. Literary Series: Poet Jen Hofer — conductor; Elisha Nuchi (’09), piano. Rose Hills Theatre. Ronald Grigor Suny, Charles April 21 26. 7:30 p.m., Ena Thompson Reading Room, Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 4 in A Major Tilly Collegiate Professor of Social and Political Crookshank Hall. Poet Jen Hofer (CalArts), “Italian” ; Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 1 in E History, University of Michigan and Emeritus Feb. 24 Lecture: “An Inside/Outside Look at 2008-09 Moseley Fellow in Creative Writing Minor. Professor of Political Science and History, Manga Publication in the U.S.” —4:15 p.m., Hahn University of Chicago. Sponsored by PBI. 101. Carl Gustav Horn ’91, editor of Dark at Pomona College, author of The Route March 4 Kenny Endo: “Wind and Water” —4:15 p.m., Lyman Hall, Thatcher Music Building. Lecture/demonstration of traditional Japanese ROAD works combining taiko with melodic percussive instruments: the odaiko (large drum), taiko set by Bach.. (various sized drums), kotsuzumi (hand drum), and fue (bamboo flute). March 28 Guest Pianist: Boris Berman —8 p.m., April 24 & 26 Pomona College Choir & Film and Multimedia They Bridges Hall of Music. Music by Chopin and Orchestra —8 p.m, April 24, and 3 p.m., April March 6 Chamber Music Through the Ages — Feb. 5 Multimedia Performance: “Refugee Debussy. 26, Bridges Hall of Music. Donna M. Di say that 8 p.m., Bridges Hall of Music. Joshua Ranz, Nation” —3 p.m., Seaver Theater 100. Grazia, conductor; Raymond Burkhart, conduc - clarinet and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra March 29 Women’s Voices —3 p.m., Bridges Created by Leilani Chan and Ova tor. Brahms: Schicksalslied. Vaughan Williams: getting there members. Music by Brahms, Haydn, and Hall of Music. Gwendolyn Lytle, soprano; Saopeng in collaboration with Laotian Dona nobis pacem Steiger. Genevieve Feiwen Lee, piano. Music by communities. is half the fun. Wallach, Laitman, and 20th-century Latin- Pomona College Afro-Cuban Ensemble — March 8 Faculty Organ Recital —3 p.m., Bridges April 27 Feb. 19 PBI Film Series: Man Push Cart — American composers. 8 p.m., Lyman Hall, Thatcher Music Building. Hall of Music. William Peterson, organ. Music 7 p.m., Rose Hills Theatre. The film won Sometimes, it’s all Joe Addington, director. A evening of Afro- April 4 African and African-American Music — more than 10 international prizes. Cuban Music. 8 p.m., Bridges Hall of Music. Albert McNeil Followed by Q&A with filmmaker Ramin the fun. And sometimes Exhibitions Pomona College Museum of Jubilee Singers of Los Angeles. Music from the April 30 and May 2 Pomona College Glee Bahrani. Art hours: Tues.-Fri., 12-5 p.m.; Sat.-Sun, 1-5 p.m. African tradition including folk songs, black Club —8 p.m., April 30, and 1:30 p.m., May 2, March 11 PBI Film Series: A Thousand it’s the means, the challenge, More information: (909) 621-8283 or gospel and spirituals, plus concert music by Bridges Hall of Music. Donna M. Di Grazia, Years of Good Prayers —7 p.m., Rose Hills www.pomona.edu/museum . African-American composers. Co-sponsored by conductor. Music for chamber choir. Theatre. Directed by Wayne Wang from the work of art, or simply the job. the Intercollegiate Department of Black suddenly: where we live now — May 2 & 3 Pomona College Band —11:15 a.m. a screenplay adapted by Yiyun Li from Jan. 24-April 12 Studies, Office of the Dean of Students, Public Multiple artists and writers re-imagine the landscape May 2, and 8 p.m., May 3, Bridges Hall of her own short story. In the following four stories, Sagehens Events Committee and Office of the President. of the city as an entity to be reshaped in the hands Music. Graydon Beeks, conductor. Music by April 7 PBI Film Series: Red Dust by Karin and minds of its occupants. Artists’ tour: Sat. Jan. April 5 Mojave Trio Recital —3 p.m., Bridges Dickow, Kohn, Sousa and others. Mak and Student Short Film Prize Award — show that getting there is not just a metaphor Hall of Music. Sara Parkins, violin; Margaret 24, 4 p.m. Opening reception: Sat., Jan. 24, 5 p.m. May 4 Giri Kusum —8 p.m., Bridges Hall of 7 p.m., Rose Hills Theatre. “Red Dust” is Parkins, cello; Genevieve Feiwen Lee, piano. Senior Art Exhibition Music. Pomona College Balinese Gamelan a documentary film about Chinese work - April 30-May 17 Music by Sándor Veress, Frank Martin, and for getting a life—sometimes, it’s the life you get. Ensemble; Nyoman Wenten, music director; ers poisoned while manufacturing batter - Antonín Dvo ˇrák. Nanik Wenten, dance director. Music and dance ies. Also, the winner of the best 2008 Summer Student Video Travel project will be presented and the film will be screened. 16 POMONA COLLEGE MAGAZINE WINTER 2009 17 1 IN SEARCH OF THE BEST CUISINE THE TAXISTA IN BUENOS AIRES, FOOD WRITER D A O R

E LAYNE MOSLER ’96 YIELDS H T

M O

R HER DESTINY TO STRANGERS. F

S TANGO

E IN BUENOS AIRES L A T

Story by LAYNE MOSLER ’96 Photos by ANIBAL GRECO WORLD PICTURE NEWS

I WAS IN MY SECOND CAB OF THE DAY in summer-steamy Buenos Aires. Luis, the driver, was making subtle advances at me ( Do you live here? How old are you? Do you have a boyfriend? ), despite his age (going on 60) and girth (which strained the threads of his cotton dress shirt). I was unfazed by his flirt - ing—a fact of life in Argentina—yet filled with anticipation about our destination. A few minutes earlier, I had climbed into the cool embrace of Luis’s air-conditioned taxi and dealt him a strange request: “Can you take me to your favorite place to eat?” He slammed on the brakes in the middle of the Friday traffic on Avenida Santa Fe, set - ting off a chorus of horns behind us. The white rosary that hung from the rearview mir - ror swung wildly, nearly hitting the windshield. He turned down the tango music that crackled through the speakers. “Excuse me?” he asked. “I’m new to the city,” I lied. “And I was hoping you might be able to help me find some good food. I’m not interested in touristy restaurants or fancy places. I want to go some - place where you usually eat.” >>

18 POMONA COLLEGE MAGAZINE WINTER 2009 19 “Sur,” Homero Manzi’s tango about changing neighbor - hoods and dying dreams. The amount on the meter jumped over the number of small bills in my purse. “I only have nine pesos,” I told Luis, “you can let me “Well, I don’t know,” Luis said, “I could take you to out now. I can walk from here—” the food court at the Jumbo mall.” “No way,” he said, “I’m going to take you to the best “Is that where you usually eat?” steak sandwich in the park. Just give me what you have “No, but…” and we’ll call it even, deal ?” The truth was that I’d been living in Buenos Aires for Despite working a 12-hour shift seven days a week, I agreed. Luis, like all the taxistas before him, had over two years. A freelance food writer, I was searching Luis could not afford the pricey fare at the food court. responded in kind to my trust, choosing not to cheat me for a path to the city’s culinary underbelly. I’d decided to After the Argentine economy crashed in 2001, he had or take advantage of the fact that I was a foreign woman turn to taxi drivers for help. Surely, I hypothesized, they become part of a middle class that had bottomed out traveling alone. would know the way to their city’s most authentic flavors. and then struggled to keep up with a cost of living that “See all those cars?” He pointed to a crowd of vans, I started hopping into cabs every week and asking the grew far faster than their salaries. trucks and sedans double-parked next to a roadside drivers to take me to their favorite places to eat, negoti - Weaving between the Friday afternoon traffic, Luis sandwich stand. “That’s where you’re going. This place is ating the same vertigo that I confronted whenever I start - sped onto Avenida Dorrego. good, see? I take my sons here sometimes after we go ed dancing a tango. Whether in a taxi or on the dance “I’ll tell you, I’d rather drive a car than a woman,” fishing on Sundays.” floor, I was in some way yielding my destiny to a stranger. he said. I smiled into the rear-view mirror. He winked and My Argentine friends thought I’d lost my head. Taxi “Is that right?” whipped the Fiat into a U-turn. I toyed with the idea of drivers, they said, are the biggest estafadores (cheats) in “Yeah. My wife and I separated eight months ago.” inviting him to lunch, but remembered his advances and Buenos Aires. They’ll take you for all you’ve got, drive you Our destination still unresolved, we entered the green thought that would only confuse the spirit of our figura - in circles, maybe even haul you off to someplace danger - canopy of parks that border the Río de la Plata. tive embrace. As in the tango, the intimacy between Luis ous. I refused to give in to these stereotypes. Edmundo Rivero’s rich baritone rose above the melody of and me was powerful precisely because it was tempo>ra> ry.

20 POMONA COLLEGE MAGAZINE WWIINNTTEER R 22009 21 Thanking Luis for his guidance and closing the door garlic, onion, paprika, olive oil and vinegar) and found a on Edmundo Rivero, I climbed out of the taxi and into park bench where I could commune with my sandwich. the mass of hungry customers surrounding El Puestito Communion was bliss. Tender and smoky, the meat trick - del Tío, the chosen roadside sandwich stand. led juice onto my pants after the first bite. The roll White- and blue-collar types, construction workers and (chewy), the lettuce (crispy) and the tomato (sweet) pregnant women, grandparents and grandchildren scarfed played their parts, pushing the fatty richness of the beef down the lomitos (steak sandwiches) and choripanes to center stage. Easily the best lomito I’d ever tasted. (sausage sandwiches) that flew off a barbecue tended by Buenos Aires can be a cruel place, plagued by income a tall, dark, female grill master dressed in pink scrubs. disparity, petty crime, filth and flagrant political corrup - I caught the eye of her assistant, and he directed me tion, among other maladies. Still, the city manages to pre - toward a card table where an elderly man sat among the serve the open-armed spirit that has always been part of weeds, lording over a pile of red and blue tokens and a its history. For the most part, kindness to strangers is a cash box: “Place your order there.” natural reflex in this immigrant-heavy metropolis. And as Not two minutes later, the grill master passed me a tango dancers around the world attest, there is no steak sandwich that I had to hold with two hands. I embrace in the world that can match the warmth of an stopped by the Puestito’s equivalent of a salsa bar, sprin - Argentine’s. kled on a bit of chimichurri sauce (with parsley, oregano, At the end of the taxi adventure with Luis toward that revelatory steak sandwich, I realized this is as true in a cab as it is on the dance floor.

22 POMONA COLLEGE MAGAZINE WINTER 2009 23 2 A STANDOUT PITCHER AT POMONA-PITZER, ADAM GARDNER ’04 SPENT THREE YEARS IN THE MINOR LEAGUES, CHASING HIS DREAMS FOR $20 A DAY...

