c-l-a-r-e-m-o-n-t-r-o-c-k-s, claremont rocks, oh yes!

that was an awesome cheer i remember my older sister doing for cross country in high school. and claremont does rock. check out this article. bam! have some of that. especially all my beloved oc (dont call it that) ignorant fools. claremont is really lovely and im happy its finally getting the recognition it deserves. well, not sure if it necessarily deserves this recognition, but it is a lovely town. although i do think the cons from the article are rather funny. you cant breathe or afford to live here, but otherwise, the place is a dandy. my brother and i discussed the article and both agreed that we enjoyed growing up in claremont and think it is a great town, but not sure if its worth the money it would cost to get in a home. average home $700,000! thats ridiculous. i remember my friend lindsey mullinax's family selling her home back when i was a senior in high school in 1998. i cant remember what it was selling for, but something between the 700K and million range and their home was huge, and easily two to three times my parents home. now that home would probably cost around 1.7 million. its outrageous. but if you have the money, its clearly the place to be. or if you are there, its probably wise just to remodel your home and plan on staying for the long haul.

but sometimes its hard being from claremont. because no one knows where it is. im always amazed at how little people from l.a. know their geography or where they are in relation to everything else. and i dont know if its their fault or just l.a.'s fault. meaning that l.a. is so spread out and unconnected, well its all connected, but not closely connected. there isnt really a big city feeling at all. so while there are 11 million+ people in the county, youre not really in close proximity to any of them. except while in your car in traffic, but you dont get much person to person interaction in traffic. its not like a new york or something where you throw everyone so close together you cant help but know the city (i think manhattan is only 7 miles long or so). granted, ive never lived in new york, so i dont know that its like that, but i feel like people there are more aware of their surroundings. l.a. is tough because its filled with tons and tons of suburbs. tons. and claremont is just another suburb. so i dont really expect people to know exactly where it is. i dont know where all cities in l.a. are located. ive heard of most of them, but i couldnt tell you where they are exactly. but im always shocked when people dont even know freeways. how are you getting around? oh thats right. youre from the oc and you dont ever leave except maybe to make the long journey down to laguna beach. no. not all oc people are snobs. but they all are ignorant fools.

so here is what happens. people will sometimes ask me where i am from. ill say claremont. sometimes they will have heard of it, sometimes not. which is amazing that some people havnt even heard of a city that is only an hour away from where they live. if i said i was from bisbee, arizona, id expect them not to know where it is. but im not. im saying claremont. its only an hour away. but thats fine. so when they ask where it is, im happy to explain. which i usually do by telling them how they could get there on the freeway. i usually say that its out off the 210 freeway. but this is when things can get interesting. some people are sort of familiar with that freeway, others have never even heard of it. so ill say, 'you know. its the pasadena freeway.' and they will say, 'oh right. ive heard of pasadena. so claremont is near pasadena?' 'well, no. i mean, sort of. claremont is closer pasadena than to huntington beach, but the 210 connects claremont and pasadena.' again, i dont expect you to know where claremont is, but now you havnt even heard of a large freeway.

so theyll usually look at me like im strange for mentioning a freeway they havnt heard of. if i was in utah or another state or something and trying to explain where claremont is, i would have just said its sort of by pasadena. if they havnt heard of that, ill just say, near l.a. but because im in huntington beach and really wanting to let this person know im from a great little legit town, i stick with it. so ill ask them if they are familiar with the 57 freeway. they usually are, as one side of the 57 freeway ends when it hits the 5 freeway, which a main freeway running through parts of the oc. but of course they arent familiar with the other end of the 57 freeway. (the 57 essentially goes from anaheim - near huntington beach to san dimas - near claremont). but sometimes they werent even aware of where that freeway originated. i think some people just think that freeways run forever in all directions. i think some people actually think that if they got on the 405 and drove south that they could make it to chile. so its shocking news to hear that the freeway ends, and no less near my city, which they still havnt heard of. again, i dont expect people to be freeway experts. im not exactly sure where the I-15 ends. or even the I-5. i know it goes up towards sacramento, but i couldnt exactly say where it ends, but i know its general direction. but at least in l.a. i know where it passes and what cities and freeways it intersects etc. but i dont know all of it. and i dont expect others to know either. but the 57 is only about 50 miles long. maybe you havnt driven all of it, but to act like you had no idea where it went once it left orange county is a little embarrassing for you, right? maybe not. probably not. nevermind. youre right. the 57 once it leaves orange county is irrelevant.

