Taking a road trip down memory lane
FOR those of us whose bright college years are a distant memory, a visit to a university campus is tinged with mourning for our lost youth and envy for those fresh-faced things preoccupied with final exams and whether the cute boy down the hall is interested.
Alumni of certain local schools may beg to differ, but there is arguably no better place in the Los Angeles area to step into that universe of remembrance and regret than the Claremont Colleges.
The group of five schools is clustered in the heart of Claremont, a city whose old-growth trees and vintage architecture evoke a Midwestern college town. The campus buildings are done in various local vernaculars yet have the leafy intimacy that many California schools, as beautiful as they are, fail to capture.
During the school year, there are any number of free concerts, lectures and art exhibits. In the summer, the graceful quads and broad lawns are nearly deserted. It is a getaway that is all the sweeter for its Proustian reminders of time’s forward march.
One balmy afternoon, my date and I picnicked on the main quad of Scripps College with a border collie puppy and a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Enjoying a greasy feast on a vast, well-manicured green of the women’s college, with not a soul in sight, was a little like stepping onto an empty movie set. It took effort to imagine young women with backpacks strolling the shaded walkways and even more to imagine myself as one of them.
We wandered from the Spanish Colonial Scripps campus to the low-key modern buildings of Claremont McKenna College. A giant field of soft grass made us feel not just collegiate but positively childlike, inspiring footraces and games of tag.
With some time to kill before dinner, we headed up the foothills to the Padua Hills Theater, a nearly 80-year-old complex that used to house a Mexican theater group and has clearly seen better days. What stuck in my mind from that side trip was not the slightly forlorn theater buildings but our conversation about the McMansions that stud the hillsides, looming over streets so new that few trees have had a chance to grow -- a stark contrast to the original section of town.
At Viva Madrid!, the sangria was flowing and the tapas -- a good deal cheaper than in Los Angeles proper, but just as tasty -- made us forget our grown-up troubles. After that, it was down from the Ivory Tower and back to the shimmering city to confront the fear that our best years were already behind us.
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The tab
College tour Free
What: Self-guided tour of Claremont Colleges; Scripps College, 1030 Columbia Ave., Claremont. (909) 621-8000;
www.scrippscollege.edu
Picnic lunch $6.99
What: Kentucky Fried Chicken, nine-piece leg and thigh bucket
Dinner $39.00
What: Dinner, including tax and tip, at Viva Madrid! Bread with brava sauce, mushrooms stuffed with chorizo, smoked salmon, asparagus with Serrano ham, mussels, lamb chops and a half-liter of sangria. 225 Yale Ave., Claremont. (909) 624-5500; www.viva-madrid.com.
Total $45.99