D In the minor leagues, where we spend so a team 30 years ago when none of this stuff existed (save for the

A much time on the road, riding in style all depends on those first magazines). O

R 10 minutes when the bus is loading up. Friendships are ruined Were the teams closer-knit as a result of their having to inter -

E and seniority rules, because everyone’s trying to get their own act socially with each other on long road trips? At no other time

H seats. Having two chairs to yourself on a tour bus is a world is our team physically closer to one another than when we’re on T away from being holed up with another guy, possibly asleep and the bus, but I think it’s when we speak to each other the M drooling all over you for a torturous journey home. least. Those who aren’t attached to their iPods are talking on O

R Fortunately, there are a few surefire ways to snag solo seating the phone, and anyone else is watching the DVD playing on the F on the bus: bus’s entertainment system. S

E 1) Play the age card . The veterans—we’re talking anyone On the way back from our last trip to Southern California, L the bus was having issues, so our driver turned the movie off,

A over 26—always get their own seats. They can trump anyone’s T argument for a seat simply by saying “I’m way older than you came on the loudspeaker and said, “Well boys, headquarters told are,” and everyone else agrees. It’s one of the few tangible me that we need to turn off all the extra electronic equipment in rewards a guy gets for sticking it out in the minors. the bus if we’re gonna make it home, so night-night!” All the 2) Arrive early, go to sleep . If you’re able to fall asleep after running lights turned off, and we were in the middle of I-5, claiming a seat and setting up shop, you’re probably in the clear. doing 75 m.p.h.with nothing to do. Someone started a game of

Bring a pillow, get under a blanket and zonk out. You’ve got to categories, which got old, because that’s what we do during be totally out for this strategy to pay off. Some guys will call games, not after them. bluffs if they don’t think a teammate is really sleeping. I also Then, someone suggested that since the lights were off, we have witnessed the ultimate awkward interaction, in which one make a covert excursion to the back of the bus. Well, we could - guy sat down next to an already slumbering teammate, only to n’t just go back there; we had to make it like we were Navy be ruthlessly booted from the seat after Sleeping Beauty woke Seals and have call signs and everything. One guy started army- up and pulled the seniority card. crawling rearwards, trying to scare a player sitting in the back, 3) Set up camp “for two.” Also called “The Gardner,” this and was taken prisoner by the back-of-the-bus “rebels.” Five maneuver requires getting there early, putting a backpack and minutes later, all hell broke loose. They launched a counterat - maybe a Gatorade on one seat, and then a laptop and another tack, and we snagged one of their guys. Thankfully, our man beverage on the other seat. Guys walk up, see two drinks and who’d been taken prisoner was an athletic centerfielder, and he two bags, and continue down the aisle. I’ve patented this move hopped over about 10 bus seats back to safety. Meanwhile, we’d and it works most of the time. bribed our own captive with magazines and candy, and he didn’t The bottom line: If you’re on your game and have been want to go back. around for a few seasons, you’re almost certain to get your own None of the coaches even woke up, and the bus driver was seat on the bus and a serene ride to your destination. too worried about whether the beast would make it back to San Strange as it seems, the bus rides are one of my favorite parts Jose to notice. These episodes where we all lapse back into child - of playing minor league baseball. During the day, you just listen hood make it fun and keep the mood light. Nobody is making to music and watch America whiz by out the window, and at money, few are moving up, but we’re winning games and every night, relax and watch a movie before dozing off. Still, sitting once in a while get to act like we’re 10 years old again. on the bus with my iPod on to drown out the sound of other players talking on their cell phones, flipping through a magazine This story is adapted from a blog that Adam Gardner ’04 kept STORY BY ADAM GARDNER ’04 and half paying attention to the DVD playing in the back - during his last minor league season, playing for the Class A San ILLUSTRATION BY DANIEL VASCONCELLOS ground, I have to wonder what it must have been like to play on Jose Giants.

24 POMONA COLLEGE MAGAZINE WINTER 2009 25 3 The drive-by photography of Andrew Bush ’79 leaves you wondering where the people behind the wheels (and an entire city) are heading... Story by Mark Kendall / Photos by Andrew Bush D A O R

E FLASH, CLICK, HIT THE GAS H T

M O R F

S E L A T

26 POMONA COLLEGE MAGAZINE Daround Los ARngeles in hisI sensiVble-gray NissIan SeNntra, AndrewG Bush ’79 was just another anonymous motorist, sealed off from the passing world, until he decided to take along a flashy companion. Bush mounted a medium-format camera in his passenger side window using a special bracket and, starting in the late ’80s, set off on a series of marathon excursions along the freeways. The photographer wanted to show people driving their cars , and the freeways provided the widest range of pos - sible subjects. “We pass hundreds of drivers at 50 or 60 miles per hour every day,’’ says Bush. “But we seldom see or remember them.” Over the course of a decade, Bush’s project yielded thousands of photos and, because this is L.A., the inevitable car chase. Bush knows well how we love to drive somewhere, anywhere, to be free and in motion. How we’ll find a way to justify going 30 miles for, say, paper clips, just to be on the open road. “Being sealed off in a car is not too differ - ent than being in a movie theatre by yourself,” says Bush, whose freeway photos were recently published as a book, Drive, from Yale University Press. The difference: “you’re sort of the director of your own film and also the person running the projector. You project your fantasies onto the windshield and steer your car to what you want to see and into your own denouement.” Cut to the chase, you say? Bush’s was the low-speed variety, though he still was fortunate to escape unscathed. After he photographed a passing Ferrari, the driver followed him down the 405 Freeway, so Bush switched to the 10, which runs into Pacific Coast Highway, where there’s a stoplight, which, of course, Bush got stuck at. The man got out of his car and demanded the film. Bush complied, just to be rid of the guy, but the hot - head still grabbed Bush’s keys from the ignition, tossed them into the street and threatened to kill him if he ever “messed” with him again. Such rage was the exception. Really, what sort of expectation of privacy should drivers have while hurtling along a public freeway with thousands of Preceding pages: “Beverly Hills high school students Getty Drive exit at 4:01 on a Tuesday in September 1997”; “Woman taking her time rambling south at 63 west at 60 mph on U.S. Route 101 in the vicinity of other motorists? “When you’re driving, you’re a voyeur to begin with,” cruising west at 38 mph along Sunset Boulevard on a 1992.” Below, left to right: “Man and woman passing mph on the Hollywood Freeway near the Vine Street exit Hollywood on a late Sunday afternoon in March 1991.” Bush says. “I’m just a voyeur looking at other voyeurs.” Some subjects were weekend in February 1997.” Above: “Man drifting near through the intersection of Cahuenga and Hollywood in Los Angeles on a Saturday afternoon in 1991”; and All photographs and descriptions are taken from Andrew the shoulder at 61 mph on Interstate 405 around the boulevards, Hollywood, at 33 mph on February 14, “Man (possibly someone in character) traveling north - Bush’s new book, Drive, with the permission of the pho - flattered, even flirtatious. This was their paparazzi moment. “I wanted to make drivers stand still, and photographing them with a flash turned them into a celebrity, gave them a face and identity in a place where they seemed elusive, anonymous and invisible.” The result of all his behind-the-wheel artistry is a collective portrait of L.A. that makes you wonder just where the motorists—and the city—are heading. The photos have gone on exhibition at such venues as The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and, most fittingly, the Department of Motor Vehicles office in L.A. There will be simultaneous exhibitions of the work this April in New York at the Julie Saul Gallery and Yossi Milo Gallery. Bush didn’t have the project published in book form until this past spring, holding off, he concedes, because there were just too many photos to sort through without the aid of a computer—nor did he want to acknowl - edge that the project was over. No car-loving Californian ever wants to reach the end of the road.

28 POMONA COLLEGE MAGAZINE WINTER 2009 29 4 IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE,

LAID-OFF BANKER STEVE WILKINSON ’82 D A O R

E SLID BEHIND THE WHEEL OF A BIG RIG H T

M O

R AND NEVER LOOKED BACK. F

S E L A T THE LONG HAUL

STORY BY WILLIAM LOBDELL PHOTOS BY CARLOS PUMA

30 POMONA COLLEGE MAGAZINE for that much money,” Wilkinson says. “I and T-shirts and stays freshly shaven steadier version—a hard-working, simple- trum of color with hints of green, pink knew our customers’ business well.” except for a short goatee. Imagine him in living loner who is more comfortable and purple that he’ll see in a desert sun - Despite his success, Wilkinson was a suit and tie and maybe a pair of glasses, working under the open sky than in a rise. “It’s Mother Nature’s gift to those professionally miserable, feeling trapped in and you’ll see the banker he once was. fancy office. who were diligent enough to get up his career. He didn’t see any viable escape “I stick to the program and have Talk to Wilkinson long enough, and early,” he’ll say. routes until, in 1990, he was laid off. amazingly few troubles,” Wilkinson says. you’ll get a sense of the romance he finds He often grabs the camera in his “It was one of the happiest days of His affable manner and attention to on the road. He’ll tell you about the cab to shoot photos of America as he my life,” he says. “I knew my career was detail have made him one of the top-rated sweet aroma of melons ripening in the drives. He posts them on the Internet going in the wrong direction, but I drivers for Bohren’s Moving and Storage, summer fields along the California- (www.myspace.com/truckerstevewilk) so wasn’t doing anything about it. The lay - an agent of United Van Lines. If there’s a Arizona border; the pungent scent that others can get a feel for the beauty he off was a blessing in disguise.” fault, it’s that Wilkinson is too smart. arises from the desert after a thunder - sees on the road. Then his trucker cousin, Paul “That’s a double-edged sword there,” storm; and the stench of burning brakes “I love this country,” Wilkinson says Wilkinson, invited him to tag along on a says Scott Vogel, a planner for Bohren’s. from a fellow trucker coming too fast unnecessarily. “That’s a big part of why cross-country trip. “He’s definitely intelligent, but you don’t down a mountain road. I’m out here doing this. I’m going to do “He was looking for an industry to want to think too much, if you know He’ll talk about the soul-lifting spec - this as long as my body will hold out.” ROM THE PASSENGER SEAT OF THE 18-WHEELER, get into, and I was hoping to discourage what I mean. Sometimes you just have to STEVE WILKINSON ’82 MARVELED AT THE VIEW AS him from trucking,” Paul Wilkinson says go with” the trip Bohren’s has laid out. with a laugh. “But he really did fall in In a good year, Wilkinson, an inde - TFHE MAJESTIC ROCKY MOUNTAINS GAVE WAY TO THE love with it. I actually questioned his san - pendent contractor, will drive 80,000 ity. I was stuck; he had options.” miles and make a six-figure profit. In his PLAINS OF NEBRASKA AND THEIR ENDLESS CORNFIELDS. ern Oklahoma, you see greenery every - But after the cross-country ride in the worst year, he made about $20,000. STEVE WILKINSON’S where. It’s the dividing line between the A recently laid-off bank executive, Now, 18 years later, Wilkinson is 18-wheeler, Steve Wilkinson knew what “I could literally flip burgers and wide-open West and the East.” Wilkinson, then 30, couldn’t get over the telling this story as he barrels down he wanted to do. He started at the bot - make that much,” Wilkinson says. sense of freedom and wonder he felt on Interstate 10 outside of Blythe in his own tom, loading and unloading trucks. Then The fluctuating income isn’t the only 10 FAVORITE Oregon: The his first trip in a big-rig truck. No meet - big rig with his nickname “Ca Dude” (a he went on the road for nine months downside to trucking. There’s the DRIVES IN AMERICA Columbia River ings, no reports, no office, no bosses. As nod to his California roots and passion with a veteran trucker, who gave him vagabond lifestyle, truck-stop living, kid - gorge on Interstate crazy as it sounded, he started to think: for surfing) painted on the driver door. driving lessons during their down time. ney-jarring rides, mechanical breakdowns Arizona & California: Interstate 10 84 in Oregon. maybe I could make a career out of driv - It’s nearly a seven-hour haul from Los About a year later, he got his trucker’s in the middle of nowhere, blizzards, and the desert. “It’s so wide open and you “Most gorgeous ing a truck. Angeles to Phoenix, and it takes most of license, cashed in his 401(k) and bought windstorms and the difficulty in develop - can see for hundreds of miles. To me, that’s drive anywhere.” His cousin, a veteran trucker who was that time for Wilkinson to explain how a a used truck with 300,000 miles on it for ing long-term romantic relationships. just total freedom.” driving, shook Wilkinson from those psychology major from Pomona College a down payment of $20,000. He says his Wilkinson, whose home base is an Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania thoughts with a surprise command, “Take found happiness as a long-haul trucker, parents, though surprised, were happy he apartment in New Jersey, has never been Colorado: Interstate Turnpike. “Rolling hills covered with trees— the wheel. I need a nap. Just keep it at living up to 300 days a year on the road had a profession he loved. married. “It’s no fun being alone, but 70 west of Denver. “The one of the most prettiest sights you’ll ever 65, and you won’t have to change gears.” as he crisscrosses the country. In many ways, it’s easy to see how interestingly enough, when I’m out here interstate runs right see, especially during the fall.” So at 65 miles per hour on Interstate Wilkinson, 48, grew up in a conserva - Wilkinson’s former career as a banker on the road, I don’t feel alone,” he says. down in the Colorado 80, Wilkinson—who had never driven a tive family in San Marino. Both parents influences his work as a trucker. His He has developed a tight group of River gorge. Spectacular.” truck—grabbed the wheel of a fully attended Pomona, and his father carved cab—his office—is spotless, with not friends in trucking, and they serve as a loaded big rig weighing 37 tons. As his out a successful career as a stockbroker even a straw wrapper on the floor. He second family. Bryan Jensen, a trucker Kentucky: The Martha Layne Collins Blue cousin slipped out of the driver’s seat, and investment counselor. Wilkinson said keeps meticulous records—from the from New Jersey, befriended Wilkinson Grass Parkway. “Just like in a book, rolling Wilkinson slid into a new career. He it just seemed natural that he, too, would inventory he’s carrying in the truck to his after running into him several times at a green hills, horses and white fences.” drove the next 200 miles—white knuckles attend Pomona (his sister went to Scripps gas mileage. He knows, for example, that truck stop. on the wheel, eyes darting between the College) and find work in finance. if he drives cross-country at 62 mph “He’s not your typical B.S. artist you New Mexico: road, his side-view mirrors and the con - “The whole time I was at Pomona, I instead of 70, he’ll save $400 on fuel. get from the usual trucker,” Jensen says. Interstate 40. “To see stellation of gauges on the dashboard. knew I would get a job in business and And he keeps a strict schedule, getting “The way he presents himself and his the mesas and volcanic As his cousin napped, Wilkinson— wear a suit and tie,” Wilkinson says. on the road each day at sunrise and try - intelligence definitely do stick out. Steve terrain, it looks like an nine years after graduating from Pomona “That’s all I knew. I had blinders on.” ing to get off it by sunset. To make as will break any subject down for you, and ocean floor with no College—became more convinced with After graduation, he got into a man - much distance as possible each day (he I’ll listen to him—even if I don’t under - water.” each mile that this was what he really agement-training program at Union usually crosses the country in four days), stand what he’s saying.” Utah: Bryce Canyon National Park on U.S. wanted to do for a living. The open road Bank, and after two years was promoted Wilkinson doesn’t stop for lunch and The friends and six-figure earning New York: Any of the bridges crossing 89 and Zion National Park between had seduced the banker. to assistant vice president in one of its takes only sips from a Gatorade bottle, potential are nice, but Wilkinson became over the Hudson River north of New York Highway 89 and Interstate 15. “You’ll be “I was freaked out and amazed,” he branch offices. Wilkinson had a knack for which usually eliminates the need for a truck driver because he’s a throwback. City. “The Hudson River is more majestic blown away by the geography.” says. “I had a blast. This job was so dif - judging credit risks, and eventually found bathroom breaks. He won’t say it in these words, but long- than the Mississippi River.” ferent—the freedom, the easy entry into himself at First Interstate Bank oversee - At 5-foot-10 and a ripped 170 pounds haul trucking makes him feel like a cow - Wyoming: Interstate 80: “You absolutely the business, and I liked being in control ing a $400 million loan portfolio. “I was from loading and unloading his truck, boy. Not the kind of cowboy who gets Oklahoma: Interstate 40. “In western feel like you’re on top of the world crossing of my own destiny.” very comfortable with being responsible Wilkinson dresses neatly in clean jeans drunk and starts a barroom fight, but the Oklahoma, you see red clay soil and in east - the Rocky Mountains.”