so now all i am left with is to start naming cities nearby and hopefully they have heard of one of them. so i usually begin by naming other nice cities in the area. upland, glendora, san dimas, la verne. these are all small communities like claremont, that are also nice, just not as nice, evidenced by their omission from the list. but people usually havnt heard of them, so im left in between a rock and a hard place.

a rock - pomona, a.k.a. 'p-town.' pomona is a hole. its the ghetto. and not just like someone from beverly hills calling a place like santa monica a ghetto (an otherwise really nice town except for homeless people scattered throughout - because it is a beach city). p-town isn like compton bad or east l.a bad. but when the l.a. riots occurred, there wasnt rioting in all of l.a., just a lot of the poorer, shadier neighborhoods, including, some lovely parts of p-town. p-town represented for our area. thanks guys. but pomona is a large city. there are also about 5 freeways that go through or near pomona, so chances are, even your infrequent freeways travelers have gone through pomona. so if i say claremont borders pomona, then they probably know where it is, unfortunately, they also are now afraid of claremont.

the hard place - the 909. you see, a little bit ago, ignorant fools started stereotyping people from cities with a 909 area code. true, i believe that stereotypes exist for a reason. if they werent true, the stereotype wouldnt have started. so the 909 stereotype is that people are white trash, raised ford truck driving, white beater wearing, nascar loving inbreds. and the 909 covers a lot of ground. san bernardino, fontana a.k.a. 'fontucky,' rancho cowabunga, hemet, rialto, ontario etc. basically its a lot of san bernardino county. not just the largest county in the u.s, but also the largest arm pit in the nation. so while the stereotype could be true in certain areas of the 909, its not in claremont. somehow, the people that made the area code put claremont in with all of those other cities, even though claremont isnt in san bernardino county. so if i dont opt for pomona, i have to say, 'well, its out in the 909.' people automatically think its 'super far out there in the middle of no where, with people sitting in their large trucks on their unmowed, brown front lawns all day waiting for it to cool down so they can go out at night and pick up on shady women in their daisy dukes at the local dairy queen.'

but they couldnt be more off about claremont. it doesnt even have a dairy queen. or any fast food for that matter. it wont allow it. nor billboards. nor parking on the street at night without prior permission from the police. and no lawn is brown. when my parents remodeled their home, they let the lawn die because after the home was finished they were going to remodel the yard. the city knew of this remodeling. my parents had to get city permits to remodel. they knew my parents had all intentions of fixing the yard after the house was done, yet the city still sent warning notices to my parents telling them that they were going to fine my parents if they didnt fix their yard. claremont. its a great little anal town. one of the top 5 in the nation. i would dare say. in fact, i will say it. and ill even back it up if necessary.
well, this turned into a long rant and i hardly made any selling points about the city. but maybe i dont want to. not because im ashamed or anything. maybe i like people not knowing the hidden gem that is claremont. (and yes i meant gem, its the proper word here. its like a diamond in the rough in that the areas around it may not be so nice and unless you gots lots of diamonds, there is no way you are affording a house there). im fine with it being a little obsure or undiscovered or not well known to the ignorant fools. those that bother to run into it or famliarize themselves with it, then they deserve to see that its a great little place, and everyone else can miss the two freeway exits and drive right on by judging it as another city similar to those that have 'defined the area.' and im sure other people will attack me when i dont know about their nice little town even though i 'should' because its so great. or their city too is misjudged or overlooked or i should really get to know it. people might even say im hypocritical when i dont care to go to their town or when i dont even know where it is on the map even though its great. is it because im becoming an ignorant oc fool living in huntington beach? perhaps. or maybe its, yep, thats right, i just remembered. your town isnt one of the top 5 in the nation.