‘Artifact’ Stirs Athletics Memories

As someone who practiced the gridiron arts on Merritt Field for several years—toiling beneath the torrid San Gabriel Valley sun, stately oak tree, and watchful eye of legendary coach Roger “RC” Caron—I greatly enjoyed the “A Drum Falls Silent” piece in the Fall/Winter 2021 edition. My mother and uncle, who were taken to the bonfire rallies during the 1950s by my grandfather, former Dean of Men Shelton Beatty, confirm that they were, indeed, a “huge tradition,” if a bit haphazardly staged—one year, the inferno almost toppled onto the fieldhouse that preceded the Rains Center.

Speaking of the Rains Center, its walls and display cases are [of course] adorned with a veritable cornucopia of similarly absorbing artifacts. I recall in particular the 1984 Summer Olympics posters strategically placed around the complex, along with the panoramic photograph, across from the laundry room at the west entrance, depicting the scene at the Los Angeles Coliseum during one of those 1920s Pomona-USC football games.

I, for one, would not complain, if this “Artifact” item became a running feature, exploring a different Rains Center piece of memorabilia each issue!

—Doug Meyer ’01
Watertown, Massachusetts

Renaissance People

Reading the Fall/Winter 2021 issue of PCM, I noticed diverse, contrasting interests and pursuits of individual Sagehens.

Among the Fulbright award recipients, I was struck by physics major Adam Dvorak ’21, who planned to conduct research in Denmark studying the effects of extreme weather events. Then comes the 21st century Pomona Renaissance quality: “While in Denmark, Dvorak aims to teach violin.”

Jarrett Walker ’84 is an international expert on the vital issue of public transportation, and a “Renaissance man.” He was a math major at Pomona and has a drama, literature and humanities Ph.D. from Stanford.

I also discovered some real human gems in the obituaries. Chalmers Smith ’51 practiced law in San Jose while playing viola in the San Jose Symphony and in string quartets. Elizabeth “Betty” Kohl Hendrickson ’60, a chemist, cared full-time for her three children until they were in high school, published 20 chemistry research papers with her husband, and learned to play the hammered dulcimer at age 61. Julia “Judith” Moore ’66, Pomona magna cum laude graduate, Peace Corps volunteer, graphic designer, Stanford MBA and a vice president in marketing at Marriott, left the corporate world to focus on painting, exhibiting at galleries and a museum.

We tend to occupy ourselves with big things, big dreams, big bank accounts, great estates, statistics, information systems, huge data banks, numerous vehicles, mass production, globalization. If we can locate what is small and of genuine interest and high quality and not just what is great or popular and famous, we can give the small the attention it is due such that it flourishes, and everyone benefits.

—Alan Lindgren ’86
North Hollywood, California

Farewell to a PCM Storyteller

Photo by RICK LOOMIS/Los Angeles Times

Agustin Gurza, whose writing appeared in PCM for more than a dozen years, died unexpectedly in January at 73. A former Los Angeles Times columnist and critic, Gurza wrote in the Times that “I can’t go anywhere without gathering stories, like lint on a coat. Stories about people helping out, moving up, fighting back.” His first piece for PCM, “El Espectador” in 2009, was about Ignacio Lutero Lopez ’31, groundbreaking founder of a Spanish-language newspaper covering Pomona Valley barrio communities. Gurza’s final PCM story, “American Crossroads,” about UCLA Professor Genevieve Carpio ’05, appeared in our last issue. PCM’s editors appreciated Gurza’s writing talents, his deep commitment to telling the stories of his subjects and his friendship from afar. We send condolences to his loved ones, including two siblings who are alumni, Piti Gurza Witherow ’73 and Roberto Gurza ’80.

1943 Alumnus Cherishes Calendars

Today I received my new calendar,
The Pomona College Engagement Calendar.
I graduated in the Class of ’43.
Pomona has sent me seventy or more.

I am guessing there were no calendars
In the war years, ’44 and ’45.
I think the development function
Was resumed in ’46.

As a fund-raising technique
It has really worked with me.
I never forget my alma mater
When I write my dates on the calendar.

I do a month-at-a-time
On one perfect page.
I can see where I am going
And know where I have been.

I have never lived in Southern
California since my college days,
But I love the recollections
Of life around the Quad.

I worked nights and weekends
In Harwood for the girls.
I ate my meals in Frary
Along with all the other boys.

Chemistry was learned with Tyson
And calculus with Jaeger.
Basic botany with Munz
Was an outstanding privilege.

It’s hard to remember all
The names, but I’ll never forget,
“Let only the eager, thoughtful
And reverent enter here.”

It’s the calendars that have
Provided the yearly stimulation
To give back and to feel
And express gratitude.

—Lewis Perry ’43
Oakland, California

Editor’s note: The Pomona College Engagement Calendar is sent out in late summer to members of our Sagehen community. Alumni, families and friends of Pomona who have given to the Annual Fund in the previous year automatically receive the calendar. The first year the calendar was published is unknown.

