47 Things about Pomona Grads

This Q&A is of most interest for those of you who went to Pomona College (Chirp!). The rest of you should probably just skip to something else …

In the interests of time “yes” and “no” answers will work for this long list. But as graduates of such a fine liberal arts institution of higher learning you are encouraged to expand at least a few of your answers with explanations, elucidations, exaggerations, and deflections. You know the drill, post the note with your answers, tag other Pomona (and/or Claremont Colleges perhaps) grads.

1) Did you ever sleep overnight in the Wash? I don’t know that I ever actually set foot in the Wash while at school. So, no.

2) Which dining hall and why? I worked at Harwood DH during my freshman and sophomore years (before it was, sadly, closed, but mercifully before it was replaced with the stucco monstrosity that’s in its place). I actually ate at quite a few of the DHs — I liked Gibson, though it was rarely open when I wasn’t working. I ate at the Borg (see below), and Sunday breakfasts at Frary, later at the new Frank. Also up at one of the small DHs at Scripps not infrequently, occasionally at Collins.

3) Did you ever go inside Oldenborg? I had some friends there, I gamed there a bit, and in my senior year I worked at the dining hall. Also attended some of the language lunches. Not my favorite dorm, by any means.

4) Did you ever paint anything on the Walker beach wall? After the end of my massive Orbquest D&D campaign, we painted a patch of Walker Beach Wall with gold background, a giant Orb, and something cryptic in red over it, as I recall. Alas, it was painted over by someone else (visigoths!) in short order. Not even sure I have a picture of it.

5) Did you ever partake in a food fight in Frary Hall (and if so did you hit Prometheus in the wiener)? Nope. Nor did I wish to.

6) Did you ever attend the jelly drink party in Norton? Nope. I was, um, not the party animal. Some cast parties, that was about it.

7) Mt. Baldy – skiing, partying, or hiking? I hiked around Baldy with my folks, but never as part of a college outing.

8) Frat party attender–Which one(s)? None. I was too busy rewriting D&D spell books in my dorm room (yeah, I was that kind of geek). I do remember the ubiquitous AGS party posters (Punch!) up all over the place, though.

9) Did you ever sleep with a Claremont professor? No. Nor do I recall any that the prospect even occurred to me.

10) Ever been to the top of the Frary Quad belltower (or on top of the roof of Frary!)? Nope.

11) Does the smell of Eucalyptus bring fond memories or make you barf? As Mary put it, “No, but the smell of fermenting breadfruit is still vivid.”

12) Did you take any courses at another of the Claremont Colleges? I took Latin up at Pitzer, and CS up at Harvey Mudd.

13) Did you sleep with anyone from another of the Claremont Colleges? Nope.

14) COOP-pinball or video games?–Cheese quesadilla or ________? Video games. I was a pretty mean hand at Gravitar, and I enjoyed watching some of the wizards on Missile Command. Never ate much there, though.

15) Did you ever go on a keg run, steal lemons from a grove, smuggle from Mexico, bring a stripper in, or otherwise assist in setting up a campus-wide party? Because that sounds sooooo like me. Um, no.

16) Juanita’s Burritos, In-and-Out, Yanni’s, Village Grill, or Buffalo Inn? I didn’t appreciate In-n-Out at the time, and never tried the latter three. Juanita’s was a regular fixture, and is still as good.

17) Did you ever get called into the dean’s office? Mercifully, no. I did have some long, painful discussions with my Econ and Spanish teachers, though.

18) Did you have sex on each floor of Smiley? Not even on one of them. Why, was I supposed to?

19) Did you ever argue with an economics or philosophy professor successfully, or did you ever try to wangle a B into an A out of any kind of professor with an esoteric, drug-fueled rationalization? No.

20) Did you have a crush on Cris Miller? No, but Chris Miller was a suite-mate of mine in Harwood Tower. Different person, I suspect.

21) Did you know someone who went through a religious conversion while at Pomona? I may, but not that was brought to my attention. I did become a much more active Catholic, though, participating in leading the music at McAlister Center at Sunday Mass with Fr. Frank.

22) Did you play a sport for Pomona-Pitzer–Which one and did we ever win? BWAH-HA-HAAAA! No.

