A story that tells how someone beat the odds can inspire. A story that shows the folly of someone who acted selfishly can teach selflessness. Stories, whether written by a novelist or a journalist, can inform and entertain. And the ability to combine these elements effectively is, I think, one of humanity’s greatest gifts. Stories separate humans from the animals. There is no other known species on the planet that communicates through stories.

Of all the ways to share stories, one of the most effective is to use images with words. Comic creator Harvey Pekar says, “You can do anything with words and pictures.” That is why I do not just like comic books—I love them. I own thousands of comic books. I have always loved stories, but I fell for comics when I was 15 years old. A strong nostalgia exists between me and the pages of a comic book. No matter where I am in life, comics will be dear to me.

The majority of modern comic books tell stories of superheroics. The story of an individual who uses his abilities to help others is commonly used to share ideals that many readers probably already knew but may have forgotten. Peter Parker’s adventures as Spider-Man show readers how to be a good steward of one’s fortune with the phrase, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Superman tells the story of the immigrant who not only finds a home among people who are not his own, but also helps others however he can. Tony Stark, the Iron Man, is a medical invalid who uses the power of his mind to design technology that helps him to not only survive a life-threatening injury, but to excel in life. Bruce Wayne lost his parents as a child, but in spite of great tragedy, he hones his mind and body to become the peak of humanity, and uses his abilities to help the helpless and to find justice in an unjust world. In Neil Gaiman’s “The Sandman,” Morpheus, the Dream King, exemplifies the power of imagination and reveals the thin line that separates humanity from its dreams.

These are just a few of my heroes. Countless other stories are told that show readers various virtues in impactful ways. These heroes give me something to strive for, something to hope for. They give me someone to emulate, and not just by wearing Aquaman Underoos.

Comics are a modern mythology with a rich history. This medium and its characters have undergone endless permutations. What remains through the years, the censorship, the ups and downs of sales, is the truth of the story.

I find story to be an art form. As comic creator Alan Moore says in his work, “V for Vendetta,” “Artists use lies to tell the truth.” In my case, writers use stories to tell the truth. Stories are made of words. And someone smarter than I once told me that words are all we have. So I share these words of truth with you now: A story can change the world. I think I read that on a coffee mug once.

Jason D. Cox, Editor-in-Chief

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Kristen Campbell, Editor in Chief

I quit Facebook. It was like quitting chocolate. When I smell chocolate and see its delectability begging me to consume its very being I cannot help but surrender. It used to be the same way with Facebook, but to a higher degree. So I quit. People looked at me like I was irrational, PMSing or definitely sleep-deprived. Frankly, I was told I was out of my mind.

My favorite quote about my decision was, and still is, “Saying you are going to quit Facebook is like saying you are going to commit suicide. It sounds like a good idea until you actually get around to doing it.” It definitely rings true to how my friends were feeling.

Well, I did it. I guess you could say I pulled the trigger. I logged on, clicked the deactivate button and breathed a sigh of relief. I was off, disconnected, free. I officially cast myself out of my generation. Talk about voting myself off the island.

Why did I do it? Many would say it was the center of my universe. I made a new friend, and I sent the person a friend request. I found a study buddy, and I sent the person a friend request. When I had that difficult research paper due at 8 a.m., my writer’s block was turned into Facebook surfing.

Facebook is the world’s venting outlet, coping mechanism and a main source for immediate information. We use Facebook as our main form of communication including baby shower invites, birthday reminders and birthday greetings. What happened to a calendar or a mailed invitation on pretty stationary?

I remember when I made friends as a child. It used to be about exchanging home phone numbers to get a hold of each other, or swapping addresses so we could write letters through snail mail. If a big event occurred, I did not know until the people involved told me personally. Information was on a need-to-know basis.

In the span of one month, I found out about the birth of a baby, two engagements, one pregnancy, the acceptance into a graduate program and a retirement, to name a few, all within an hour of the events occurring. We want to share our happiness with the world. We want the instant gratification from those who read our status and relationship updates. We want to feel important based on how many comments or “likes” our post receives. We as Facebook users thrive off of how important our updates are to our friends. If nobody notices a funny story, a venting status or a witty comment, something mentally tells us we failed. But in reality, it could have been nothing more than our story happened to get posted at a low traffic hour. Yet so many users’ self-esteem gets crushed over something that is simplistic and obsolete in our development as humans.

Oh, by the way, I am back on. But I did not cave. Honest! Life – my career – made me go back on as a part of my internship. It has been a little over six months, and I am still on.

Granted I still post my witty comments and venting blurbs. I still look to it as a source of immediate information about my family and friends. But I do not seek approval for my comments or life observations. I am wiser for knowing I have the power to pull the plug.

Facebook is definitely a curse to the faint of heart and a blessing in disguise. See you online.

