At home - and not - in Claremont

 

   There is a lot of things I love about living in Claremont.  I love the colleges, all the artists and all the artsy people (as pretentious as they sometimes are), the small-town and relatively liberal vibe in the midst of a white-bread if not conservative suburbia. 

   But it does drive me crazy – not in the good way.  Claremont has its problems.  What bugs me even more is when it pretends it doesn’t.  For instance, here’s my latest Claremont Courier column, published on June 28. I can only hope the problem doesn't get worse with the Grants Pass Supreme Court ruling which came down that very day. 

HOMELESSNESS IS NO JOKE.  CLAREMONT’S ATTITUDE ABOUT IT IS. 

   Remember Occupy Claremont? 

   Remember when there were people camping out in front of City Hall some 15 years ago?  They were there in solidarity with other encampments in cities across the U.S, starting on Wall Street in New York City, protesting economic inequality.  Remember? 

   The recent encampments protesting Israel’s war in Gaza reminded me of it. But I’m also reminded of it when I think about homeless people in Claremont. 

   I remember that during Occupy Claremont, in which some of the people camping were actually homeless and in which the participants were supported with meals and showers by Pilgrim Place residents, there was a fair amount of commentary, plenty of it negative with not much sympathy for the cause.  A typical letter in these pages said that the encampment made the village “dangerous.” 

   There was a group of Claremonters – people who cared more about the poor and the unhoused than about what the Village looked like – who met at the time to discuss what could be done to help the homeless in Claremont. Because they knew that they were more than the 5 or some other ridiculous number that was come up with in the first homeless count here, also at the time.

   They also found out, among other things, that many homeless people spend the night here, where they feel safe, and go to Pomona during the day for food, showers and other services.  It was also known that a number of students in Claremont schools didn’t have homes, ones where they regularly stayed. 

   The situation isn’t that much better today. For example, as I’ve heard from a few sources, there are two shelter beds in Pomona reserved for “Claremont’s homeless.”

   Really?  Two shelter beds for the homeless in Claremont?  (There are no homeless shelters in Claremont.) Tell me I heard wrong – please. 

   And, according to many of the homeless persons who hang out here, like those who use the Friday shower program at Saint Ambrose Church, the shelter in Pomona is dangerous, unclean, etc.  No wonder they spend the night here.

   That there are two shelter beds for the unhoused in Claremont – and they’re not in Claremont?  What a joke!  And not a funny one, never mind probably illegal. 

   At least for now, cities aren’t allowed to criminalize or drive out the homeless unless they have shelter or housing for them.  Otherwise, the homeless have to be allowed to sleep in parks, in cars or wherever they feel safe. 

   But it looks like Claremont wants to ignore this, would rather move the homeless along and act like they’re not here, like Claremont doesn’t have a homeless problem.  Half the items in the police blotter in these pages are about homeless individuals (as if they can pay the fines!).

   Like I said, a joke – and an unfunny one. 

   Look, I get why Village merchants complain about finding people sleeping or having urinated or defecated in their doorways.  This is a bad, bad problem – no doubt about it.  But punishing those who have nowhere to sleep and go to the bathroom and then acting like this isn’t a problem here isn’t a solution.

   Locking the restrooms in Larkin Park and forcing the homeless to more or less use the grounds of the nearby Quaker meetinghouse, in which homeless people could spend the night for several years before the COVID pandemic, as a toilet, driving the meeting to make the agonizing, unfriendly, unQuuakerly decision to make trespassing on its property a crime is not a solution. 

   It’s a bad, bad joke. 

   Yes, Larkin Place, which will provide housing and services to homeless people, is being built next to the park and the Quaker meeting but only after some fierce protesting by neighbors and others farther afield and some resistance by the City Council.  The fact is that, essentially, it’s the law that this facility and two or three others in Claremont are being built. It’s the law that more housing, more affordable housing, be available, including in Claremont. 

   But Larkin Place may not solve the homeless problem – yes, the homeless problem – here.  Homeless people may still show up in Claremont.  Claremont should get serious about this problem and realize it’s a problem, not a crime to sweep away.

Left behind

 

   When I’m out and about, either around my neighborhood in my wheelchair or further afield in my van, I don’t see nearly as many “Black Lives Matter” yard signs as I did even a couple years ago. 