32 POMONA COLLEGE MAGAZINE PHOTOS BY STEVE WILKINSON WINTER 2009 33 NEIL KOEHLER ’81 TAKES THE LEAD IN DEFENDING CORN ETHANOL.

for FCONUTROVE ERSLY Story by Mark Kendall / Photos by Robert Durell

34 POMONA COLLEGE MAGAZINE WINTER 2009 35 eil Koehler ’81 runs on ethanol, persistence and optimism. He’s been talking Koehler agrees that corn ethanol isn’t the complete solution was increasing as well. Investors turned on to alternative fuels. and that the nation will need a broad range of alternative energy When Microsoft founder Bill Gates pumped $84 million into up biofuels for more than 25 years now, rising to head the West Coast’s sources. “It’s not perfect,” he says of corn ethanol. “But while Pacific Ethanol in 2006, it drew plenty of attention, which led we have an industrial society and people who drive cars … we to more investment in the firm. largest ethanol producer and emerging as a spokesman for the entire industry. have to make these tradeoffs.” In his early crusading days, Koehler recalls, he used to tell But his path to prominence has been more wild, potholed ride than smooth His company and others are working on making ethanol his wife that ethanol “is going to be something big,” and she from cellulosic sources—wheat straw, switchgrass, poplar trees— would jokingly confirm what he knew: “Yes, you’re a Sunday drive. Lately, the biofuels biz seems caught up in a smash-up derby. in pursuit of what Koehler calls the “Holy Grail” of ethanol pro - dreamer.” After the Gates investment came through, though, duction. But for now there are obstacles to large-scale cellulosic Koehler remembers her saying, “I think you’re right. This is Just as the ethanol market was taking off, revved by high oil this country.” But then he said that’s a good thing because ris - N production and corn, Koehler says, remains the most economi - something big.” prices and government requirements that it be added to gas, the ing corn prices have eliminated the need for billions of dollars in cally viable ethanol option for the U.S. Ethanol got another boost when then-President Bush touted fuel’s image was taking hits. A Time magazine cover from last U.S. subsidies for growers. He went on to note that his compa - Ethanol’s practicality is what attracted Koehler in the first it in his 2007 State of the Union address. Later that same year, spring distilled the new skepticism in bold type: “The Clean ny uses feed corn to make its ethanol and the leftover corn mash place. Congress passed an energy bill mandating increased ethanol fuel Energy Myth: Politicians and Big Business are pushing biofuels is then sold for cattle feed. And he got the last word in before While at Pomona, Koehler took a year off and traveled the use down the road. like corn-based ethanol … All they’re really doing is driving up the segment ended: “High oil prices are the No. 1 cause for the Middle East, where he was enthralled with the region’s history, Pacific Ethanol’s plan was to quickly carve out a big chunk of food prices and making global warming worse.” high price of food—not biofuels—and we are part of the solu - religions and “this crazy thing called oil.” He graduated in the the West Coast market, distilling ethanol close to market and As if the media drubbing weren’t enough, there was big tion to the high oil prices.” aftermath of the ’70s oil crisis: “I just came out of school saying also selling the corn-mash after-product as feed for cattle nearby. trouble on the business side to boot. Corn prices spiked, then What’s this guy full of? Granola, it turns out. A long-time ‘this is a real problem.’” Now with five plants in three western states, Koehler’s company gas prices plunged, then the credit Green Party member who Post-Pomona, he went on to UC Davis through a Kellogg has succeeded in boosting its production from 65 million gal - crisis hit, cutting off the flow of grew up in nature-loving Foundation program designed to teach future policy leaders lons in 2007 to 220 million by the end of 2008 lending to a business that requires Portland, Ore., he drives a about agriculture. After taking a job with the state’s Department The company’s latest, $150 million plant opened in investment in infrastructure. At Prius that recently surpassed of Food and Agriculture, he was turned onto ethanol, which he Stockton, Calif. in September. Showing off the plant, Koehler year’s end, Koehler’s company, 70,000 miles. Despite his CEO quickly saw as the most viable way to reduce the nation’s explains that in a sense the facility is just a big distillery, with the Pacific Ethanol, was trading at status and income, Koehler dependence on foreign oil, something that could make “a very product going through a process of heating and cooling on its under a buck a share, and like lives in an eco-conscious subdi - immediate and meaningful contribution.” way to becoming ethyl alcohol—ethanol. He walks beneath an others in the business, feeling the vision that sprouted in Davis, Through his state job, he met ethanol innovator Rick elaborate series of overhead pipes that deliver hot and cold liq - squeeze. “It’s a struggle every Calif. in the ’70s with solar- Eastman, and they would wind up running one of California’s uids to the next stage of production. It’s all carefully monitored day,” says Koehler, president and powered homes, community first ethanol plants, built in Rancho Cucamonga, converting the on computer screens in the control room. CEO of the firm based in gardens and shared yards. This oozy aftermath of soda pop and beer production into ethanol as But beyond the tightly-controlled setting of this plant, Sacramento, Calif. “But it’s a is a CEO who only owns one a niche business. In those pioneering days, the state’s tiny metaphorical pipes are bursting all over the place these days. struggle worth fighting.” usable suit for investor meet - ethanol industry was made up of an adventurous, idealist mix of Last fall’s stock market bust and investor panic cut off the flow And one the steady, camera- ings in New York. Rest of the farmers and entrepreneurs. “There were a lot of people that of funding to the ethanol business, which was already struggling ready Koehler is up for. “He is the time, a sport-coat will do. were in it almost for religious reasons,” Koehler says. from temporary overbuilding and high corn prices. The global most optimistic, positive-thinking Of course, his bearded, gui - Koehler became the ethanol evangelist, working the halls of recession also pushed down oil prices, which pushes down person that I’ve ever met,” says tar-playing green vibe doesn’t the state capitol, touting its potential. “From a California per - ethanol prices. Bob Eckert ’81, Koehler’s first-year Pomona roommate and guarantee Koehler is right about using corn as a fuel source. In spective, he was probably Mr. Ethanol in terms of having the Now Pacific Ethanol and other upstart ethanol businesses are longtime friend. He’s competitive, too, adds Eckert, who has recent years, the upstart industry has drawn criticism over issues early vision and having the perseverance,” says Jack King of the battling for survival. One of the largest, VeraSun, recently filed played many a Frisbee Golf game with Koehler. that include fears that clearing grasslands and forests for biofuel California Farm Bureau. “He really was at the forefront keeping for bankruptcy. In January of this year, Koehler’s company’s Before settling on political science, Koehler’s first plan at crops will increase greenhouse gas emissions. Some researchers the issue alive and talking it up. The early days weren’t easy.” announced it was temporarily shutting down its Madera, Calif. Pomona was to major in theatre, and today he has embraced the have even questioned whether ethanol yields more energy than Far from the corn-fed Midwest, California wasn’t enthused plant due to “extended unfavorable market conditions.” role of taking the industry’s message to TV. In the rapid-fire, it takes to make it. about ethanol. In the ’90s, when federal regulations required “There will definitely be a shakeout,” says Koehler of the gotta-keep-this-interesting world of cable news, Koehler sticks A University of Minnesota study from 2006 made more of a the state to add an oxygenate to gas to reduce emissions, highly-fragmented ethanol biz. “We’re seeing it today. There to a few simple points, finishing his sentences even when he’s middle-of-the-road assessment, noting that corn ethanol “deliv - California picked MTBE ( methyl tertiary butyl ether ). Then evi - will be a consolidation.” interrupted, touting his product as a domestically-produced ers 25 percent more energy than is used (mostly fossil fuels) in dence emerged that MTBE was polluting groundwater and the But even with the near-term trouble, Koehler points out that alternative to our “very dangerous dependence on oil.” producing it, though much of that 25 percent energy dividend state banned it in 1999. California turned to ethanol as the ethanol’s future looks bright. Federal mandates call for annual “Ethanol today is providing the only meaningful alternative comes from the production of an ethanol byproduct, animal alternative, and this move by the nation’s most populous state production of 36 billion gallons of biofuel by 2022, with up to to oil and gas in the internal combustion engine,” he said on feed,” as reported on the university’s Web. But the study also was a big break for ethanol—and Koehler. 15 billion gallons coming from corn. CNBC in April. found that even if all the corn in the U.S. were used to produce He had been running an ethanol marketing business when he As for the current challenges, Koehler has been through In another of several CNBC appearances last year, Koehler ethanol, that production would only offset about 12 percent of connected with former California Secretary of State Bill Jones, a plenty of ups and downs in this business before. He deals with waited to respond while Paul Roberts, the author of The End of gasoline use. Republican rancher-farmer, who was also interested in the possi - the stress by playing Frisbee Golf with a buddy after work, run - Food , criticized the biofuels industry for, on the one hand, say - Corn ethanol has been “a success in demonstrating that we bilities of ethanol. Out of that, Pacific Ethanol was born in 2003 ning or jogging through the entire game. Then, later at night, ing that it’s making a difference in fuel supply but, on the other can make significant amounts of liquid fuel” from renewable with Jones becoming chairman of the board and Koehler presi - he gets back to work on his computer at home. hand, saying biofuel production doesn’t affect food prices. “It sources, says Professor David Tilman, coauthor of the study. dent and CEO. Whatever the complications of the wider world, Koehler doesn’t wash,” said Roberts. Still, the fuel’s net energy yield won’t do for the long term, and They were onto something. Not only was California now in seems to have found his own endless, renewable energy Getting his turn, Koehler deftly agreed that “there is no Tilman is “hoping it will soon be replaced by the next genera - the game, but as gasoline prices rose, national interest in ethanol source. question that ethanol has helped support the price of grain in tion of biofuels.”

