The Builders

He Walks the Walk—     Most of us will only     dream of leading the     Parade of Classes at our     75th reunion like Bob     Dozier ‘23 #3 so     handily did in April '98.

At Pomona’s Alumni Day celebrations this past April, Bob Dozier ‘23 #3 led off the parade of classes, walking straight and steadily to the steps of Bridges Auditorium. A handful of his fellow classmates (the class of ‘23 is sparsely represented these days) followed at some distance aboard a Cushman.

It was a sight to gladden the heart of alumnus and undergraduate alike, but particularly that of the Nu Alphs in the crowd and those of us who heard of it after the fact. We have long believed that no one comes before Bob Dozier, our oldest living maggot and the last of the legendary Cabin Builder generation, and on this day it was quite literally true.

What thoughts must pass through the mind of someone attending his 75th college reunion? What must it feel like to make that walk, still active, still vital, still standing? Imagine the changes one would see all around. Bob entered Pomona a year after the Great War, when the college was only slightly over thirty years old, a small academic oasis in a vast, empty sagebrush landscape.

Pomona was all there was in those days, and (compared to the overbuilt campus of today) there wasn’t a whole lot of Pomona. Scripps College would not come into existence for another seven years, and the Greater Claremont Colleges plan was barely dreamed of. Women lived in Harwood Court, most men lived off-campus. Smiley Dormitory—no older than Bob himself—was the farthest Northern outpost: the North Campus dorms would not be built for another ten years.

Imagine all that has vanished from the college and town that Bob knew in his undergraduate days: the twilight scent of orange blossoms from the foothill groves; the Old Claremont Inn, the hub of social life for the little town and college. Compulsory chapel, and a faculty, not far removed from its Methodist roots, that took a dim view of dancing and cards. Clear, unobstructed views of majestic Mount Baldy and the great wild places surrounding it; and the reliable Interurban trolleys running to distant Los Angeles and beyond. All of them wiped from the face of the land! But seven and a half decades later here is Bob, still standing, carrying the memory of all these things as he mounts the steps of Bridges.

Despite the relentless effacement of time, one important element of Bob’s college years has not vanished, and that is the cabin he helped build. That so many years later it and he should still be here to enrich us is a particular blessing bestowed on Nu Alpha Phi, and we celebrate Bob accordingly.

But what of his cabin? No one would dream of behaving with disrespect to Bob is modesty and fineness of character make that practically impossible cabin he labored to construct has not been so lucky. Over the years it has silently borne the insult of careless treatment, each class following the other in a pattern of abusive love and benign neglect. There have been times when older, respected voices among us have called for the cabin, so far fallen from its former glory, to be vacated and sold. Often, after climbing a badly eroded trail and gazing sadly at the cabin sitting slovenly and decrepit in a trash-strewn lot, it was difficult for one not to see the logic in that position.

When examined more closely, however, the blame for the cabin’s sorry condition spreads beyond a specific crop of Actives to indict everyone who has ever used it. As my co-editor Paul Nagai ‘88 #978 and I discovered recently when we each bought 80-year old houses in the East Bay, anything that lasts over eight decades—be it person or building—is going to show a lot of wear. Increase the number of people passing through a building over the years and the wear and tear increases exponentially (in my own house just two previous owners created enough problems to keep me and several contractors busy for years). When the building is a recreational structure, and those using it are college students who will use it an average of three years (after which few ever return), the destructive effects are worse still. Finally, when all of these factors take place in the absence of a program of preventative maintenance, it’s a wonder that the structure is left standing.

All of us who used the cabin, performing only the barest reactive repair work, or, worse, gave no thought to repair, share equally in the run-down condition of the cabin. There is something ironic in the act of celebrating Bob Dozier’s youthful achievement while we allow the monument to that achievement to fall to pieces.

How remarkable then, that the same year the last of the Cabin Builders returned to campus to march proudly at the head of his class, the 1997-98 Nu Alpha Phi Actives would recognize the priceless legacy he and his fellows had left them, and take the most far-reaching steps in recent memory to preserve it. Actives Adam Doerr ‘97 #1136, Mike Thomas ‘98 #1144, Sarah Moore ‘98 #1178, Ben Urquhart ‘98 #1141, Matt “Cruiser” Cohen ‘98 #1137, Cassie Gruenstein ‘98 #1142, Phil Gillman ‘96 ‘97 ‘98 #1101, and, undoubtedly, others took it upon themselves to spruce up the old place from the inside out.