   When they showed up or at least proliferated in 2000, after the police murders of George Floyd, Breanna Taylor and too many other Black individuals, the yard signs became almost hard to escape, appearing everywhere. I found this quite heartening – all the more so when COVID was raging and we were all isolated, more or less.  That I was the only one on my street to have a “Black Lives Matter” yard sign was curious to me, but that is perhaps a story for another day. 

   Now, I’m not the only one who is alone in having this sign; there are many other streets that feature only one or two of the signs, and some appear to be just hanging on or pushed aside, as if someone hasn’t gotten around to throwing them out.  It looks like “Black Lives Matter” doesn’t matter anymore.  Or is it that Black lives don’t matter anymore – or again? 

   I see these signs disappearing, and I keep thinking of the Occupy movement. 

   Remember Occupy?  Remember Occupy Wall Street, which expanded to Occupy New York, Occupy Los Angeles, and so on, with people camping out in many cities, protesting economic inequality?  There was even an Occupy Claremont encampment in front of City Hall in the Village downtown area, to some people’s consternation and with showers provided by a local community of retired church workers.

   Whatever happened to this movement, which seemed so powerful when it was happening about 15 years ago?  Perhaps the current encampments on college campuses protesting Israel’s war on Gaza and the colleges’ involvement in financing it are what brought the Occupy encampments to mind.    

   Will the college encampments pick back up when school starts again in August and September and if the Gaza War is still going on?  Or will it be another discarded, forgotten movement? 

   As I see the dearth of “Black Lives Matter” signs and wonder about the Occupy movement and how long or if the pro-Palestinian encampments will continue (if the Gaza war and college investments in Israel continue), I wonder why these and other liberal, progressive movements tend to fizzle out while anti-abortion, pro-gun and other conservative movements or forces go on and on.  Not only that, they often get stronger. 

   Look at the way the anti-abortion folks hung in there for decades, since at least the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in 1973, to see that decision overturned in the Dobbs decision two years ago and vowing to continue and get a national abortion ban.  Look at the way the pro-gun people persist, getting gun safety measures blocked even in the face of unending horrific mass shootings, including at schools.  Look at the dozens of anti-trans and other anti-queer state laws that have been passed or are pending. 

   It’s not that progressive measures aren’t also approved (civil rights, gay marriage, etc.).  It’s the conservative movements and how strong and persistent and how vocal and loud they are, to the extent that some of these measures are threatened. Why do many progressive movements not have this staying quality or power? 

   Is it because conservatives, who always tout that they’re pro-law and order, are more orderly, so to speak, better at organizing or being organized, following directions?  Perhaps progressives are just too loose, being more socialistic – the conservatives might say communistic - anti-authoritan, less inclined to being organized and following directions.

   I’m all for going one’s own way, but there should be a way to do this and not veer too far off track and end up losing.

Getting unstuck (?)

 

   The other night, I was watching a documentary on Netflix called Radical Wolfe about Tom Wolfe, the famed and somewhat controversial author of such modern classics as This Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, The Right Stuff and The Bonfire of the Vanities.  I was struck when, during one of the many television interview clips shown, Wolfe, in talking about The Right Stuff which took him most of the 70’s to write, described writing as “agony.”

   This made me feel better.  It helped to hear this.  It helped to hear Tom Wolfe, this great, famous writer who I have always loved, saying that writing was agony for him.  I don’t know if I would say that writing is agony, but, as much as I love it as Wolfe undoubtedly did, it is often not easy, to say the least. (Another quote I like – I don’t know the source – is “I like having written.”)    

   I don’t say this to elicit pity or as an excuse, considering that I haven’t posted here in months.  I’m just saying.  It’s a fact, an explanation. 

   The fact is that I haven’t been writing much lately, because I’ve been preoccupied.  It’s like my mind has been taken over, hijacked, by issues I’m dealing with, leaving no room to develop ideas to write about.  I don’t like it that this happens.  Like I said, it’s just a fact, it just is. 

   One of these issues literally took my time.  For many months, I had a pressure sore on my butt and had to lie down for at least part of the day.  This robbed me of time to do things – like write. (I did get out a column for the Claremont Courier and a few short items for my Quaker meeting in spurts when I was up and not going out.) Last week, the doctor told me that the sore is gone.  Hooray!  But now I’m wary of getting another sore and wondering if and how much I should lie down sometimes.  I’ve been lying down for a couple hours on most afternoons, but I wonder – and worry – about wasting time – and not writing. 