36 POMONA COLLEGE MAGAZINE WINTER 2009 37 NANCY SIMMONS ’81 DELVES INTO THE MYSTERIES OF HOW AND WHEN BATS BECAME THE FLYING HUNTERS OF THE NIGHT. WONIN AG AND AN STORY BY SALLY ANN FLECKER

PHOTOS BY PIOTR REDLINSKI WORLD PICTURE NEWS

ne of the great pleasures of summer is that sliver of evening suspended between twilight and dusk when the Odeepening sky seems in no hurry to yield to night. That’s the time the bat comes swooping over our roof. Look up , I tell my kids, and we watch, transfixed while it sails through the air, wings fluttering as fast as a baby’s heartbeat. It makes a few figure eights in long elliptical loops above our houses, darting here and there to snatch an insect in mid- flight. Then it’s gone, and we’re left, undeniably earthbound, with a feeling of wonder. >>

38 POMONA COLLEGE MAGAZINE There’s a lot to marvel over when it comes to bats. I didn’t five living mammal species is a bat. They live on every continent ers” evolved has eluded evolutionary biologists until now. is studying come into play . The new bat, which Simmons and know that while our bat was putting on its air show, it was figur - except Antarctica, with many congregating in the tropics. When Simmons’ primary research interest is evolutionary biology her team named Onychonycteris, has characteristics that place it ing out what was in the environment around it by producing Simmons did field work in French Guiana a few years back, she and the anatomy of organisms—how they are built, how they early in bat evolution. For instance, it has claws on all five fin - high frequency sounds—much too high for human ears. That’s found 76 species of bats, all within a three-kilometer walk from got that way, how they are related to one another, and how you gers, just as its terrestrial ancestors did. And it has the anatomi - called echolocation. It’s one of two very specialized capabilities camp. That may make it sound like it was a piece of cake to find can tell. Most of her work is done with living species of bats. cal features, the exceptionally long fingers, for instance, needed that give bats a big advantage in the mammal world. The other so many. But Simmons and her team worked hard for that But because of her training in paleontology, she is also interest - for flight. is flight. For years, evolutionary biologists have been curious to bounty, placing their traps and nets high and low. They crawled ed in fossils, which is why the ancient bat fossils—in her hand Bats that echolocate share three anatomical features. The first know which of the two came first. This past year, Nancy into wet, mucky roosts, which, in the rainforest, might be in a now as she shows them to me—were brought to her attention. is an enlarged cochlea—the spiral-shaped cavity of the inner ear. Simmons ’81, in an article in Nature, put the question to rest. hollow log or in the shelter formed by the many buttress roots Here’s how echolocation works. The bat beams out a high- Next is the stylohyal element that connects the base of the skull Simmons is curator-in-charge of mammalogy and chair of the of a fallen tree—neither being particularly inviting unless you pitched call through the mouth, and in some species, through to the bones in the throat that support the voicebox muscle. In vertebrate zoology division at the American Museum of Natural have a penchant for brushing up against creepy-crawlies. the nose. When the sound encounters something, it bounces bats that echolocate, the stylohyal is long and skinny, with a History in New York City, and an expert on bats. Simmons’ That’s not to mention the conditions—nasty, rainy, muddy, back. The bat’s specialized hearing allows it not only to detect paddle at the end to help it attach more firmly to the base of the office, which you would never be able to find without a guide, is with multitudes of mosquitoes, and having to work on little the sound, but also process skull. Finally, the malleus, the kind of well broken-in, sleep. Bats are nocturnal. If the amount of time it took the ear ossicle that contacts professorial study that would you’re going to study bats in to bounce back. What that the eardrum, has a knob on look right at home at many a the field, you have to work at gives them is kind of a sono - the end that affects how it college. Well, except for the night. But in order to maxi - gram on the fly, a map of vibrates. It’s clear from the trophy lion from the museum’s mize your catch at night, you what’s around. specimen that collection looking down from work most of the day, too. You But here’s a twist—not Onychonycteris had none of its perch above the fireplace move nets and process samples. all bats echolocate. One these features. Simmons mantel. And the flying fox— Then you grab something to family out of the 19 living could see there was no way one of the larger bats, hovering eat and run back out to spend families of bats uses vision it could echolocate. with spread wings in the air - most of the night picking bats rather than echolocation. Mystery solved—it’s flight space next to Simmons’ com - out of nets. That’s the Old World fruit first. puter monitor. And the pickle The sheer diversity of the bat or flying fox, like the Before I leave her office, jars further down on her work - order Chiroptera—from the one hanging at Simmons’ Simmons shows me a few table, each holding a bat—one Greek words for hand and desk. They don’t eat insects; other bats from the muse - labeled India, May 1923, the wing—fascinates Simmons. they eat fruit and flowers for um’s collection, which other Belize 2002—preserved Give Simmons three minutes nectar. Interestingly, they includes around 60,000 bat in a murky solution. Then and she can paint a pretty good are less diverse than the specimens representing there are the real gems: two picture for you. Consider dif - other 80 percent of bats almost every species from recently discovered 52 million- ferences in size, for starters. who use echolocation. around the world. She year-old fossils of a kind of bat never before seen, collected at The very smallest, she says, weighs about a gram—less than a “How did these features evolve? How did bats become flying shows me fossils, skulls, bones, molars, full skeletons, skins. She Wyoming’s Green River geological formation. One is on loan penny—as an adult and when its wings are fully open, the span mammals? How did they become echolocating mammals?” takes a bat out of a display drawer that looks like a little stuffed from a private collector, the other from the Royal Ontario is around three inches. At the other end of the spectrum is a bat Simmons asks. “And, one of the most basic questions is, did animal. This one has been prepared so that the banding patterns Museum. Each is oddly beautiful and mysterious—delicate, pet - that has a wing span up to six feet. these two features evolve together or did one come first?” on its fur can be studied. As she talks, she strokes its head gently rified bones encased in a grainy slab of putty-colored stone that Most of us think that bats fly around and catch bugs, and Until recently, there were three theories about bat evolution. the way you would a pet. “From the mammal’s basic biological fits comfortably in Simmons’ hand. The extravagantly long hand many of them do. There are bats that are specialized for feeding There’s a flight first hypothesis that suggests bats had a gliding plan—we’re warm-blooded, we have hair, we give milk, we have and finger bones that once supported its wings dangle like on beetles, she says, and bats that are specialized for feeding on ancestor. They evolved flight as a means to get around in their a skeleton inside, we have a basic set of internal organs—you streamers at the end of folded arms. Its rib cage seems swelled moths, and bats specialized for feeding close to the ground, and environment, and later developed echolocation to help them have things as diverse as bats and whales and horses and cats and with air, and each bone in its clawed feet seems poised to push still others that fly above the canopy. Some bats listen for the better detect the insects they need to eat in abundance. shrews. I just find that amazing,” she says. “I want to under - off for a flight that never came. The fossils were central to her sounds their quarry makes when hitting a leaf, and then dive in According to the second hypothesis, which argues for stand as much as I can about the evolution of diversity. And as work that landed on the cover of Nature . Simmons doesn’t to catch them. There are bats that snatch fish with their hind echolocation first, bats were a scrambling, tree-dwelling animal we collect more genetic data, more morphological data, and we know how much they’re worth. Actually, she clarifies, she’s been feet and bats that eat mice, lizards, small birds—sometimes even that used echolocation to detect food sources, and subsequently actually start to solve some of these problems, it’s just going to careful not to find out. other bats. evolved flight to get around better and to be able to chase after get better.” Bats weren’t something Simmons knew a lot about when she “We always sort of suspected there were two things that were the insects they detected through echolocation into the air. In the scientific world, answers beget more questions. Same accepted a post-doctoral fellowship at the American Museum in key to the evolution of bats that made it possible for them to In the 1990s, a new discovery showed that the high-intensity at my house. It’s winter now, and our bat is either hibernating 1989, although, she tells me, she had always thought they were diversify the way they did. One of those being flight, obviously, echolocation calls take a lot of energy to produce in a stationary or has gone some place warmer. “Bats are blind,” my six-year- “very cool.” She had spent years studying fossils—her graduate because it allows them to take advantage of a whole different bat. When the bat flies, though, the flight muscles pump the old tells me with great authority, adding the definitive, “Dad work focused on a group of Mesozoic mammals that have no part of the eco-world,” says Simmons. “The second is echoloca - lungs, so there is a savings in energy. This suggested a third the - said.” He thinks about it for a minute then asks, “If bats are living relatives. When she finished her Ph.D., she thought she tion because that allows them to access all of the flying insects of ory of tandem development: If there is no cost for echolocation blind, how can they fly?” His brother picks up the rubbery bat I would like to try working on an animal that had, as she puts it, the air, and it also allows them to navigate at night. They can when the bat is flying, maybe flight and echolocation evolved at brought back for him from the museum’s gift shop. He is five, living relatives and living diversity. be nocturnal, flying, aerial insectivores, and take advantage of the same time. so, of course, he flies it like an airplane around the room. Come There’s no doubt about bats having living relatives. There this vast set of riches of food stuff available.” All three theories were plausible, says Simmons, and virtually spring, when we welcome back our bat, we’re going to find a are 1,100 known living species, which means that one in every Understanding how—and when—these two bat “superpow - untestable—but here’s where the 52 million-year-old fossils she lot to talk about.

