Work Vs. Life ]

LIFE AND DEATH IN THE D-POD (For ER physician Kara Toles ’ 7, work stress is part of the balancing act.) 30 | FROM TALIBAN BOMBS TO COCONUT PALMS (Follow the unlikely journey of Steven Gutkin ’86.) 36 | AFTER THE FALL (After Ramona Bridges ’77 fell from working with the homeless to being homeless, this is how she found her way back.) 40 | CITY OF DREAMS (Douglas Preston ’78 discusses his pursuit of a childhood dream into the jungles of Honduras.) 12 C O L L E G E M G Z I N E Fall 2 17 PLUS: The Inauguration of Pomona’s 1 th President, G. Gabrielle Starr 22 [HOME P GE] A Welooked to the west across the vast plain that lay at our feet, far below REUNI N the high summit we had recently ascended by ski lift. An ominous wall of darkness rushed toward us, T enveloping everything in its path. Someone muttered, “Sauron, the Lord of Darkness, comes now in all ECLIPSE his might!” We all then turned from this foreboding view to the sky above to watch the most astonishing and ALL spectacular event in all of nature. This was the moment for which the two of us had been preparing for seven years. Totality had begun for THERS 200-plus Pomona College alumni, their families and friends, in the Pomona College Solar Eclipse By Lew and Chuck Phelps ’65 Reunion of 2017. • Left: The ski lift up Fred’s Mountain brings more participants to the reunion. Below: Sagehens watch the slow progress of the moon across the sun from their mountain perch. A hundred families, all of whom shared some con- interested in an informal class reunion built around nection to the Pomona College Classes of ’64, ’65 the eclipse. The response was enthusiastic. With a goal and ’66, had assembled atop Fred’s Mountain in west- of completely filling the resort’s 95 rooms, we first ern Wyoming. We had flown or driven to the area in solicited sign- ups from our classmates and then ex- the days before, ridden a mile- long ski lift to the top The 47 panded the proposal to our two “adjacent” classes, of the peak and watched with growing excitement as Eclipse ’64 (Dionysus and ’66 (Pele . And so we brought the dark disk of the moon gradually ate its way across together the god of thunder, the god of wine and One fun aspect of the surface of the sun. this venture the ritual madness, and the goddess of fire, volcanoes and In just over two minutes, the total portion of the Phelps twins said capriciousness— quite a volatile mix. From those three eclipse was over. Light began to return to the sky. was the opportunity classes, we drew enough participants to fill the entire Laughter and excited chatter filled the air. Some of us to infuse Pomona’s ski resort, counting spouses, children and grandchil- wept from the pure joy and power of the experience. mystical number 47 dren of classmates. We, the authors of this article, are identical twins, into communications Then came two years of intense planning, includ - both graduates of Pomona College in the Class of related to the event. ing two inspection trips to the resort, negotiations In their first written 1965. Back in 1991, after jointly experiencing an awe- over fees, menu planning for group dinners, contracts description of the some six minutes and 45 seconds of total solar eclipse with vendors, identifying speakers (what would a event to classmates in Baja Sur, Mexico, we began thinking about a good Pomona gathering be without strong intellectual they wrote “Nu- place to view the eclipse that would pass completely content? and much more. We even included four merology savants over the United States on Aug. 21, 2017. About will note that at our nights of “star parties” —opportunities to view seven years ago, we began to deploy what was then a location the eclipse gorgeous objects in the night sky through telescopes relatively novel tool, Google Earth, to find an ideal event ends at ex- operated by experienced amateur astronomers — spot for viewing the 2017 eclipse. We plotted the path actly 1:00:00 p.m. organized by Franklin McBride Marsh ’17. of totality across the U.S. and then began “walking on 8/21/17. The We approached the resort’s management well across the landscape” at high magnification, starting sum of those date before they had a clear sense of the enormous enthu - on the Pacific coast. and time numbers siasm that would later emerge for the Great Eclipse of equals 47! What’s We came first to a fire lookout tower in central 2017. Thus we were able to negotiate a very favorable more the exact geo- Oregon, smack on the path of totality, but a long, deal —--a four night minimum stay at only modestly graphic