   Another thing very much on my mind is hiring at least two attendants.  I don’t like hiring anyway – getting strangers to take care of me – and the process this time has taken months, with the added stress that I need more than one attendant.  It has been hard to attract people, to get them to come for an interview, and a couple good prospects have backed out, despite the remarkably good pay I’m now able to offer.  The background checks, required for my funding and which can sometimes takes weeks and sometimes months, don’t help.  I also feel bad for my remaining attendants, who have taken on many extra hours and some overtime.  (One has been working practically every night for at least a month while starting a very difficult course of study.  Also, I’ve been assured that I have enough funding to cover the overtime, but still…)

   I’m also anxious and excited about this summer when I’ll be away not once but twice.  In July, for the first time in five years, I’m going to an annual five-day gathering of West-coast Quakers.  The meeting is being held at Whittier College, 40 minutes away, close enough to have my attendants do their shifts there.  The other trip is to Santa Barbara, about 2 hours away, in late August.  This should be easy and relaxing, but it’s a consolation of sorts, after backing off from a trip to the Bay Area, which proved to be too difficult now and which I’m still mourning, yes, mourning (I still need to cancel the airbnb). I’m looking forward to both times away, but there’s a lot to get ready, including getting my attendants lined up.  I wish traveling wasn’t so much harder than before my spinal surgery or even a few years ago – another thing I’ve been ruminating on.

   I rather be thinking about things to write, and writing them, than obsessing about these concerns, as mundane or profound as they are.  Like I said, this is not an excuse – and I did get this whole post out of just saying! – and I can only hope to be back here more often.  I will try.  That’s all I can say.

 

   Actually, I can add a bit more – my latest Claremont Courier column, which I managed to write when I was up and not going out. As you’ll see, it discusses the frustration of not being able to do what one was able to do or is used to doing – a feeling of being left behind.   

                TIME FOR SOME SMALL-TOWN QUIET

                           By John Pixley

   Whew!  It’s May.  I can take a breath! 

   Whew!  The colleges are wrapping up another year.  Except for a single leftover concert and a frenzied weekend of commencements, complete with crowded streets, this month, things will be pretty much all quiet on the collegiate front. 

   It’s about time! 

   It seems crazy for me to say, but, just in case it isn’t clear, I’m glad that the semester is over.  Or, rather, I’m relieved that the semester is over. 

   I’m relieved that all the concerts, performances and other presentations are over.

   This really does sound crazy coming from me. I have always rhapsodized about how the colleges and their events – often free! – make Claremont all the more special, an all the more unique and wonderful community in which to live.  I wrote a whole column a few months ago declaring that we don’t need L.A, that there’s enough going on right here in Claremont, thanks largely to the colleges here, not to bother with driving on the freeways. There were many years when I bemoaned that Claremont was dead during the summer, declaring that the commencements were cause for literal mourning, with the ensuing months not only hot but devoid of the colleges’ activities. 

   But things have changed, as I’ve been finding.  Yes, the town side of the town/gown equation has changed. Claremont isn’t quite the sleepy little town it used it be, where the sidewalks were said to roll up at 5. The Village has practically become a hot spot, especially on weekends.  There is the Laemmle cinema.  And there is a good amount of live music, whether in the Village on Friday evenings, in Memorial Park on Monday evenings and at a few other venues. 

   I suspect, though, that, probably more significantly and importantly, more than Claremont has changed.  There are no doubt plenty of teenagers and young adults who think that Claremont is Dullsville, who think that nothing goes on here, especially during the summer, who put up with the freeway traffic to escape to L.A and the beach and plot how to bust out of here someday.  As I heard a student speaker say at the Pomona College commencement years ago, Claremont is “a nice place to live when you retire.”

   Well, I’m about that age when I’m ready to retire.  Yes, I’m older – or at least more disabled.  I am not able to do what I used to do, and I don’t have the energy to deal with getting to and especially from L.A.  And, frankly, I barely can keep up with all the concerts and performances, much less the talks, at the colleges, especially as they pile up in the last month of the school year.