Kristen Campbell, Editor-in-Chief

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Angie Marcos, Editor in Chief

Santa Marina de Valdeón is a small town in northern Spain. The 60 present day residents still wash their clothes by hand. Unpaved roads lead to homes that still rely on firewood to stay winter warm. Trees and vegetation engulf the small town, one in eight in the valley of Valdeón. My father was born in this small rural town and comes from a family of four children, he being the youngest. My dad’s stories tell of not having a phone, television, Christmas gifts or even enough food on some days. His childhood memories recall long, tiring days herding cows. On some of his shepard days, he would spend nights a few miles from home, sleeping in a small hut with very little food or warm clothing. His fearful thoughts centered on horror stories heard from the older town boys about wolves and bears that might be lurking outside. His childhood stories and pranks could come straight from the pages of Samuel Clemens’ books. For fun, the local kids would steal fruit from a grumpy neighbor’s tree or take turns poking sleeping bats with sticks (whoever was left holding the stick when the bat woke up lost). My dad and his childhood friend once, out of pure boredom, got a neighbor’s dog drunk and sent the entire town into an angry uproar.

When I walk up to my grandparents’ stone Spanish house, built by my great-grandfather, I am taken back to his time and identify regarding how people lived a mere 50 years ago. Gravel roads still lead you from home-to-home. Because medical assistance was once scarce, many of the townspeople still rely on their own illness cures.

My favorite story is my grandmother’s account of being 14 years old during the Spanish Civil War and traveling from Santa Marina to Potes, a much larger and somewhat urbanized town, and being entrusted to sell ham for much needed money. During her foot travel, soldiers confiscated the ham leg. My grandmother cried the entire way home and received a big scolding from her mother. To this day, whenever we drive past Potes, she always recalls the story.

As a child, I remember my grandmother going out to her barn and killing chickens, pigs, lambs and goats for dinner; something that was completely normal for her. I, on the other hand, quickly learned it was best not to befriend the animals. It was a lot easier that way. My grandmother is now 88 years old and unable to do many of these things anymore. Even so, she refuses to be anywhere else than in this community. It is her safe haven – her refuge. Everything she has ever known and loved has come from this little town. I’ve been to Spain 18 times in the past 20 years. The Spanish food, customs, language and way of living are very much a part of my Diamond Bar home life. What I’ll always cherish most of my childhood are the summers I spent surrounded by my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

Santa Marina de Valdeón no longer is a place where families struggle to survive. The children started immigrating to the larger cities in search of opportunity and growth, leaving only the elderly. For so many, it is now a summer reunion site. As a child, my dad would tell these stories to remind my brother Michael and me how lucky we were to have an education and to have the chance to be children and focus on our studies. Today, I still ask him to tell me these stories because they are a part of who I am, and from where I come.

Angie Marcos, Editor-in-Chief

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Samantha Sincock, Editor in Chief

I have always had a love for the seasons. Fall for me recalls vacations spent in Pennsylvania where the trees flushed in ambers and reds, and their fallen leaves crunched loudly beneath my feet. Spring springs me forward to the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., where the clouds of cherry blossoms filled the air with a pink rain-like hue that awed everyone. Winter evenings in Indiana bring chilled memories of frost that seemed to bite at my cheeks and nose. Splashes of summer days at Grandma’s Upland house combined pool-crazed antics and fresh lemonade that cooled the blistering California heat.

Notice how my memories are in the past tense. While La Verne’s campus and charming town have anchored me for many seasons, all I can remember is school. I cannot help but ask, when will I have time to sit back and smell the flowers?

My educational journey has been marked with highs and lows, with memories well cherished and those better off forgotten. Slowly, through classes (and stress) acquired, the days bled into weeks and then into months. Everything became a mission to graduate, to get to the end of the long and twisted road of knowledge. All of the pleasures in life seemed to fade away into a chaotic riptide of school and work. I seemed to be working all day, everyday, and while most people may have envied my Disneyland job, the magic of Mickey Mouse did not make it easier to have a full schedule. I was no longer able to use drumming as an outlet; in fact, for now, music has been erased from my life. I barely have time to read, a pleasured pastime that has become a luxury during my college years. Time is continuously flowing, and I feel as if something is missing. Perhaps what has disappeared is the simple joys of life and a sense of control.

I remember when my life was simple, in the days I label “the wonder years of childhood.” Those were the days when a walk to the candy shop in downtown Butler, Pa., was the most work I had to do, and deciding which soda to have mixed behind the bar was a difficult decision. Now, my work is 30 plus hours a week to pay for the University’s high tuition, and the tough decisions in life are whether to gain an internship or take a philosophy class. How will I get a job in this economy? What will become of my dreamed up future? These are philosophical questions, indeed.

At age 6, when I first began reading, the adventures and thrills of literature captivated me. I looked up every word I did not understand and processed passages from the tales I loved. I could see the writers’ worlds—and imagined flying through the Neverland sky with Peter Pan, fighting with Romeo for love and truth and wading down the Mississippi River with Huckleberry Finn. Soon, I wanted to be those authors who took me on travels through time and to distant lands. I wanted to write, to open a vein and bleed words to a world that needed imagination. I realize now this is what I have spent all these years working toward. This is what lies beyond school.

Spring is coming. The flowers will soon greet the sun’s warm rays. La Verne’s streets will regain their famous tree canopy. There will be a ceremony in May, one that opens the cover to a new chapter in my life; one that will take me back to nature, to the personal and raw beauty of writing.