The Canadian Coast Guard ice-breaker Amundsen, photographed from the vessel’s helicopter. 40 POMONA COLLEGE MAGAZINE WINTER 2009 41 Our sponsor group helped us grow up. FLESH PILE Now it is helping us STORY BY STEVE GETTINGER ’70 in tILLUSTRhATION BYe STEPHANIES DALTON COkWAN y face death...

hen Carl Sautter’s goldfish died in the autumn pile was our central ritual, a lot like the celebratory rushing of of 1966, it marked the last of our innocence, back before dope the mound after the last out of the World Series—except that Wand banana peels and even beer (at least for some of us). Our for us, events as minor as getting a date or failing an exam could freshman sponsor group in Middle Smiley Hall gathered to put trigger guys to swarm each other to the ground. Burbles to rest. All 22 of us put on suits and marched behind By the time I graduated, I knew I had learned more from Carl and his fish’s matchbox coffin to the Wash. After a faux my friends than from my classes. (Although I can certainly hear solemn burial, we proceeded back to Frary and sat together for Professor Learnihan muttering that I might feel differently if I dinner, looking like dorks and beaming with our solidarity. had attended more of those classes.) We helped each other deal Because of our attire, we skipped the traditional fleshpile. with romance, rejection, different lifestyles and religions, ambi - Now, four decades later, that mock funeral has become all tion and more rejection—and we talked about it all the time. It too real. Carl Sautter, Scott Aleshire and Ian Joeck have all was, as Doug’s closest friend Aric Ludwig recalled, a “very prim - died. And then, last year, Doug Johnston—the blue-eyed listen - itive men’s group.” er who was always at the center of the pack—learned that his In the years since, the Middle Smiley/Phi Delta axis has brain cancer had come back after two years of remission. We kept in touch to share the romances and rejections of adult life. college pals got back in touch, trying to coax some last ellipti - Now we are learning from each other how to die. Or is it how cal jokes out of him and taking notes for our own futures. to live? Watching Doug’s last adventure brought home to me what a Either way, we couldn’t do it better than Doug. He was a vital force the sponsor group remains—a Pomona tradition that doctor in family practice in Northern California, married with is often underappreciated. three kids, who now are on their own adventures. As soon as he We had an unusually close sponsor group, and about half of was diagnosed with cancer, he immediately quit practicing medi - us joined a fraternity together, keeping the tie alive. The flesh - cine because the surgery and chemotherapy might interfere.> >

WINTER 2009 43 / Book Shelf / Fiction / Kyle Beachy ’01 For the next two years, between treatments, he devoted himself walked up to the edge of the abyss, looked in, and thought about to getting in shape and doing things he had always wanted to this, and I’m providing you herewith my counsel: Call us up from do—hiking in Alaska, traveling to Brazil, bicycling through the other side. This little sojourn on the surface of the planet is just Tuscany with his son, skiing in Alta. He delved into volunteer a dot in eternity. So stay in touch. work, joined a real men’s group and, more curiously to us, Another Sagehen e-mail found on his computer: Doug, once THE found a spiritual adviser, opening himself to a new dimension again you are out in front, a little more experienced, leading the outside the bounds of organized religion. way. All of us guys are very, very aware that our own diagnosis In September 2007, after the tumor returned, Doug was awaits just around the bend. Maybe we won’t even get much warn - still feeling good enough to join four of his sponsor group/frat ing. But we’ve learned from you that however much time we get, MAKING brothers for a long-anticipated week of sailing through the San we need to be active about doing the wonderful things that we Juan Islands. His son Robbie came along and in the evenings always wanted to do, and to include family and friends in our the two Johnston guys would sit on the foredeck, backs to the journey. You are leaving no claw marks behind you. OF A mast, watching the sunset and talking about Doug’s sailing trips Even the most unchurched of us all, Bob Hall, confessed to with his own father. One afternoon, Doug grabbed the helm Doug: from us, muttering “This may be my last shot at this,” and Knowing that you will be there to light beacons, open doors, FIRST drove the boat to full wind, and welcome us will be a comfort for chortling as the boat keeled at the rest of us when we face the an angle and the rest of us adventure you are undertaking. chanted up the numbers until Of course for my part—I hope NOVEL the speed gauge passed 7 that if there are two doors, you will STORY BY DAVID SCOTT / PHOTO BY BETH ROONEY knots—wimpy, but a record for open the right one for me, and not WORLD PICTURE NEWS our trip. Later we docked at an send me off with the other reprobates island marina and plunged into where I probably belong. When in a warm swimming pool. We doubt, I will yell out: “Where’s dog-paddled together, chatting Captain Doug? He can vouch for The Slide and bumping into each other me!” By Kyle Beachy ’01 like the puppies we had been P.S.—I am writing to all the The Dial Press, 2009 / 304 pages / $13 40 years earlier, and trying to guys to tell them it is time for us to stay immersed as long as we get our spiritual act together. Maybe could in the turquoise liquid a few less lies and jokes at the next magic. reunion and a little more serious Two weeks later, the tumor talk and meditation. Not that we Here’s how you’re supposed to become a published novelist: Rather, he takes a menial job, gets exploited by his frenemies, started pressing on his brain. shouldn’t still laugh a lot. Enroll in an established writing program. Work your connec - indulges his love of baseball, watches his sustaining relationships Over the month that followed, In fact, those Pomona reunions tions while workshopping a raft of short stories. Land in some crumble and makes some very wrong decisions for some very we all kept in touch with him had already become more sacred to literary journals while hitching your star to a “name” writer who right reasons that lead to nearly unspeakable consequences. The through phone calls and e-mail, us. Every five years, we go to the can introduce you into the right circles and provide a juicy jack - book explores, in Beachy’s words, “the crater that is created and guys came from across the official class function in Claremont Doug Johnston ’70 et blurb. Sit back and watch the fruit of this labor climb the trel - when you land back home.” country for one more B.S. ses - and enjoy it, but then we retreat lis of The New York Times bestseller list. Beachy began The Slide in 2001, the same time that he was sion. An unanswered call met together to a cabin in the Mojave Kyle Beachy—whose first novel was published in January by rejected by several established graduate writing programs. A year with the chipper greeting: “This is Doug—leave a message, but Desert for a few days to catch up, listen to the old albums on a The Dial Press, a division of Random House—was having none later, he was accepted at the University of Arizona and the don’t expect me to return it quickly because I may be in a portable stereo, and play the fool. In 2010, we’ll all be in our of that. To be fair, when Beachy graduated from Pomona in School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). SAIC offered a coma.” He died on Nov. 4, wearing a fraternity T-shirt—proba - 60s, rather than back in the 60s. Maybe it’s time to look ahead, 2001, he was more unsure of what he wanted to do than how relatively unstructured curriculum—the school is known prima - bly just the top one in the drawer after his bath, but as Doug’s not back. to do it. He’d come to Pomona from St. Louis to play baseball. rily for its visual arts training—while the program at Arizona wife Patty said, there may be fewer coincidences than we think After Doug died, Bob wrote to the rest of us: He ended up with a philosophy/English double major and a cleaved to the more conservative, time-honored workshop in this world. That last morning when I was visiting Doug at home a few love for novels that explored ideas. model. Beachy turned to Pomona for advice; during his senior During his last two years, Doug was quite open in talking weeks ago, he played the piano for me—with his one good hand, Although he did write for The Student Life , Beachy says, “I year he had been part of a team of students who interviewed the about his poor odds and his spiritual challenges, and he achieved ignoring the pages that flapped back and forth before him. When I didn’t write my first piece of fiction until I had already left late David Foster Wallace as a writing professor applicant. a peace with it all that banished our lugubrious fretting. At asked him what he was playing, he pointed at the top of the page: Pomona. It wasn’t something I considered at all. I got out of “I wrote to him once I was in the program at the Art Institute, gatherings throughout our younger years, discussion of what “The Crystal Ship” by the Doors. He turned to me and gave me his school and I realized I had no idea what I wanted to do, so I and he essentially gave me a high-five for not going to Arizona,” happens outside of this material world had always gotten buried incredible big smile—it was a smile to remember—and said: “I figured I should try writing a book. That was—what?—eight Beachy says. “The beauty of SAIC is that people essentially under our beer bottles, silly rituals and maudlin reminiscences. took up the piano to learn this song.” years ago now? Yeah, it’s the same book.” stayed away from me and let me do the work I wanted to do.” Now, in walks and chats and e-mails, Doug cracked that vault “The days are bright and filled with pain “It” is The Slide , the story of a pivotal summer in the life of That work led to a finished manuscript of The Slide and a open for all of us. Enclose me in your gentle rain 22-year-old Potter Mays who returns home to St. Louis from a place at the prestigious Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference. There Steve Hickok, who at Pomona had been the voice of pure The time you ran was too insane small college outside of Los Angeles with no idea of what he he quickly learned two things: none of the loafers knew quite science, wrote to him: When I had heart surgery in 2005, I We’ll meet again, we’ll meet again.” wants to do. Unlike Kyle, Potter doesn’t think to write a book. what to make of his “outsider” manuscript and he had “no> >

44 POMONA COLLEGE MAGAZINE WINTER 2009 45 / Book Shelf/ / New Knowledge /

actual understanding of the way publishing worked—how self- Bookmarks / Alumni and Faculty Authors contained and self-perpetuating the system can be.” He under - English / Professor Kevin Dettmar stood that “no Marilynne Robinson or Joyce Carol Oates was going to hold my hand and lead me into the world of publish - Your Healthcare is in the Toilet And They’re Ready to Flush It ing, saying, ‘Here he is. Fall at his feet and give him a lot of Stephen Borowsky , M.D., ’62, who practiced medicine for 24 money.’ I was forced—and for me I feel like this was a good years, analyzes the healthcare system, its history and flaws, as well thing—to make it happen on my own.” as the roles of politicians and the businessmen who run healthcare. A product of the Internet age, Beachy knew where next to Xlibris Corporation • 112 pages • $19.99 turn. “Thank God almost every literary agent’s name in the country is available online. You can track that person down, The Blossoms Are The Ghosts at write an e-mail and say, ‘I think you should read my book the Wedding Selected Poems & Essays because I think you can sell it.’” Essayist, poet and sculptor Tom Jay ’65 writes on topics One hundred and seventeen e-mails later, he found someone from etymology to ecology, “the spooky verge between language and nature, water dowsing to the creation of art.” who agreed. “It was a struggle,” Beachy admits, but he didn’t Empty Bowl Press • 165 pages • $15 remain idle over the long haul. A newly minted SAIC MFA in hand, he took a job teaching at his Chicago alma mater. He blogged and published in e-zines. He networked not so much All the Art That’s Fit to Print (And Some with writers but with readers, showing them The Slide for their that Wasn’t) Inside The New York Times Op-Ed Page Jerelle Kraus ’65, The New York Times’ op-ed art director for reactions. Then he tinkered with his manuscript accordingly. 13 years, provides insider anecdotes, focusing on the “rule-dis - The Slide slid from third person to first, and Beachy found solving decades when op-ed came into its own.” that rethinking an important element and re-sequencing it near - Columbia University Press • 280 pages • $34.95 er to the book’s dénouement brought sharper focus to the story. He also made an important discovery. He’d set out to Rural Resistance in the Land of Zapata create one of his beloved novels of ideas, what he deemed “an The Jaramillista Movement and the Myth of Pax Priísta, 1940-1962 investigation into what happens when somebody who has com - Using campesino testimony and state surveillance reports, Tanalís pleted the checklist of what it means to be an educated and pre - Padilla ’95 details this agrarian mobilization in Morales, Mexico, pared individual—someone who is blessed with tools for look - including the the expansion of Zapata’s legacy. Duke University Press • 286 pages • $22.95 ing at and understanding the world—focuses his view on the one thing that is immune to analysis: human love.” What he

found was that he’d written an offbeat romance. “Throughout C A

The 50 Greatest World Record Catches R BIG L the writing process I kept facing this prickly issue of a love story O International Game Fish Association historian Mike S P

