A Sentimental Journey

Posted on January 1, 2005 in Festivals Travels - So Cal

Returned to Claremont for part of the day, to find a geocache I felt entitled to find and walk Lynn around the sights of my college years. Mount Baldy and the peaks of the Cucamonga Wilderness rose above and looked like part of the clouds dragged across and left on the tops of the San Gabriels. We saw many people just perambulating around the Village. You could say “Happy New Year” to any stranger and get a grin in response. Claremont’s a college town — seven or eight times over thanks to the Claremont Colleges which share a central library and other facilities. People put up sculpture in their front yards. They read and act almost as if they were in New England.

When we go there, we stop off at the Folk Music Center (if it is open) to play with the instruments and browse the CDs and eat at Yianni’s Greek Restaurant just up the street. I see faces that I knew from college days and I see changes for the better. In the wild spin that my life has taken, I’ve left Claremont but I’ve come to think it as my first real home — chosen by me for the sake of me.

It was, all in all, a sentimental journey.