'Pomona A to Z': An introduction

Last week, in wishing Pomona a happy 120th anniversary as a city, I promised we would be celebrating in this space. And I meant it.

What I'm going to do is post my 2004-'05 series of columns, "Pomona A to Z," one letter each Sunday starting tomorrow and continuing into July.

What's "Pomona A to Z"?

Over the course of a year, I devoted a column to an interesting person, place or thing in Pomona for each letter of the alphabet. Pomona was chosen because it's our most fascinating city and, in my view, the one most in need of a burst of civic pride.

That's also why each chosen subject was (at time of publication) still in existence. I took that approach to combat people's tendency to view Pomona as a lost cause, where all the good things were gone by, say, 1965. My underlying message was: "Stop pining for the glory days! There's plenty in Pomona RIGHT NOW to be proud of."

As you'll see in the weeks ahead, I tried to range across geographic and ethnic lines to present a positive but accurate portrait of modern-day Pomona. These columns were a lot of work, probably twice the work of a typical column, which is one reason I haven't repeated the experiment in another city. A 26-part series? Whew.

But "Pomona A to Z" remains one my proudest moments as a journalist and, since book publication remains unlikely, I'm happy to share it with you again in a semi-permanent format. The pieces will be archived here and accessible to all.

For those of you who were reading me back then, I hope these pieces will be welcomed like an old friend. For you newcomers, I hope you'll find "A to Z" astounding and zesty. Or at least alphabetical and zealous.