that kept asking for more page time. So once I accepted that—” U

Rivkin ’78 presents the stories behind the 50 most M incredible fish catches around the world, illustrated Random House accepted The Slide for publication. He A with gorgeous art by fly-fisherman Flick Ford. worked closely with an editor for two years to hone the final The Greenwich Workshop Press • 216 pages • $50 manuscript: “Like a lot of apprentice writers, I have a tendency When James Joyce Meets Bob Dylan to say things three times.” The published novel is a lean, com - Murder Afoot: A Paris Mystery pelling story that sits itself between the genre of homecoming Newly hired English Professor and department chair Kevin offer their own examples, too.” In Professor Emeritus Virginia Crosby ’s second novel, Ondine novel (think Charles Webb’s The Graduate or Philip Roth’s Dettmar is busy editing the Cambridge Companion to Bob Dettmar has written extensively about rock within and out - Jellicoe, a retired professor living in Paris, is drawn into another Goodbye, Columbus ) and books of ideas from authors Beachy Dylan, one of the series’ first excursions into pop-culture analy - side of the realm of academia. In addition to contributing regu - investigation, this time at the gathering of an estranged American admires, including Don DeLillo, David Foster Wallace, Denis sis. Dettmar, though, is a veteran of voyaging beyond discipli - larly to the music section of The Chronicle Review , he also family dominated by a rich, tyrannical artist. Johnson and Haruki Murakami. PublishAmerica, 2008 • 359 pages • $29.95 nary boundaries and smack dab into rock ‘n’ roll. explored the cultural logic behind the question “Is rock dead?” Publisher’s Weekly calls The Slide “at once hilarious, strange At Pomona this year, Dettmar is teaching courses on James in his 2005 book of the same name. “It seems like there is a and uncomfortable,” although Beachy was surprised by those last Joyce and Anglo-Irish literature, as well as a freshman seminar whole generation of rock writers who say that music used to be The American West at Risk two adjectives. “I took them eventually as compliments,” he says, called Flashpoints in Rock History that will analyze controversial interesting and important when they were teen-agers, and now Science, Myths, and Politics of Land Abuse and Recovery “but at first I was like ‘I don’t see what’s strange about this.’” pop music moments. “Why did people get pissed off at Dylan it’s dead,” says Dettmar, who recently became editor of the Geology Professor Richard Hazlett coedits this work about the Whether Sagehen readers find The Slide foreign or familiar, environmental challenges in the Western U.S. and strategies to when he went electric? What did he do to violate their expecta - Journal of Popular Music Studies . “But that’s pretty suspicious, “salvage what is left.” An Amazon.com “Best Book of 2008.” they’re sure to recognize pieces drawn from Pomona College tions?” Dettmar asks. “We often learn most about the values of since people have been saying it for 50 years.” Oxford University Press • 620 pages • $35 throughout the book: breakfast at Upland’s Cable Airport café, rock when its taboos are violated.” Even as he explores popular music, Dettmar remains firmly creative uses for campus fountains, midnight hi-jinx on the The manner in which Dettmar infuses his classes with music anchored in his chosen field. He is editing a book series on Quad and in the Wash. There’s also a bit of Pomona in Beachy’s Passionate Uprisings: Iran’s Sexual Revolution is, he hopes, interesting but also organic. “I would hate it if it modernism with Vanderbilt University English Professor Mark Anthropology Professor Pardis Mahdavi examines the daily lives future plans as well. He’s already at work on a follow-up novel seemed calculated,” says Dettmar, who has previously taught at Wollaeger that published its first two volumes in November. of young, urban Iranians who are using partying and sex as a form that explores skateboarding—his other great athletic passion. Clemson University and Southern Illinois University at And the music-literature influence goes in both directions. Case of political rebellion to undermine the government, in a country And next year at SAIC he plans to attempt the ultimate class - Carbondale. “You don’t want students to think, ‘Look, here’s in point: On the first page of Is Rock Dead?, Dettmar makes where dancing and drinking can mean arrest and punishment. room kickflip: taking his students on a guided tour through all this 50-year-old guy trying to be cool.’ You have to realize that mention of several literary giants, including James Joyce. Stanford University Press • 336 pages • $27.95 1,079 pages of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest . your examples are already dated and be willing to have students —Adam Conner-Simons ’08

46 POMONA COLLEGE MAGAZINE WINTER 2009 47 / New Knowledge/

ducing almost immediately and continue Biology / Professor Daniel Martínez to reproduce frequently. Their predicted Sports and Culture / Michael Stout ’08 lifespan, according to this correlation, should only be several months. So it’s no surprise that their four-year-plus life span The Immortal Hydra deviates drastically from a general pattern More Than a Fling that over 99 percent of multi-cellular Moving across the country with a U- Almost all living organisms have a mor - organisms follow. Spending a year traveling the world boundaries,” says Stout, whose Watson Haul truck, Biology Professor Daniel tality trajectory with a point where crea - This aberration turned out to be so and tossing Frisbees sounds like quite a Fellowship provides for a year of overseas Martínez took pains to protect his pre - tures naturally start to die at a much compelling that the Max Planck Institute vacation. But Michael Stout ’08, recipi - research. cious cargo of 60 hydra specimens that higher rate than before. Except for hydra. for Demographic Research in ent of a $25,000 Watson Fellowship for The “Spirit of the Game” principle is might just live forever under the Rostock, Germany requested 2008 –09, has been mixing in plenty of an official UPA-sanctioned rule stating right conditions. The aging—or lack Martínez to restart the experiment research with his recreation. Beginning in that Ultimate relies upon “a spirit of thereof—of these tiny, freshwater with their funding. Martínez has August, he set out to discover just how sportsmanship which places the responsi - polyps had become his research now been following another set of well the U.S. college sport of Ultimate bility for fair play on the player.” This obsession, and Martínez wanted to hydra, collected from all over the Frisbee is, well, flying overseas. More tenet of self-officiating is meant to make sure that none of his speci - world, for the past two and a half specifically, Stout is investigating the uni - encourage competitive play, but, impor - mens died of unnatural causes years. His lab has set optimal condi - versality of the sport’s unorthodox tantly, “never at the expense of adherence before he reached his new role at a tions for these hydra by controlling “Spirit of the Game” principle, exploring to the agreed-upon rules of the game, or hydra lab in Irvine. temperature, feeding them, and iso - how this ethos of mutual respect and self- the basic joy of play.” SOTG discourages With the Petri dishes carefully lating them from other hydra. officiating translates in countries that such practices as taunting and intentional packed in his cooler, Martínez regu - So far the hydra have shown the include Venezuela, Canada and fouling but gives players the freedom to larly fed the hydra freshly hatched same results that Martínez first Argentina. make those judgment calls at their brine shrimp, cleaned their contain - found—almost zero-mortality. While Invented by high school students in discretion. ers and constantly maintained the it will take more time to be certain Maplewood, New Jersey, in 1968, Stout started playing Ultimate for the cooler temperature with ice. “I whether these hydra will age and “Ultimate” (the brand name “Frisbee” is Claremont Colleges “Braineaters” team P H

remember in Zion National Park I rarely used) fields seven-member teams, during his freshman year, and for him, I eventually die, Martínez already has L C

was feeding them at night and then a hypothesis on why they have lived with the object being to throw the disc “The Spirit of the Game” is what set the H A N N I

in the morning I was washing so long. “Hydra is a bag of stem from teammate to teammate until it is sport apart from others. In particular, he N them,” Martínez says. “People cells,” he says. “It is an adult that is caught within a specific section on the admired the philosophy for helping drive G thought I was crazy, like ‘what are produced by embryonic cells, so it is opponent’s side of the field. Blending out the corner-cutters and foul-fakers all these little Petri dishes with really a perennial embryo. The genes elements of football, soccer and rugby, who might initially pursue the sport. hydra?’” After arriving at Irvine with his hydra that regulate development are constantly the sport now has more than 500 col - “When officials are present, circumvent - The Canuck’s response? “No, you’re just Martínez was set on seeing if hydra alive and thriving, Martínez continued on, so they are constantly rejuvenating leges and universities nationwide now ing the rules is expected,” he says. “In a wimp!” escaped the aging that was inevitable for the experiment for four years. Almost no the body.” fielding competitive teams. Ultimate, the self-officiation puts the Indeed, Stout has been surprised at all other animals. He first heard rumors hydra died. Although Martínez put his This remarkable trait of the hydra But Ultimate is only now starting to onus on the players themselves [and] self- the highly aggressive nature of the of the hydra’s immortality when he was hydra to sleep when he moved to leads to a related phenomenon that may gain popularity internationally. While the selects for players interested in upholding game’s incarnations in other parts of the completing his Ph.D. at the State Pomona College, he saved their bodies lie behind its possible immortality— Ultimate Player’s Association (UPA) the integrity of the game.” world. He recalls with a mix of bewilder - University of New York, Stony Brook. and published his results. regeneration. The hydra has “an amazing reports that the sport is played by more Three months into his fellowship, ment and bemusement an argument dur - But there were no experiments being “For a creature the size of hydra, [a regeneration ability that allows it to than 100,000 people worldwide, half of which began in Canada and has contin - ing a game in Venezuela that ultimately conducted to prove the claim. near-zero mortality] after four years is escape aging,” Martínez says. “I can take that group is American, and even ued to Venezuela, Stout says that the devolved into a full-blown brawl. When “I said ‘no way,’” Martínez recalls. significant because normally things that a hundred hydra, make a cell suspension, Ultimate’s largest tournaments—like the biggest take-home message from his jour - he asked a teammate why nobody tried “There’s no way that any animal can be are small don’t live very long,” Martínez dissociate all the tissue, put it in a cen - World Ultimate Championships that took ney so far is that each region’s sports to talk things out, his friend told him, “It immortal. Evolutionary theory says that says. “So basically, I was trying to prove trifuge, make it into a bowl. …That bowl place this past August in Vancouver—are atmosphere strongly colors the manner in doesn’t work that way. You have to fight, all multi-cellular creatures should age. So that hydra did age, and by the end I was will generate into a few hydra. I mean, barely 20 years old. which it plays Ultimate. The game in and if you don’t, you’re a weakling.” I said, ‘Well, I’m going to prove them convinced that they didn’t.” I’m making a pellet, and from that I will Stout says that the main roadblock to Canada is very physical, which Stout says With such exchanges in mind, Stout is wrong. I’m going to prove that hydra While four years may seem like noth - get an animal.” global success is a lack of organization. is “true to the image of the rough-and- curious to see how his other target coun - age like all animals.’” ing to us, it is an astonishingly long time But despite the genetic similarities “It’s hard to start a sport and just get tough hockey player.” While this more tries will approach the sport, from For Martínez and other biologists, for a creature as small as the hydra, which between hydra and humans, Martínez is everyone playing at once,” he says. The aggressive mentality is not viewed nega - Argentina’s, with its soccer theatrics, to aging is not just defined by physical signs ranges from 0.25 to 2.5 centimeters in skeptical of his results being applicable to newness of the sport on the international tively in the Great White North, it can Brazil, known for warm hospitality. “It’s like graying hair or by death from exter - length. It also defies the normal correla - the process of human aging as well. “We scene is what got him interested in the spark culture clashes in international con - tempting to hypothesize about each nal causes like disease or accidents. tion between the aging of an organism are very different animals,” he says. “We project. “I figured that to study a sport tests. One of Stout’s Canadian teammates country,” he says, “but I really can’t say “There’s nothing universally quantifiable and its reproductive behavior, which are a lot more sophisticated, a lot more in its infancy across a variety of countries said that a New Zealand player once for sure until I’m there and a part of the for aging,” Martínez says. “So probably shows that organisms that reproduce later complex, we have organs. But there’s a would reveal a lot about the nature of called him a jerk in the middle of a game culture.” the best [measure of aging] is increased and less frequently tend to live longer. price that you pay.” self-officiated competition across cultural (using slightly more colorful language). —Adam Conner-Simons ’08 mortality, because that’s a clear sign.” Hydra, on the other hand, start repro - —Janet Ma ’11