They cleaned out the fireplace, and when they discovered that the rusted metal uprights at the foot of the trail were in fact the old andirons—sunk in mud and forgotten, but still emblazoned with the NAP letters—they pulled them from the dirt, repainted them, and picked out the letters in shining gold.

Andirons discovered     during summer 1998     repairs.	Adam Doerr ‘97 #1136     installs butterfly-ties     restoring the bar.	Look at that shine!

The list goes on: loads of trash were removed and hauled away; a female Nu Alph, handy with a sewing machine, made new velvet curtains for the interior (when was the last time you remember anyone doing that?); new furniture, the best the Actives could muster on a limited budget, was brought in; the kitchen cabinets were cleaned and updated, and new wiring and lighting was installed in the main room.

Most importantly, beyond the largely cosmetic improvements just cited, the Actives took a serious look at the structural condition of the cabin and determined that something had to be done, and quickly. The roof deteriorated to the point where dry-rot had claimed many of the rafters, and failure was imminent. So they did something that never would have occurred to the Actives of my generation: they wrote a report. They illustrated it with photographs, prepared a list of materials, and devised a cost estimate. And then they submitted it to the Alums during the Nu Alpha Phi Alumni Brunch.

The response was positive and best of all, immediate. Treasurer Jim Ach ‘63 #565 cut a check on the spot and the repair work commenced a few weeks later. Actives carried out most of the work over the Summer months, and by early August the work was signed off by the building inspector and completed. The cost of the new roof and substructure completely exhausted the fund Jim had set aside for cabin maintenance, but now that the Winter rains are rolling in, it was money well spent.

This brings us to an interesting juncture in the history of the cabin. We need, first and foremost, to replenish the $5,000 from the maintenance fund that went to replace the roof. I have no doubt that the generous donations many of you regularly earmark for the cabin will help to put our accounts back into the black. And this is a wonderful opportunity for those among us who have been rather modest in contributing over the years to give to a singularly worth cause.

There is a greater opportunity still. I believe the time has arrived for us to create a fund that will endow the cabin in perpetuity, and provide a self-replenishing source of funds to enable on-going, preventative maintenance for as long as there is anyone to care about the cabin. We need to build the cabin a second time, not by our brawn, with boulders pulled from the San Dimas creekbed like Bob Dozier and his fellows, but with our dedication and hard-earned dollars. What a monument that would be to the Cabin Builders, and all of us who have so loved the fruit of their labors!

The Actives, so often maligned in regard to the cabin, deserve our highest praise for bringing to our attention how vital and central that simple stone dwelling has been to our shared experience. In the absence of fraternity rooms or the long-gone dormitory blocks, the cabin is the greatest embodiment of fraternity ideals. Let us now strive to keep it not only well-loved but in a sparkling state of repair. An endowed cabin fund will help us realize such a goal. One of the first acts will be to install a commemorative plaque at the cabin site recording the names of those who built the cabin in the 1920s, as well as those at the end of the century whose gifts ensured that it remained standing.

As I write these words, the foundation is being laid for a Cabin 2001 Committee to undertake the formidable responsibility of bringing flesh to the dream by the year 2001, to celebrate the 80th anniversary of Nu Alpha Phi. The shared labor of building the cabin provided a tremendously durable bond for the men who built it and for us, their successors; imagine how our bonds will strengthen as we work together over the next two years toward the goal of a cabin endowment! Coming editions of the Oak Leaf will keep you up-to-date of the progress of the fund.

On the example of Bob Dozier, I have decided to set aside the weekend of April 21, 2057 for my 75th anniversary, and if I still have it in me, I’ll make the journey to San Dimas Canyon and hike the trail to the cabin, which will then be 135 years old. Perhaps I’ll talk with the Actives (whose birth is still forty years away) and tell them of how, in my youth, I met some of the men who built the cabin they still visit and love. And I can tell them of the others, many years later, who took it upon themselves to ensure the cabin would be there for untold generations to enjoy.

Whether I live to see 2057, and whether I am still standing then as straight and true as Bob Dozier is now is anyone’s guess. But if all of us put our hearts and our backs into it, we can be certain the cabin will be standing then.

—-Chris Hall ‘82 #870