The bench outside the Village Grille in the Claremont Village was cleared Tuesday of Ray Collins mementos by Collins’ family, but other tributes to the singer and Mothers of Invention co-founder remain in the Village.

Above, Some Crust Bakery (119 Yale Ave.) has a window display to Collins that’s worth a look; the photo shows only a portion of it. The second photo shows one side of a message board outside Espiau’s (109 Yale); click on the thumbnail for a larger view.

Wednesday’s column is about these tributes and, being my third piece on Collins since his Dec. 24 death, is probably my last, other than updates. Of course, to quote Fats Waller, “one never knows, do one?”

Sunday’s tribute to Ray Collins took place in Shelton Park, a favorite hangout of the singer and Village character who died Dec. 24, and it attracted some 200 people. Some spoke in front of the assemblage about their encounters with Collins. Some were fans of the Mothers of Invention, others simply knew him as a friendly face. Above, organizer Tara Tavi addresses the crowd at the start. With no public service scheduled, Sunday’s was the first chance to gather to remember him. There was a real sense of community.

The event ended with chalk being given to anyone interested, with the urging to write a message for Collins somewhere around the Village where he had been seen. I left one myself in Shelton Park by the table where we had our interview.

I walked around the Village on Monday morning and found messages on the pavement around virtually every bench (and who knew there were so many?)(Ray, I guess) and around his favorite sidewalk table outside Some Crust. A sampling:

“Thanks Ray for always saying hi.” — seen outside Pizza N Such

“This is where I met Ray.” — seen outside Bamboo Tea House

“I met Ray here in 1996.” — seen outside Raku

“Ray Collins is here.” — seen outside Pizza N Such

“Thank you for your friendship.” — seen outside the Library

“Ray was here.” — seen outside Some Crust

“Thank you for visiting me at Trader Joe’s.” — seen at Shelton Park

“A day without Ray is a day without Ray.” — ditto

Sadly, every day from now on will be a day without Ray. But for now, it’s enough that so many have him in their thoughts.

Following up my piece on the death of original Mothers of Invention singer Ray Collins, my Friday column is about his influence in downtown Claremont, which he called home. Ask almost anyone about him and they know who he was and have a story about him. I’d thought this might be worth a column and when I saw a bench outside Village Grille decorated in his memory, I knew I ought to pursue it.

* Update: An informal public tribute for Collins is scheduled for 2 p.m. Sunday at Claremont’s Shelton Park, Bonita and Harvard avenues. Also, KSPC-FM (88.7) plans to air a tribute from noon to 2 p.m. Tuesday.

Above is the house at 1132 N. College Ave. in Claremont, where T.S. Eliot is said to have slept during a 1932-33 visit. Wednesday’s column is about that somewhat mysterious visit, which lasted a startling 10 days.

Sunday’s column is a grab-bag of items, starting with a couple of amusing anecdotes from a Claremont Colleges exhibit about Yosemite in the 19th and early 20th centuries, followed by word that women’s absence from the Claremont City Council may continue another two years and by my encounter with a non-newspaper reader in the dentist’s office.

You remember our old friend, Pomona College’s Replica House, the one that’s an exact duplicate of the house where the college began? The peripatetic domicile, already moved once before, was bound for a new home off-campus at the top of Mills Avenue, where college official Don Pattison snapped this shot on Wednesday. Who knew there was that much open land in Claremont? I’m told a larger house will be built on the same property, which is near the Wilderness Park. Anyway, nice to see that Replica House survived the journey.

Friday’s column (read it here) begins with two items about Paul Krassner, the satirist, who spoke Wednesday in Claremont. He briefly addressed his coinage of the phrase “Twinkie defense,” among many other topics. Also in the column: other items of cultural note and a piece of weird crime news from Claremont involving a chatty drunk.

Photo by Will Lester

At the memorial service Saturday for Claremont painter Karl Benjamin, who died in July at age 86, it was recalled that he never picked up a brush until his 20s. He was a sixth-grade teacher in Bloomington, with no prior knowledge or interest in art, when his principal told him new state standards required 40 minutes per day of art instruction.

Speaker Mitzi Wells was in that 1949 class. She said Benjamin’s instructions were to experiment with colors and shapes: “No trees, no houses and no people.”

“Sound familiar?” Wells asked, drawing chuckles from the audience. (Benjamin’s paintings later followed the same credo.)

Students were told to fill each sheet of paper before they would be given the next.
“Even the toughest and meanest boys were silent during art period,” Wells remembered.

Not only was Benjamin inspired by his own students to take up art, going on to a celebrated career painting colors and shapes, but Wells’ daughter recently graduated from the Art Center in Pasadena.

In a comment sure to cheer the heart of any teachers in the room, Wells said: “You never know how many generations you’ll affect.”

I also wonder how many education bureaucrats would be cheered to hear that much-maligned state education standards turned a teacher into a renowned artist.

A few stray facts about Pomona College, which I wrote for Sunday’s column (read that here) but cut for space reasons:

* The first yearbook, in 1894, was named, catchily, the Speculum. OK, maybe not so catchily.

* Athletic teams, now the Sage Hens, were known as the Huns until after World War I, when they became the Hens, which the timeline text says may have occurred because Germans were known as Huns and, to save money, the name “could be altered by the replacement of a single letter.”

* President Theodore Roosevelt visited in 1903, spoke before 7,000 and planted a California live oak, which promptly died.

* Built in the 1910s, Renwick Gymnasium became so pecked by birds that by the 1980s it was dubbed Woodpecker Heaven. It was also infested by bees. In a blow to the animal kingdom, it was torn down in 1982.

* Portions of Disney’s “The Absent-Minded Professor,” “Son of Flubber” and “The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes” were shot on campus.

* In 1961, the all-male dining hall went co-ed over the protests of some men, who argued that it was inappropriate for women to dine beneath a mural of a nude Prometheus, which was painted by Jose Clemente Orozco.

You can see the full timeline here.

Meanwhile, if you’re interested in the Founders Day celebration Sunday, the schedule of events can be found here.