   It’s not that I don’t miss my adventures in L.A.  It’s not that I don’t look forward to spending a few days in Santa Barbara later this Summer and that I don’t sometimes wish I had I had a house or apartment at the beach where I could spend weekends (or weeks) at least during the summer. I do – sure, I do!  But I have come to appreciate how much we have in Claremont and how easy it is – not like dealing with the freeway traffic – and be thankful for and content with it. 

   And, every now and then, we really see that Claremont isn’t such a sleepy little town.  The colleges may not be big-time like UCLA or Harvard (despite the “Harvard of the West” t-shirts), but there is indeed life on the campuses – for better and for worse. 

   I was reminded of this, to my amusement and, yes, irritation, this Spring.  In late April, as the media kept proclaiming that the wave of student protests over the horrendous war in Gaza devolving into ugly, heart-sickening, sometimes violent confrontations, sometimes culminating in arrests by city police, began at, was inspired by New York’s Columbia University, I was like, wait, didn’t this happen at Pomona College weeks earlier in early April? 

   Not that that it was something to be proud of (especially with the protesters masked). But we were a small, sleepy town that doesn’t count.

   Well, I for one am ready for a few, just a few, months in a little, if not so sleepy, town.

Still here - and still a happy Claremonter

 

   Don’t worry.  I’m still here. 

   I haven’t posted for a while – again – but I’m still dealing with this damn pressure sore on my butt.  It is tiny but still there, and I’m still having to lay down, to stay off it, as much as possible.  But I’ve been getting up to go to movies, plays, concerts, Quaker meetings – and also to write a bit.  (This has been challenging and frustrating.  No doubt getting up like this – playing hooky, so to speak – is a big part of why it’s taking so long for the sore to heal, but, as I keep saying to anyone who will hear or read, I need to have a life.)

   I managed to write two columns for the Claremont Courier.  Both happen to be about Claremont and why I love it, and both are below.  The first ran in January, and the second ran on Friday.  Enjoy! 

                   FORGET L.A. WE HAVE CLAREMONT   

   Who needs L.A?  I don’t. 

   At least not anymore. 

   There was a time when I told myself the only reason I would stay in Claremont where I grew up was that it was relatively easy to get to Los Angeles.  There was a time when I would drive to L.A three or four times a month to see terrific and not-so-terrific plays in tiny theaters in Hollywood and wherever else, to see museum exhibitions and eat at favorite spots, to go to the beach and sit.  There was a time – this was before my spinal surgery seven years ago – when I would get on the Metrolink in my wheelchair on my own once a week and take it to Union Station and then, more likely then not, take the Red Line subway and the 320 bus to get to wherever I was going, whether to see a friend in Beverly Hills or to spend a couple hours on the Santa Monica Pier or, if I was feeling really adventurous, cruise down the boardwalk to Venice.

   But not anymore. 

   Don’t get me wrong.  I loved L.A.  Still do – and miss it.  Indeed, I love L.A, ala Randy Newman. 

   But now I can’t take the train, not to mention the subway and bus on my own, and, more significantly, I hate the traffic.  Or, let me clarify, I always hated the traffic, but now I can’t take it.  And I pretty much won’t. Getting out to L.A may not be so bad – it may even be a breeze – but there’s always, always, no matter the day or time of day or evening, traffic coming back, which exhausts me and nearly ruins the day – and I’m not the one driving.

   In the last two years or so, I’ve ventured to the L.A area twice, to have lunch with friends and then attend their wedding.  I’ve been to Pasadena a couple times, but there’s still the return-traffic problem.       

   Besides, I’m finding that I don’t need L.A.  Literally. 

   There’s plenty going on here. 

   On almost every weekend during the school year, there’s at least one concert going on at the colleges.  There are impressive faculty and guest artist recitals and performances by rigorously trained student ensembles, not to mention offerings here and there by student groups.  No, these may not be the Los Angeles Philharmonic or Master Chorale, but, hey, almost all are free (a rarity at colleges, I’ve come to discover).

   There’s also lots of music presented in town, whether it be concerts in the park or in the Village on summer evenings, well-known artists playing at the Folk Music Center and various artists and local bands performing in a variety of venues, from churches to bars, around town. 

