Doubletree Claremont Inn— a Hometown Hotel Stay.

I have just done something I’ve been avoiding for fifty years. I attended the Pomona High School 50-year class reunion. It is over and it was grand and sad and I am feeling something like PTSD. Southland. Inland Empire. My world.

The mayor was there. It was held at the Claremont Inn. The Claremont Inn is not in Claremont. It’s in Pomona, right across the parking lot from Betsy Ross Ice Cream Parlor. It should be called the “Pomona Inn”.  Okay, it’s a sore spot. Claremont people are better that us Pomonans. They say things like “we had lunch at the Village Grille” (of course it has an “e” at the end of it), or, “we did some shopping in the village”.  They would wax ecstatic over the acoustics of Bridges Auditorium and,  in 1962, would state with thoughtful expressions that they have been “meaning to visit” Pomona’s celebrated new downtown mall. The Claremont Inn, which I stress is not in Claremont, is not even the Claremont Inn. That is a new contrivance. It is and always will be Griswold’s. Griswold’s; home to a fabled smorgasbord, gift shop and bakery. It’s in Pomona. Later, they expanded. Later, they became a hotel and convention center. Jeff Boaz worked there as a bellman when he was at Cal Poly. The scope and sheer amount of porn left behind in the rooms was stupefying. It filled a huge box in his dorm room closet.

Claremont is a village. They actually call it a “village”, that borders Pomona to the Northeast. Many of Pomona’s children who grew up along the border attended Claremont High. None of Claremont's children attended Pomona High. There is no wall. No rivers, deserts, or mountain ranges provide natural boundaries. In fact, Foothill Boulevard links the two towns altogether seamlessly. Still, it was a tough crossing. I was always uneasy at the frontier. I always kind of expected an official in a crisp uniform to stop me and demand to see my papers. Everything in Claremont was riper, shinier, better. Trees were leafier. Homes more stately. Front lawns were more well-kept and backyards were gardens. In Claremont even the smog seemed less ruthless. Claremont nestled, yes nestled, in the foothills of the Sierra Madre. It sheltered our valley’s brain trust. It was home to the Claremont Colleges, eight of them, and a school of theology. Among them were Pitzer, Scripps and Harvey Mudd; all illustrious institutions, but in a sweet irony the best, most venerable, most clad in ivy of them all was Pomona College. It was the seat of our culture. It gave us Bridges Auditorium, magnificent acoustics and all. In 1907 “after a short illness” Mabel Shaw Bridges, a Pomona College student, died at the age of twenty two. She was surely loved. Her family built her a temple. It is where I and most everyone else in our valley, under a vaulted gold and blue zodiac, first heard Beethoven or saw the Nutcracker. 

By contrast Pomona had for years been regarded as seedy. Remnants of beauty abound but they must be sought out. Our town was once a blanket of orange groves: a vision of Gothic Revival churches and Arts and Crafts homes encircling Lincoln Park. Its restaurants; Orlando’s, The Hull House, Espiau’s and “Breakfast at Carl’s” were temples to middle class aspiration and the crappy tract homes we grew up in, homes that held secrets of anger and abuse, sheltered us from objectively examining the bleakness of going about our business, pursuing our dreams on the glaring asphalt, under the weight of denial and the worst smog there ever was. Still, I will refuse to see my childhood as anything but idyllic. I will cling to that.

 So here was my reunion; time to confront, to recalculate, to hear stories about my mother, to cringe at memory. I was overwhelmed by kind things people said, kind things I surely did not deserve and the surreality of being inside a room filled with shared memory yet nothing much to talk about. I was near every pretty girl I had a crush on and every jock I envied. I was with the guilty successes. Our less lucky classmates are estranged or dead. Growing up, we were all aware that Pomona would exact a toll. I was with the escaped. I was with beautiful, funny people that became drunk and ugly. I was with a kind, smart, boy who became a kind, smart man. I smoked a cigar with a popular girl. I reminisced with the best basketball player about a 14 point game I had. Even as I told the story I realized it was only 8 points and then, truth to tell, it became 4. I won a door prize.

The Mayor got it. His speech was lovely. he took pains to draw the distinction between Pomona and Claremont, between a city and a “village”, between substance and style; between poor and rich.

My room straddled both worlds. It was an oasis. The Doubletree has a coffee maker in the room, a clover shaped pool and a kind, professional staff. It has palm trees and a view of the mountains. It is neighbors with mid-century Polynesian apartment buildings and droll, boulder encrusted, bungalows. It’s on Rte. 66. Vestigial romance lingers. My stay here was grand. My room was a staging ground for, and refuge from, my hesitant foray into the past.