23) Can you discuss the importance of the sagehen in desert ecology? No. But I can sing a line or two from “When Cecil Sagehen Chirps.”

24) Did you ever play keg soccer/softball/frisbee? No.

25) Did you ever eat at Veggie House? Nope.

25) Did you ever go to Halona? Never had the opportunity.

27) Did you ever go on a Foster’s donut run? Ha! I lived in Glendora (well, my folks did), so I took Fosters for granted. I think I did go on one FR, though.

28) Did you ever hide from the campus police in the bushes? Nope. Don’t ever recall seeing much of them.

29) Were you a member of Mufti? Had I been, their stickers would have been more consistently witty. Was pleased to see they are still around (and still hit-and-miss brilliant and stupid).

30) Did you “get” computers more than anyone else or at all? Apparently so, since I ended up backing into a job as a systems programmer intern at Seaver Computer Center after graduating, whence my career. Largely because I wrote some help files for the XEDIT editor on the VM system, with an eye toward folks using it as a word processor. Not bad for a History major.

31) Did you watch the Twilight Zone (or your choice) regularly in a dorm lounge? Almost always ate lunch at Harwood, and most of the time took the tray to the TV lounge there. Some years, TZ was the lunch fare of choice; other years, All My Children. Both were equally surreal, but Serling’s work was a scosh more believable.

32) Did you ever appear on stage at Pomona? Other than at graduation? Pomona was the zenith of my theatrical career. Messerschmann in Anouilh’s Ring Round the Moon, the Bailiff in Kafka’s The Castle (both in beloved Holmes), and Bottom the Weaver in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  Probably some others I’m forgetting. *sigh*

33) Did you ever receive an unexpected massage from a fellow student? From Margie, I suspect.

34) Did you break up a college couple? Not so far as I know. I was pretty much ina committed relationship the whole time.

35) Did you ever pull an all-nighter (purposely ambiguous)? On a number of (academic) occasions, to write papers, usually in the Harwood study lounge on my little Smith-Corona electric portable.

36) Did you know a student that was famous or from a famous family (e.g. a kid whose dad invented CD’s?) I acted on stage with Ty Power IV, great-grandson of Tyrone Power (he had one of the leads in the Anouilh, above). I studied econ (and was in a study group) with Esther Brimmer, whose father, Arthur Brimmer, knew a few things about econ (alas, it did not rub off on me second-hand). 

37) Did you ever sleep with somebody at school who is now famous? Nope.

38) I never thought ________ would graduate, let alone eventually become a professor! Most of my circle were pretty studious types.

39) Did you ever have a crush on an RA? Were you an RA? No. I did apply to be an RA my sophomore year, but was not (fortunately) accepted.

40) Did you ever get locked out of a class for arriving late? I managed to avoid it, but in a couple of cases (in Vince Learnihan’s class) just barely.

41) Did you ever get shafted by Masago Armstrong? I don’t believe so.

42) Did you go on semester abroad, and did you want to come back to Pomona after? I wish I had. It would have been an excellent experience.

43) Robert Wood–fake accent or not? Bobby Wood? Ha. I would call it “affected,” not fake, in that I think he very much intended it to be his real accent.

44) Did you ever show up inebriated at a Pres. Alexander get-together? I think I only went to one of those, and not bloody likely.

45) Did you ever stay on campus during a holiday or over the summer? One summer (between junior and senior years, I think), I had a job at the Seaver Labs watching after the mice. I rented a room off-campus, which was my first experience (aside from the dorms) living on my own. Alas, over the 4th of July a bottle rocket landed on the roof and burned down half the house (my stuff only had some minor water damage), so I had to move back to my folks (which was only a half-hour from campus, so not a huge deal).

46) Did you have a work-study or other job? It wasn’t formally work-study, but I had a job each year working in the dining halls as a runner (moving food trays from the kitchen to the steam line). Two years at Harwood, two years at Oldenborg.

47) Did you think you would actually get into Pomona when you applied? I really had no idea, but ended up being accepted pretty much everywhere, by which time I’d decided that I liked the more intimate setting of Pomona than my folks alma mater at Stanford. Just as well, as things worked out, personally, since Margie made the same decision …

(via Mary)