   As for theater, we have Ophelia’s Jump, just over the border in Upland.  I say “we,” because this production company is based in Claremont.  Even when it was an orphan outfit looking for a home, performing in whatever venue would take it in, I was saying that Ophelia’s Jump is like seeing a play in L.A without the drive and traffic.  There are also plays and dance performances, including by student group, at the colleges, more often impressive than not, and Claremont High, yes, puts on some pretty good productions. 

   Speaking of artists, there are also lots of exhibits at the colleges and around town.  Add in the numerous talks at the colleges and other events there and around town, not to mention the Laemmle Cinema, and there’s more than enough to do. 

   I don’t know if this is because Claremont and the colleges have changed or if I have changed.  I thought Claremont was pretty boring when I was younger – it wasn’t so lively then – and a teen and young adult may well feel the same today. But Claremont and the colleges are now a pretty good deal – a boon, in fact – for those of us who are older and can’t get around like we used to. 

   So, forget L.A.  Those who can put up with the traffic and the hassle can have it.  The rest of us have plenty to enjoy and love right here in Claremont.   

 

                ANOTHER REASON TO BE PROUD OF CLAREMONT

   I almost lost it. 

   She told about getting a phone call early one morning, knowing it was from her son. It had to be something serious, she knew, because her son doesn’t like getting up early. She said that by the time she reached the phone, a room and a half away, she had planned her grand-daughter’s funeral. 

   It turned out that the grand-daughter wasn’t dead, hadn’t been murdered, but such thinking, such a worry, is typical for this grandmother who lives in Pilgrim Place, because this grand-daughter is transgender and lives in Tennessee.  The southern state, on the other side of the country, literally and otherwise, isn’t known as a friendly state to those who aren’t straight and is one of a growing number with anti-trans laws. The grandmother also told about the grand-daughter having attended very conservative schools, where she was told that such “life styles” were sinful, and about the other set of grandparents who offered to pay for college if she didn’t use her new name. (The grand-daughter didn’t accept, saying, “You can’t buy me.”)

   As a gay man who came out in the 90’s when same-sex relationships were beginning to be accepted and same-sex marriage was about to be a hotly contested issue here in loosey-goosey California, I could relate.  As a severely disabled person used to being stared at, sometimes made fun of and who people constantly make the wrong assumptions about, I could relate.  A bit.  At least enough so that I felt my eyes begin to well up. 

   The grandmother, Elizabeth Moore, was speaking, remarkably enough, at the library one Saturday morning last month. I don’t know if her eyes were welling up, but she was clearly speaking with much emotion, with much concern, if not fear, for her grand-daughter and also no doubt for speaking about it in such a public setting. 

   She was one of three speaking on a panel that morning related to the current On the Same Page selection, This is How It Always Is,  a novel by Laurie Frankel about a large, rambunctious family dealing with the youngest child, aged about 5, suddenly insisting that he is a she.  The other two were a young Claremont couple, one of whom was a man when they had a child and then transitioned to a woman a few years later.  They talked about what this process was like and how their relationship successfully and happily survived.

   All the speakers were compelling and engaging, although hearing a grandmother’s fears for her grand-daughter time zones away was most griping.  But as remarkable as this Saturday morning discussion at the library was, as remarkable as this community read is in this time of proliferating book bans and anti-trans laws and violence, what was most remarkable was the audience. 

   The room was packed, and I could feel it radiating with love and support.  When it came time for the Q&A, people jumped up, all but cheering, eager to ask questions, to get more information.  Even when the questions were salacious, having to do with “what happens in the bedroom,” as one older woman cheerfully put it, they were asked with genuine curiosity, with wanting to understand, with wanting to support and to know how to help.  

    It was easy to see why, as was shared earlier, the trans grand-daughter loves it here in Claremont when she comes to visit twice a year, why she says Pilgrim Place is somewhere where “I can be who I am.”

   As I left that morning, my eyes were again welling up.  Or perhaps it was my heart that was swelling up.  Or both.  I felt elated – flat-out elated.  I was so happy, so proud, to be part of this community where this could happen. 

   I am just as excited to go hear the book’s author, Laurie Frankel, speak at the Hughes Center, 1700 Danbury Road, at 10 on Saturday, March 16. Go Claremont!  Keep on, keep on making me proud!