The winds roared, the lights went out and the great trees came down, one after another.

Ronald Nemo, Pomona’s longtime grounds and landscaping manager, was on the scene by 6:30 a.m. after an unnerving Friday night in January brought the worst windstorm to rip through Claremont and the region in many years.

Nemo quickly shut off water flowing near Marston Quad after the lifted roots of fallen trees burst pipes. A once-towering eucalyptus lay across College Avenue. Stover Walk was covered in a tangle of branches; Clark I had taken minor damage from a pine.

In all, Pomona lost 17 trees, with hundreds more down across the city. The native coast live oaks, Pomona’s most prevalent tree, took the most losses on campus. Notable among the fallen were five oaks dating back to the early 1900s and now gone from along Stover Walk, where for decades they helped shade graduating seniors lined up for Commencement ceremonies. (The Wash, home to Pomona’s oldest oaks, was largely unscathed.)

Nemo, his crew and outside contractors called in to help set right to work on cleanup. He was grateful that nobody was injured, as he remembers the tragedy of 1998, when a eucalyptus fell on a car on College Avenue, killing two Pomona students. Nemo notes Pomona today has an extensive tree management program, with a regular cycle of inspections.

The trees lost in the January storm amounted to a tiny fraction of the 4,000 or so on campus. But they were concentrated in familiar spots such as Marston, and the sudden change in the landscape stunned many Sagehens.

Directing the cleanup along Stover, Nemo was philosophical regarding the plants: “The trees have a lifespan,” he says, “just like everything else.”

They will find a new purpose. Some of the timber is going to sculptor and Professor of Art Michael O’Malley, who recently taught a Critical Inquiry class, Trees and Wood. He too was on campus the morning after the windstorm.

O’Malley notes that because of their age, the trees downed in the wind are a size that makes them rare. Most will be used in his Wood Sculpture course and, if possible, for a few benches for the campus. The hope, he says, is to find a way for the wood to be shared and celebrated by the community.

What can’t be used for other purposes will become mulch to feed the landscape, according to Nemo.

Replacement trees will be chosen with care, Nemo promises, with some campus plantings set for April 29, which is both Arbor Day and the first full day of Alumni Weekend 2022. Time will bring new trees and new memories.

For more on the history of Pomona’s trees, see the 2014 PCM story “The Tale of the Trees”.

Image Gallery

Our lives are mostly continuity. Days blur into a seamless river of time, broken only by a handful of true discontinuities that stand like dams against the flow of years, shunting our lives onto new and radically different courses.

Some of these are matters of fate and circumstance. Winning the lottery, getting a dream job, getting fired, losing a loved one. This year we’ve all been shaken by one of the most disruptive of all—a pandemic.

Other disruptions take the form of cultural milestones—rites of passage in the course of a modern life. Starting school, leaving home, graduating, getting a job, getting married, having a baby. These transitions seem almost sacramental. They transform our lives, but they also make us feel part of something bigger than ourselves. We look forward to them with equal parts anticipation and fear because they promise both possibility and uncertainty. They also remind us that the clock is ticking inexorably on our lives.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because I now find myself on the brink of another of life’s sacramental passages—the one called retirement. By the time you read this, I will be at home, readjusting to a new life. And though I do feel some trepidation and wistfulness, I’m also excited about the prospect of focusing all my time and energy on my own writing and art, not to mention catching up on a lot of reading and, once this pandemic is done, having more freedom to travel.

I’ve gotten plenty of advice from friends who’ve walked this path before me, mostly about not repeating their mistakes. There are plenty of mistakes to be made, and I’m sure I’ll invent a few of my own. The best advice I’ve gotten, though, came from Professor Emeritus Richard Fass, who took my elbow one day and said with a wink: “Just remember: It’s a process.”

Which, I suppose, makes it like every other great milestone in life.

But I have to say that leaving this job is a bigger transition than most. I’m now in my 23rd year at Pomona—the longest I’ve ever worked or lived anywhere. This issue of Pomona College Magazine is the 65th I’ve had the privilege of designing and overseeing as either managing editor or executive editor. That number, I was surprised to discover, accounts for more than a third of the total since the very first PCM rolled off a press back in October 1963.

To that, I can only add: Thank you for putting up with me for so long.

When you retire, there are lots of sentimental “lasts’ to get through. This is one of them—the last one of these little essays I’ll ever write. Over the years, I’ve penned lots of them, usually about my take on something relevant to the magazine’s theme. In many of them, I’ve shared personal recollections and reflections from my own life—from childhood memories to the trials of parenthood to, in this case, saying goodbye to a career that I’ve mostly loved. I’ve done this, at the risk of oversharing, because I’ve always believed the universal is in the individual. I hope some of what I’ve written about my own life has resonated with yours.