48 POMONA COLLEGE MAGAZINE WINTER 2009 49 / Alumni Voices /

IT TOOK MIKE HILL ’64 NEARLY 40 YEARS TO GET BACK TO THE LAND HE FELL IN LOVE WITH IN 1965. proved that sick people could be cared for in villages instead of springing up in response to the HIV-AIDS crisis. Today, they distant hospitals—paving the way for today’s home-based care number in the thousands. It’s typical, Hill observes, of Malawian for AIDS victims. attitude. “They either survive together or they don’t survive. It’s Hill had left Malawi in 1966 planning to come right back ‘we have to stick together, take care of each other; no one else is after grad school. Instead he was drafted and sent to Germany— coming to help.’” DAO impressed him. They had leadership, ini - lucky, considering most draftees his age were shipped to tiative, participation, and a desire to be self-sufficient. He picked Vietnam. But two years in the Peace Corps, two years in the them for one of Orphan Support Africa’s first small grants. Army, two years in grad school, and Hill was feeling old. A Hill returned in 2005 with only a small grant and no guaran - stipend took him to Wisconsin where he got married, had a fami - tees. He worked with CBOs by day and wrote funding proposals ly—“What did Zorba say? ‘The full catastrophe,’” he laughs. “I by night, plugging his laptop into a tiny generator whenever the had all these obligations, so there went coming back to Africa.” electricity failed. The money ran low; his paycheck went to hire Thirty-five years passed. Hill’s work in clinical and commu - a fundraiser. Hill worked on without pay. A bad harvest. The nity social work took him into communities of Chippewa in long November-to-April hunger season. Modest grants to care - Northern Wisconsin, low-income Latinos in Tucson, urbanites fully chosen groups like DAO were showing positive results. But in Southern California and Native Americans in rural New Mexico. And still he couldn’t get the people of Malawi out of his head. HIV-AIDS arrived in Africa. In the mid- ’90s, Hill and ex-Peace Corps friends raised money and helped found Malawi Children’s “W E WERE REALLY BACK Village, one community’s answer to the needs of orphans and vulnerable children. It grew and YOUNG AND IDEALISTIC flourished, but Hill could see it wasn’t enough. The epidemic was slicing through towns and AND INEXPERIENCED. villages, cutting down fathers, mothers, teach - YOU JUST TRADED THAT ers, nurses, police, doctors, leaving behind the TO very young and very old to cope with a stag - OFF FOR HUGE ENERGY. gering number of orphans. “We just felt there had to be a lot more, the need was so great.” AND CREATIVITY.” So Hill and four others came up with a plan. They’d go “to the heart of the problem—to the villages, to the people, to the children.” MALAWI They’d harness the country’s greatest resource—the strength by June 2006, it looked like he might have to close up shop and and resilience of its people, and the old village traditions of come home. mutual care and responsibility. They got a little money, enough “There’s no story about me without them ,” Hill said. “They STORY BY CHRISTINE BERARDO ’64 / PHOTOS BY ROBERT MARKOWITZ to get started. What they needed was a person on the ground in work hard just to stay alive, but they are not oppressed .” Malawi. Hill jumped at the chance. Malawians live on an average of a dollar a day, yet don’t see themselves as poor. They draw happiness from interaction. “WHAT’S ORPHAN Support Africa?” a spokesman asked “There’s always been laughter, there’s always been dance, and from the circle of people sitting before him. Hill grinned sheep - there’s always been singing. It’s a great defense against what ishly and pointed to Austin, his new Malawian assistant. “Him would be depression in the U.S.” He hung on. IKE HILL ’64 BROKE THE NEWS THE COVER PHOTO on the October 1965 Pomona Today and me.” M shows a young Mike Hill giving a tuberculosis vaccine injection The villagers looked dubiously at one another, then back at OCTOBER BROUGHT stunning news: Hill’s Hail Mary pro - to his two kids over Thanksgiving. They were grown—he’d to a little girl in Malawi. Pomona then ranked fourth among all the bearded, white-haired, white-skinned mzungu who’d come posal to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation came through. raised them as a single parent after the divorce—and he wanted U.S. colleges and universities in percentage of students joining to see what they were doing. They started meeting two years With the $2.1 million multi-year grant, Hill suddenly was busy to tell them face to face. “It didn’t come as a surprise,” says the Peace Corps. Hill’s class of ’64 had barely arrived on campus ago under a mango tree, they told him, seven HIV-positive peo - hiring staff, opening a second office in the far north, buying Zilah, Hill’s daughter. “Africa was always in our house.” The when a youthful president and his glamorous wife moved into ple stigmatized and shunned by their neighbors. One day they equipment and vehicles, and weighing which groups to fund— stories, the slide shows, the African art. Even as she and her the White House, bringing in gusts of energy and optimism. found the mango tree cut down. “They suspected us of political whittling from 38 to 14 to a final eight. The elimination process brother Chad were driving to their dad’s home in rural New Let’s send an army of young volunteers—a Peace Corps— activity,” explained their leader, Jones Pilo. They named their was agonizing. “There is as much extreme poverty, high HIV- Mexico for the holiday, Chad turned to her and muttered, “Why around the world as a force for good. group “DAO” for the people they wanted to serve: the disabled, AIDS prevalence rates, as many chronically ill, and everywhere doesn’t he just get to Africa and get it over with?” Washington dubbed them “the Kiddie Korps.” “We were the aged and orphans. They showed Hill the garden they’d the number of orphans continues to increase.” Three months later, in February 2005, Hill sold his car, gave really young and idealistic and inexperienced,” Hill admits. “You planted and the fishpond they’d dug by hand. In two years, no A floor-to-ceiling chart covers one wall of Orphan Support away his dog, put his stuff in storage, said “goodbye” and just traded that off for huge energy. And creativity.” He was one had come to help, not even to visit. Until today. Africa’s office. Eight Gates grants top the list of 30 projects in moved back to Malawi. “Hold on to your dreams, you know? assigned to the tuberculosis unit and issued a motorbike to ride DAO is one of 20 Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) various stages of development and funding, including one in Forty years later….” out to rural villages and give TB shots and collect data. They Hill visited in his first months back. All over Malawi, CBOs were Tanzania. Half-way down are four titled “Pomona ’64,”> >

50 POMONA COLLEGE MAGAZINE WINTER 2009 51 / Alumni Voices / / Class Notes / Alumni Families / Kadish-Maas Family

modest seed grants funded by Hill’s class - mates. Hill is explaining to Chilungamo’s Weekend Ritual chief, village headman, and assembled vol - As parents of three sons, Nathan ’02, Seth ’06 and Jonathan ’10, unteers that a seed grant is to help groups Josh Kadish and Lisa Maas have embraced a flexible approach to like theirs that show promise. They want nurturing family traditions as children become adults. The family cele - to plant gardens, train volunteer teachers brates holidays together and the family summer retreat on the for child care centers, provide a daily meal Olympic Peninsula, now with the addition of a daughter-in-law and for children. The chief wants a paraffin girlfriends continues as it has for years. Skype, e-mail and Facebook pump to generate income. There’s no allow them to stay connected no matter how far apart they may be. money now for the paraffin pump, Hill And Family Weekend at Pomona College has replaced back-to-school replies; start with the garden, show what night. you can do. The chief understands, speak - Each February, for nine of the last 10 years, the couple has ing the magic words: transparency, sustain - briefly immersed them - ability, accountability. selves in campus life. Over at DAO, 110 volunteers in 21 vil - They started the family lages now serve a population of 10,500. tradition during Nathan’s “We can support ourselves,” boasts their first year and they joke strapping leader Jones Pilo. Hill finds it that they’ll return even hard to believe this man bursting with Class Notes after Jonathan graduates. vitality was once written off as ‘already Family Weekend, dead,’ his life over. With improved diet which will be held this and antiretroviral drugs, he and others like available year Feb. 13 to 15, is him are healthier and stronger today. designed to give parents Their goal is to serve all the nearby vil - only in print and other family members lages in the same way Orphan Support a sense of academic and Africa served them. They are training social life at Pomona. youth to take their place when they are Visitors get the opportunity to check out their students’ residence gone. “In 10 years, we will take OSA’s halls, meet classmates, sit in on open classes and attend lectures place!” he teases, with trademark Malawi and cultural events. humor. Hill fires back: “You’ve got it Josh and Lisa keep making the trip from Portland mostly to visit exactly right.” their sons but also because they enjoy the events and the campus Hill does get discouraged by time-con - experience. “We have always felt welcomed at Pomona,” Josh says. suming obstacles—getting a non-resident “The students have always extended themselves and been friendly.” permit, doing money transfers, forms The weekend begins Friday morning with Pomona Family College, required for this or that. As to the misery and each year, the couple arrives Thursday evening in order to and starvation and suffering: “That’s attend the classes they say have given them a broad sense of col - Malawi. It’s the eighth poorest nation on lege life at Pomona. Ten years ago, Professor of Religious Studies earth. It’s just the way it is and I have to Jerry Irish’s passion, accessibility and ingenuity shined through during accept it on those terms. Despite that, the such a class and impressed Josh and Lisa so much that they continue people are hopeful and continue to work to recommend his courses. “We have always gone to classes our to make things better.” He watches them kids are taking,” Lisa says, “but we also take recommendations from face great challenges and obstacles, every their friends and search professors on RateMyProfessor.com . We day, with grace and humor. They don’t often come away from these classes with recommendations for our complain. kids.” “Seeing a couple walk 10 kilometers carrying firewood or “blissful reunion with youth.” As they begin to pack for their campus visit this February, Josh water or food on their heads to help someone who’s sick. They Mike still has problems to solve. Finding money—Gates and Lisa are planning to enjoy at least one meal in the Village with get there and sweep the dirt floor, wash the clothes, cook food, funding runs out December 2009. Finding his own replace - their son and his friends, attend as many classes as they can and sit bathe children, stack wood—whatever they can do to help.” ment. “Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be able to retire,” he in on Donna Di Grazia’s choir practice (all three of the Kadish sons Then, he adds, they walk 10 kilometers back home to take care says. Will he have guilt about leaving Malawi? “No guilt,” have been members of Men’s Blue and White). of their own family’s needs. “That keeps me going. How can I laughs Mike. He’s paid his dues. “The only guilt is about not As for their sons, Family Weekend is an opportunity to play host get upset about inconvenience when I see that?” spending time with grandchildren.” to their parents, introduce them to friends and professors, share aca - Mike’s daughter, son and grandchildren are waiting. Zilah demic interests and maybe do a little spring cleaning. worries: He doesn’t eat right. “Food is for a whole different Online only: Mike Hill’s classmates from ’64 meet him in Malawi “It’s fun to meet their friends, see where they live—” Josh says. “I purpose there. We eat for pleasure; they eat to survive.” She (www.pomona.edu/magazine). More information is also available wouldn’t call seeing their dorm room ‘fun’,” Lisa interrupts with a wonders when this journey will end—what Gay Talese called this at www.orphansupportafrica.org. laugh, “more like enlightening.” —Pauline Nash

