On this day in 1957, TSL published its first issue of the school year—with Kris Kristofferson as Sports Editor! The issue was full of articles written by sponsors and heads of the Associated Students of Pomona College welcoming Pomona first-years. One student, identified only as J.S.P., wrote this editorial poem about his dearly beloved Pomona.
Pomona, Ah!
Pomona, you are my college,
I take you to my hairy breast and squeeze you,
I fondle you in the shade cast by eucalyptus,
I dally with you in front of Mabel Shaw Bridges Auditorium;
On the Quad I chase you,
In the Wash I pursue you,
And cherish you on the steps of the Greek Theatre.
Pomona, you have sprung from desert sands like a jerboa,
Replacing dust with life, books, professors:
Joyous is your conglomerate miscellany,
And in your shaded groves the jay sings sweetly,
Mingling his song with the sound of growing grass;
Grass growing in profusion, like fuzz on youthful chests,
Where once only the green grass grew.
And above this racket rolls the sound of Students,
Thronging through your delightful stained oak hallways,
Hailing one another with their youthful yawp,
Throng they together, feet slapping boards together, cadenced:
Through Walker Lounge, Mudd-Blaisdell, Harwood Court;
through Clark Hall, I, II, and III,
Smiley, and the new wing, Norton;
Pouring through Edmunds Union, the Coop proper, the Memorial Gym,
Gushing in a never ending torrent through Honnold Library,
Carnegie, Holmes, Mason, Pearsons, and Rancho Santa Ana;
Like the flood sent by Hercules through those famous stables:
Roaring irresistible, this student flood, through Summer,
Rembrandt, Bridges, Montgomery (Who has been in Montgomery and remembers?)
A never ending stream of students to dampen your grass, Pomona,
And this is not all, but only source-water
From which will spring statesmen, princes, emperors, dukes, and knights errant,
Butchers, bakers, candlestick manufacturers,
Weavers, smiths, fletchers, and wainwrights,
Gauchos, chauseegrabentapezirers, chefs,
Dingbats, donegan workers, and millionaires:
All married with contented wives and children, tanned and strong,
From whose loins new loins will emerge, intermingling,
As beneath my feet your sacred sod reverberates,
A teeming womb of promise, pregnant manifold, Pomona.
My college, I cherish you and hold your memory close,
Stuffing it in my pants pocket when my hands are busy.
Even your team, the Sage Hens, I hold dear—forgiving their outlandish name,
And in Holmes Auditorium I watch your dramas performed, your Plug Uglies,
And watching, I applaud, forgiving;
The other things are forgiven also: The served dinners,
The picnics in Harwood Garden (where no flower ever grew),
And the band concerts there—all forgiven,
For I love you Pomona, my alma mater,
Mater alma, alter mama, never other:
Pomona, ah!