Twenty-three years ago, in the very first of these little missives, I promised you a magazine that would respect your intelligence, and I noted that PCM’s mission should be to “inform, entertain and sometimes disturb. Like an old friend, it should be reliable, but it should frequently surprise you. It should make you think. In the Pomona tradition, it should challenge you.”

That charge is one that I now leave, with a high degree of confidence, for PCM’s next editor.

Remembering
Bill Wirtz

Professor Bill Wirtz leading an animal-trapping
expedition with students at Marine Corp Base Camp Pendleton near San Diego. —Photo by Helen Wirtz

We would like to recognize the legacy of Emeritus Professor William “Bill” Wirtz, who recently passed away in Norco, California, at 83 years old. Bill provided invaluable experience-based learning to generations of Pomona College students that brought the natural world into focus for all and inspired many of us to continue on in biology and ecology careers.

Many of us fondly remember Bill’s ecology course that included overnight trips to the Granite Mountains (to study desert ecosystems) and the Pitt Ranch (oak woodland/grasslands) and day trips to the San Gabriel Mountains (chaparral and coastal sage scrub communities). Bill was in his element with students in the field. He had a seemingly infinite knowledge of the natural history of mammals, birds, reptiles and plants and how they all fit together in an ecological community. Bill’s infectious enthusiasm and passion for biology made us eager to learn more. His vertebrate biology course featured infamous exams that required students to identify the bones of elephants, seals, snakes and birds and discuss their evolution across taxonomic groups.

Some of us were lucky enough to work for Bill as teaching assistants in the laboratory or as research assistants in the field. These experiences did two things simultaneously. First, Bill taught us how to “do” science, which formed our foundation in biological theories and methods. Second, his guidance inspired us to ask our own questions about nature and humanity’s relationship with it. Bill’s kind and patient mentorship motivated many of us to pursue careers as academics and practitioners, passing on his legacy to new generations.

Bill formed deep friendships with many students that lasted a lifetime. He sometimes referred to us as his academic “kids.” When we checked in with stories from our professional lives, we could feel his pride in our accomplishments. We also knew we could turn to Bill anytime for mentorship and advice.

Bill was a treasured friend and an engaged community member, dedicating his time to a number of endeavors, including fire rescue, the Audubon Society and animal welfare through the Humane Society. His endless passion for biology continues to live on in the work of his students. Bill will be sorely missed and fondly remembered.

—Tania Abdul ‘95, director of Breathe, United for Racial and Environmental Justice

Joel Brown ’80, distinguished professor emeritus, biological sciences, University of Illinois – Chicago

Susan Burr ’91, vice president, AECOS Inc.

Scott Fujimoto ’94, public health medical officer, California Department of Public Health

Julie Hagelin ’92, senior research scientist, Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska, Fairbanks

Greta Hardin ’94, forest lands manager

Brian Hudgens ’92, vice president and senior research ecologist, Institute for Wildlife Studies

Glennis Julian ’92, research technician, Butterfly Genetics Lab, University of Cambridge

Roger Lai ’94, senior product manager, 8×8 Inc.

Brad Lamphere ’93, assistant professor of biological sciences, University of Mary Washington

Audrey Mayer ’94, professor of ecology and environmental policy, Michigan Technological University

Jen Perga ’91, teacher (environmental science), Northwestern Regional High School

Terry Sicular ’76, professor

Gillian Thackray ’92, Thermo Fisher Scientific, chief counsel for IP

John Withey ’91, director & faculty, Master of Environmental Studies Program, Evergreen State College

Clint S. Wright ‘91, emeritus scientist, U.S. Forest Service

A memory of
Ved Mehta

One of my paying jobs during my first year, 1952–53, was serving as Ved Mehta’s reader in biology, a course in which I was also a student. Three nights a week, I sat with him and read the text and tried to explain the diagrams. The diagrams were difficult for us, as Ved was blind. One Sunday night, the devil was in me, and I suggested that instead of reading biology, we walk into town for a coffee at the only place open on a Sunday night, the Sugar Bowl. We did so, and for that night biology took the hindmost.

Perhaps 20 years later, I was leaving a club on W. 43rd St. in New York after lunch just as Ved was leaving his club next door. To my astonishment, when I spoke to him he recognized my voice as the biology reader. We talked for a few minutes, and then went our ways.

At our 50th reunion in 2006, discovering that we were going to cross campus to another event, Ved suggested we walk together, and I remembered his preference for subtle guidance by a touch to his elbows.

It became clear that he retained a strong mental map of the campus as it was, for he paused, concerned, before a place at which  a building in our time now no longer existed   (Harwood Hall, a World War II wood dungeon, for example) and had no idea of what lay beyond 6th Street.

During our stroll, I decided to unburden myself of the guilt I had sometimes felt for taking Ved away from his studies on that Sunday night. He said, with great sincerity, “Oh no, Doug, I will always remember it. It was the first time anyone had suggested that they wanted to do something with me.”

For the record, I must have been an excellent teacher, for Ved always scored above me on biology exams.

—Douglas K. Candland ’56
Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.