location of difficult hike from the nearest Jeep trail. We kept higher-- than normal room rates. In the months just the top of Fred’s looking. The Palouse region, east of the Cascade preceding the eclipse, commercial tour operators were Mountain is N Mountains, looked promising from a standpoint of 43.787° W asking ——and getting three or four times as much per cloud cover — the nemesis of all eclipse watchers — 110.934°. The dig- person in nearby Jackson Hole, Wyoming. On eclipse but the landscape was tedious. Moving farther east, its of that latitude/ day, rooms in a Motel 6 in nearby Driggs, Idaho, just as our digital exploration crossed the state line longitude position were going for $1,000 a night. In the last year before from Idaho into Wyoming, we found a ski lodge. also add up to 47!” the eclipse, as people began to focus more on the up - Hello, Grand Targhee Resort. coming event, the resort’s marketing team received The more we looked at this location, the more in- inquiries from numerous other groups, including teresting it became. The resort sat at 8,000 feet, at the eclipse -chasers affiliated with Brown and Oxford uni- base of a 10,000- foot peak called Fred’s Mountain, versities. Sadly for them, but happily for us, Pomona with a chair lift to the top. Just east of Fred’s Moun- College got there first. tain rise the magnificent peaks of the Grand Tetons. For our speaker series, Pomona College sponsored This skier’s paradise, we realized, might provide a two Pomona faculty members —Professor of Geology truly unique eclipse- watching opportunity. From atop Robert Gaines and former Brackett Professor of As - Fred’s Mountain, with very clear air, one might be tronomy Bryan Penprase. And from the ranks of our able to see the shadow of the moon racing across the alumni, we added Ed Krupp ’66, director of the Grif - 100-- mile wide valley floor below. We calculated that fith Observatory in L.A.; Larry Price ’65, part of the at 1,662 miles per hour, it would take only a bit more Photo on previous pages team that proved the existence of the Higgs boson than three and a half minutes to cross that breadth, all by Tom and Judith Auchter with CERN’s Large Hadron Collider; Barbara Becker, in view from our aerie- like perch. digitally enhanced by historian of astronomy and spouse of Hank Becker Lew Phelps ’65; photo After kicking around various ideas for how best to above by NASA/Aubrey ’66; and James A. Turrell ’65, the world -famous artist make use of this seemingly unique site, we decided — Gemignani; photo at top who manipulates light and space. shortly before the 50th reunion of our Pomona Class right by Alex Bentley and To our considerable relief, the morning of the Hunter Bell; photo at right of ’65 (Thor – to see if our classmates would be by Robert Gaines eclipse dawned with almost completely clear skies. • 2 Fall 2 17 Speaker Series The Phelps twins have made electronic presentations from the reunion’s speaker series available to donors who give $47 or more to the Phelps Twins Solar Eclipse Fund for Science Internships at Pomona College created by reunion participants following the event. The presentations which combine audio recordings with synchronized copies of the accompanying PowerPoints include “Aliens in the Ooze ” by Pomona Geology Professor Robert Gaines; “Chasing Cosmic Explo- sions ” by former Pomona Astronomy Professor Bryan Penprase; “De- voured by Darkness ” by Ed Krupp ’66 director of the Griffith Observa- tory; “The Scientific Discovery of the Century ” by physicist Larry Price ’65; “Risky Business: The Search for the Soul of the Sun in the Shadow of the Moon ” by historian of astronomy Barbara Becker; and “The Art of James Turrell ” a conversation between Krupp and noted light-and- space artist James A. Turrell ’65. You can plan for a thousand details, but there is no way to control and detailed than the two of us recall from the 1991 eclipse we saw in the weather. We had selected the site in western Wyoming for two Baja Sur. Atop Fred’s Mountain, we observed Bailey’s Beads, the reasons— the unique view and the area’s encouraging history of fiery red dots that appear on the rim of the moon at the beginning mostly clear skies in late August. The historical record proved predic- and end of totality as the sun peeks through valleys in the mountains tive, but if the eclipse had occurred four days earlier or three days and craters that rim the moon’s edge. The “diamond ring” apparition later, we would have been rained out, so we were also lucky.

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