52 POMONA COLLEGE MAGAZINE WINTER 2009 53 / Class Notes /

Bulletin Board / News for Alumni Travel-Study / Alumni Trips for 2009 –2011 Alumni Weekend ’09 We are counting down the days to the much anticipated Alumni Weekend to be held May 1-3 for classes ending in 4 and 9. Our hotel representatives tell us that sales are brisk, so please don’t wait until the The Changing last minute to make your reservations. The Doubletree Hotel in Claremont has already sold out and guests are being directed to the Face of Vietnam Sheraton Ontario Airport Hotel (909-937-8000) and the Doubletree With Prof. Hung Cam Thai Ontario Airport Hotel (909-937-0900). There are a limited number of Oct. 8 –20, 2009 rooms in our special rate blocks, so book now and be sure to mention Pomona College Alumni Weekend. Hung Cam Thai, assistant professor of sociology and Asian stud - ies, will lead a trip to Vietnam—including time in Hanoi and Ho Be a Resource for Current Students Class Notes Chi Minh City, among other locations—focusing on how that In this cycle of economic ups and downs, students are extremely inter - nation is changing in response to the global economy. ested to connect with alumni in the working world. They are not only looking for potential job connections, but just as importantly, asking available The Peruvian Highlands basic questions like “What is a typical day really like for you? What do With Professor Ralph Bolton ’61 you wish you had known when you decided to pursue this career only in print path?” Help ease their concerns and educate them by joining the September 13 –27, 2009 Sagehen Career Connection. By agreeing to let students contact you, Ralph Bolton ’61, professor of anthropology, will lead a trip you can make a world of difference. It is easy to sign up, just visit the alumni homepage, click on “Sagehen Career Connection” and follow the focused on the Altiplano of Southern Peru where he was a Peace directions. Corps volunteer in the 1960s. Today he works in conjunction with Pomona College student volunteers in communities around Lake Titicaca carrying out projects in agriculture, health, education, Where is the Alumni Association? tourism and arts and crafts. Visits to rural villages will be featured, (Everywhere.) including meetings and fiestas with Andean villagers, for an up- In the last year the alumni association planned over 100 events in close look at problems of development. cities throughout the U.S. and beyond. If you live near a major U.S. city, chances are we were in your area with winter break parties, professor Future Travel-Study Programs discussions, and more. We are constantly updating our calendar with new events, check it out and bookmark it at www.pomona.edu/alum - 2010 nievents. • Slovenia and Croatia with Professor of Sociology Jill Grigsby • Hawaii Family Trip with Professor of Geology Rick Hazlett Where in the World Can 2011 You Find Cecil Sagehen? • Walking Tour of Southern France with Professor of History Ken Wolf Pomona College students and alumni travel throughout the world, so For additional information, contact the Alumni Office at (909) 621-8110, why not take Cecil along? The alumni office welcomes your pictures of or by e-mail at [email protected] . Cecil Sagehen at venues throughout the world (including domestic). We can’t promise to post all photos, but will use some of the best ones on our Web page if you e-mail them to us at alum - [email protected] with your name, class year, location and date photo was taken. Don’t have a stuffed Cecil? You can get one from the Coop Store ( www.pomona.edu/coopstore). Planning Ahead It is never too soon to prepare for another Alumni Weekend. Does your graduation year end in 0 or 5? We know where you will (or at least should!) be April 29-May 2, 2010—on campus for Alumni Weekend. Mark your calendar today. Honor Roll Erratum In the 2007-08 Honor Roll of Donors, a Patron gift from Shawn D. Batt ’92 and Nicole Ellison was omitted from the Class of 1992.

54 POMONA COLLEGE MAGAZINE WINTER 2009 55 / Class Notes /

On Exhibit / James Hueter ’46 Expert Advice Nancy McCabe ’78 identify your core values—whether that’s creativ - / ity, security, adventure, recognition, helping peo - ple or another value. The best way to accomplish your essential aims is to align your values with Dream Coach your goals and priorities. By listening to your If life is a journey, people like life coach Nancy iWnnheart ’csr ihtiocsl—dinangd y poeur hbaapcs ky? our outer critics— McCabe ’78 are the tour guides—helping you you will discover where you stop yourself and decide where to go and how to get there, a task why. Perhaps you’re afraid something didn’t McCabe has also performed for herself through - work for someone else or it frustrated you in the out her eclectic career. past. Review the old tapes running through your As a political science major at Pomona, she mind to find out if these criticisms are still rele - was on her way to a life in government when an vant for you now. internship in Washington D.C. left her disillu - sioned about politics—the Your perspective agency she worked for Class Notes hHaosw a ahmug eI ilmoopkacint.g I fa yt otuh ilso? ok at life from a ended up being exposed frightened or cautious viewpoint, chances are on a 60 Minutes piece on you’ll never make a move. If there’s a good rea - available governmental fraud. son to be wary, pay attention to your instincts McCabe turned to and take it slow. Conversely, if you look at your media. After an internship only in print choices from a more open-minded perspective, at a Los Angeles TV sta - your goal might not feel so risky. By having a tion, she found produc - more positive outlook, you’ll see more options tion work on a CBS and it’ll be easier to determine the best route to series, did a three-year your goal. stint at an ad agency working in corporate pro - McCabe gramming, and eventually How does this impact your entire life? It’s landed at Warner Brothers and Lifetime produc - admirable to pursue the big promotion, but how ing made-for-TV movies. will the added responsibilities impact you and James Hueter While she loved the creative process, she was your family? If you save every dime for an early Retrospective more interested in the challenges confronting retirement, will you miss out on things that her colleagues than the scripts they were trying you’d like to enjoy now? Consider the full The work of artist James to develop. After exposure to a business coach at impact of your goals and take everything into Hueter ’46 will be featured in a a retreat, she found her new calling. account. If it all still adds up to the right move, new retrospective exhibition After completing an 18-month certification you’re ready for action. at the Claremont Museum of Art program, she started her life coaching and exec - from Feb. 22 to May 3. Born in utive consulting business, Greatview Consulting, Who do I need around me to help make this San Francisco in 1925 and a 60- in Santa Monica, Calif. in 2000. Coaching, she happen? People like to be helpful. Call your year resident of Claremont, says, is about “finding solutions for people based mentors and friends—this isn’t a time to be self- Hueter epitomizes a generation of on what they’re really about, what motivates conscious or tentative. Your supporters will be artists who were attracted to them and what their strengths are.” pleased to help you since, by this point, your Claremont and the surrounding If you’ve got a goal you dream of pursuing— determination and clarity will be so appealing. region after World War II. The whether it’s a big move, a career transition, early Your commitment to your goal makes it easy to exhibition will survey Hueter’s retirement or even simply a better quality of give you a hand. long and fertile career, from the life—McCabe suggests that you ask yourself early realist paintings influenced these questions first and pay close attention the You’ll be much by his teacher and mentor answers to create a solid path that will get you to mHoowre wsaitlils fIi eedv ewri tghe yto tuhre jroeu? rney if you give Henry Lee McFee to the most your goal. yourself some little victories along the way to recent works that combine his your big goal. Distill your giant goal into multiple interests in painting, Is this goal something defined, manageable and attainable steps. Set sculpture, representation and illu - Wyohuy a rdeo t rIu wlya cnotm thpiesl?led to pursue, or is it milestones. Measure your results. Reaching these sion. An opening reception is set because it just seems right or you’re worried smaller goals won’t just make you feel good, but for 7 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 21. about your future? Goals are not one size fits all; it will give you a sense of momentum and suc - More information about the notice what gets you out of bed in the morning cess on the way to your ultimate destination. upcoming exhibition is available and what gets you truly inspired. You’ll start to —Laura Tiffany at www.claremontmuseum.org.

56 POMONA COLLEGE MAGAZINE WINTER 2009 57 / Class Notes /

Class Notes available only in print

58 POMONA COLLEGE MAGAZINE WINTER 2009 59 / Class Notes / Verne Orr ’37 Verne Orr , of Pasadena, who served as secretary of the Air Force during the Reagan administration, died Nov. 27, 2008, at the age of 92. Born in Iowa in 1916, Orr moved to Pasadena as a child. At Pomona, he served as editor of The Student Life and was a member of Kappa Delta and Phi Beta Kappa. He received a master’s degree in business adminis - tration from Stanford in 1939. Enlisting in the Navy after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he served aboard a supply ship in the Pacific Class Notes Ocean, earning a Purple Heart after a torpedo hit his quarters. After World available War II, he worked for his father’s car dealership, Verne Orr Motors in only in print Pasadena, then became president of Investors Savings and Loan of Pasadena in 1963. Then-Gov. Ronald Reagan appointed Orr to the Department of Motor Vehicles in 1967, where he was known for ordering banners reading "Courtesy" to be hung at every DMV office. In 1970 Reagan tapped him to be the state’s director of finance. Answers / from Page 64 After being named to the University of California Board of

PUZZLE 1 Regents, Orr served on Reagan’s

1 2 0 2 5 1 4 1 3 1 2 1 1 1

1980 presidential campaign and tran -

2 2 9 1 6 1 7 4 8 4 9 4 0 1 sition team. As Air Force secretary, he

reactivated the B-1 bomber program,

3 2 8 1 7 1 6 4 7 8 9

which had been canceled by President

4 2 5 2 4 4 5 4 6 5 4 Jimmy Carter. He also oversaw the

inception of the B-2 stealth bomber

7 2 6 2 3 4 2 4 1 4 0 4 3

before retiring in 1985 to care for his

8 2 1 3 2 3 5 3 6 3 9 3 2 wife of 45 years, the former Joan

Peak, who was suffering from Lou

9 2 0 3 3 3 4 3 7 3 8 3 1 Gehrig’s disease. She died in 1988. Orr married the former Sarah Smith in 1989, and the couple estab -

PUZZLE 2 3 2 4 2 5 2 6 2 3 3 4 3 5 3 lished a planning and management

consulting firm. He began working

2 2 1 2 8 2 7 2 2 3 7 3 6 3 on his doctorate at Claremont

Graduate University in the 1990s, but 9 1 0 2 9 2 0 3 1 3 8 3 9 3

put off his studies to become dean of

8 1 5 1 4 1 3 1 2 1 1 4 0 4 the University of La Verne’s School of

Business and Global Studies in 1999. 7 1 6 1 9 0 1 1 1 2 4 3 4

After retiring in 2002, he went on to

2 1 8 7 8 4 7 4 4 4 earn his doctorate at age 88.

Orr served on Pomona’s Alumni 3 4 5 6 9 4 6 4 5 4

Board and received the 2004 Alumni Distinguished Service Award.

60 POMONA COLLEGE MAGAZINE WINTER 2009 61 / Class Notes /

Class Notes available only in print

62 POMONA COLLEGE MAGAZINE WINTER 2009 63 / Mind Games / / Pomona Blue / Number Puzzles / by Lynne Willems Zold ’67 Chocolate for Change a-Mazing Numbers The chocolate was still there in decadent profusion, but the Answers on Page 60 name had changed and with it, maybe, even a bit of the guilt. The event formerly known as “Death by Chocolate”—held each Directions: Starting anywhere, fill in the blank squares so that year on the last day of classes to permit Pomona students to lose all numbers 1 through 49 appear in order in a single path. You themselves in a bit of conspicuous consumption before the trials can move horizontally or vertically, but not diagonally. of final exams—shifted into a more charitable gear and became known as “Chocolate for Change.” In addition to the mounds PUZZLE 1 and bowls full of chocolate, there was a fair featuring local nonprofit organizations and an art show devoted to students artists 1 38 37 34 33 30 29 whose work focuses on topics of social justice. According to organizer Maria Tucker, director of community and multicultur - al programs for the College, the chocolate itself was purchased, 2 28 with the help of alumnus Mark Klopp ’80, from local and fair- trade chocolateers. “Buying 3 27 fair-trade chocolate ensures that the chocolate comes from farmers who pay a fair living 4 24 wage,” Tucker noted. Those who came to devour chocolate also got to do a little good in 9 23 their own right by making a contribution to the local Adopt-a-Family program or 10 22 bringing gift items to stuff into holiday stockings for 11 12 13 14 15 20 21 about 45 residents of the David and Margaret Home in La Verne. PUZZLE 2 45 46 49 6 5 4 3 44 2 43 17 40 18 39 19 36 22

35 34 33 26 25 24 23

64 POMONA COLLEGE MAGAZINE PHOTOS BY CARRIE ROSEMA DRThIeV freIeNway pG hotography of Andrew Bush ’79 STORY ON PAGE : 26

POMONA COLLEGE MAGAZINE NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION 333 N ORTH COLLEGE WAY U.S. P OSTAGE CLAREMONT , CA 91711 PAID CLAREMONT , CA 91711 Change Service Requested PERMIT NO. 17

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