Ramona From Pomona

When I announced to my wife I was driving to Pomona for the day, she looked at me as if I had just threatened her cockateel and said, “Oh, no you don’t.”

“I have to,” I said. “For the second year in a row, Pomona has been named one of the most disgusting cities in America by Zero Population Growth, and I have to know why.”

“I read the story,” she said. “They weren’t defining disgust. They were defining stress. Pomona is one of the most stressful cities in America, but that’s not why you’re going. You’re off to see Ramona.”

Ah, Ramona from Pomona.

A friend named Harry used to speak of her as the quintessential woman, the hottest substance since burning magnesium. Some said she never existed, that the poor, lonely man created her out of cigar smoke and dry martinis. He’d disappear for a weekend and return with stories of Ramona.

Over the years she became a joke. I’m off to see Ramona from Pomona! Harry laughed as loudly as anyone, but still insisted she was real. Then one weekend he left and never returned.

What happened to Harry? What happened to Ramona from Pomona? Who knows?

“I’ll go with you just in case,” my wife said. “What did Harry used to say? ‘Lips like burning coals, hips like swaying palms. . . .’ ”

“You used to take me to Burbank,” she said as we drove down Mission Street past a motel that had seen better days and a bar that opened at 6 a.m. “Now you bring me to Pomona. When do we get to San Francisco?”

“Patience. It took me four years to get to Pomona.”

I can’t remember ever having gone to Pomona before. I’m sure I did because in the days when I was full of fun, I took my family to the County Fair, which is in Pomona.

“You remember that?” I asked my wife.

“I remember the fair,” she said, “but I don’t remember you being full of fun.”

Zero Population defines stress in terms of growth and quality of life. Pomona has added 40,000 residents in the past 10 years. It now stands at 120,000. That plus its smog is too much for ZPG.

We drove around Pomona for two hours. It’s a smoggy, lackluster city, all function and no form. But if there is stress, they hide it well. A man lay sprawled like a cat on his porch, sleeping. A road crew picked listlessly at a ditch.

“I’ve lived in this place all my life,” a man named Jim Dixon said in a parking lot outside the Bank of America. “I’m not afraid to walk the streets at night. I can leave my windows open when I sleep. Try doing that in L.A.”

We entered the bank. The place bounced like a Mickey Mouse cartoon. Tellers chirped with happiness. Customers chirped back. Two burly guards didn’t chirp, but I felt they probably chirped off-duty.

A computerized sign on a wall said, “Be Happy.” The phrase was flanked by two smiling faces.

“Why is it,” my wife said, “that I feel as though I’ve just entered Sugarland?”

“Stress is in the eye of the beholder,” Mayor Donna Smith said. She was a tall, angular woman, pleasant but intimidating. She wore a badge that said, “Buy Pomona.”

“Why do you suppose Zero Population named Pomona one of the most stressful cities in America?” I asked.

“They are people who don’t believe in having babies,” she said.

It was a reply any mayor could be proud of. Vague, unresponsive and emotional. Can an organization that doesn’t like babies be expected to impartially judge the stress factor of any city?

As if to strengthen her tacit evaluation of Zero Population, Smith pointed out that Pomona was the home of Hostess Cup Cakes. A sweet place to be. My wife was right. We were in Sugarland.

“Remember when you write this,” the mayor said, “that the smog we suffer from isn’t our smog.” She pointed at me. “It’s your smog.”

“What did she say?” my wife asked.

“She said I ought to be ashamed of my smog. Her attitude was basically pro-baby.”

“She likes babies?”

“She dislikes organizations that don’t like babies. Did you see any stress while I was gone?”

“There’s no more stress here than there was in Burbank. But I do believe I spotted Ramona from Pomona.”

“Really? Lips like burning coals? Hips like swaying palms?”

She shook her head sadly. “Lips get cold. Palms grow. We all get older. I’m afraid her magnesium has cooled.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I looked in the mirror this morning, and I believe I’m getting jowly. Time indeed passes.”

“Come on,” she said. “We’ll do lunch at the Turkey House.”

“They don’t do lunch in Pomona. They chow down.”

I looked back as we drove off. “So long, Harry, wherever you are.”

And goodby, Ramona.