Samantha Sincock, Editor-in-Chief

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Natalie Veissalov, Editor in Chief

In my family, not going to college was not an option. I knew I always wanted to go to college, but did not know where. As I developed a study focus, I narrowed it down to the University of La Verne. But I was always frightened of college. Even though I had cousins who went to college, my immigrant parents never had an opportunity to attend. So, when it was time to apply, fill out the Federal student aid applications and create a college schedule, I felt completely lost. My parents and I did not know where to start. For a first generation student, the financial aid applications were super complicated and difficult to understand. Since I chose a private university, the cost was the biggest stress for my family and me. I did not receive much financial aid. And if filling out the FAFSA application were not difficult enough, getting a student loan approved and understanding the differences between unsubsidized and subsidized loans were even more complicated. The burden of paying for these loans fell on my parents and me. Since my parents wanted me to have a better life than they did, they made a sacrifice to provide me with the opportunity to attend La Verne. I remember worrying about not getting a loan and not being able to pay for college.

Without a college education, I believe all the opportunities I have received, including great internships, would not have been possible. Another stress I faced as a first generation student was the pressure of starting a new school and the academics of college. I have always been paranoid about my grades and have always put much dedication into school. I was naïve about college and only knew what people told me. I had this fear of the curriculum being too tough and my failing.

So, I had major anxiety my first semester to the point where I had to take anxiety medication. I remember one time, a few weeks into the semester, I was in my art history class and could not breathe. I had this paranoia about not knowing how my first college semester would play out. At times, I could not sleep, eat or think. I felt like I was not going to make it through college. Although my parents were always supportive, they did not really know the stresses of my academic and college life, or how I felt.

As I began to get used to the University and college life, everything fell into place. I put my all into my school work and ended up doing very well. I am glad that I persevered. Now that I am going to be a senior, I am proud of myself for making it through college and breaking the cycle in my family. Like Jerome Garcia, my real passion is not just receiving my degree but instead actually helping people and providing a service to humanity through my expertise in journalism. Without having a real reason for obtaining my degree, it would mean nothing.

Natalie Veissalov, Editor-in-Chief

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Mark Vidal, Editor in Chief

When I was very young, Saturday evenings usually consisted of a road trip down Bonita Avenue, if you can call that a road trip. The destination? The good old Claremont Village. Mom, Dad and I would pile into the front seat of Dad’s single-cab Toyota pick-up and travel a good 10 miles from Glendora to Dad’s favorite hot spot: Rhino Records. What today seems like a short distance was to a 7-year-old back then a long and boring car ride. Dad would always tell mom the same thing as we drove through La Verne and into Claremont, “Wouldn’t you love to live here, Linda?” He had a thing for all the old houses surrounded by huge trees. Back then, I didn’t even notice the University of La Verne.

As we would approach the corner of Indian Hill and Bonita, Dad vanished inside Rhino Records, and later to Video Paradiso while Mom and I strolled around the village. It was usually a pretty quiet area with gleaming street lights casting great big shadows on the sidewalks. Most of the shops were closed except the popcorn stand inside the mini mall. That delicious, freshly popped popcorn was all I looked forward to whenever we took that drive down Bonita. Memories.

As an only child, most of my early childhood memories involve my two parents, since, after all, it was only us three living at home. I used to hate being the only child because I felt like our family was incomplete since everyone else my age seemed to have a brother or sister. But looking back now, being an only child has its perks.

There is no sibling rivalry, no toy sharing, no bedroom sharing and no competition. For me, my home was basically tailored to meet my needs and wants specifically. I can remember racing my Hot Wheels all over the house and parking them either on top of the coffee table or between the cushions on the couch before leaving for school. When I returned, every car was precisely where I left it. When I would build Lincoln Log cities in the middle of the living room, I never had to worry about someone messing with or destroying my amazing creations.

But probably the best perk of all was having the full-undivided attention of my parents. We really did everything together. From playing UNO with mom outside in the summer, to playing Mario Bros. with Dad on a rainy day, I was fortunate to have hybrid parents who were both my guardians and my playmates.

Now, as the end of my stay at the University of La Verne looms over the horizon, I can’t help but think of how blessed I have been all these years. Throughout my entire journey of growing up and getting through college, I have had my own personal support team always rooting for me and making sure I had everything I needed to get from point A to point B, even when I complained a little along the way. So thanks Mom and Dad for your love, support and all the great, simple memories.

Mark Vidal, Editor-in-Chief

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Susan Acker, Editor in Chief

My sister Margo and I piled into the station wagon, holding a green bean casserole and pumpkin pie on our laps. We were ready to go, heading from our home in Temple City to Grandma and Grandpa’s house in La Verne for Christmas.

Grandma always seemed to know when we would arrive because she was always waiting in the driveway. My sister and I would jump out of the car and run to give her a hug. Their home always looked the same. The rosebushes in the front yard and the trees at the curb with the orange and red leaves falling to the ground meant it was that time of year.

Before we knew it, the moment had arrived – it was time to go outside! Mom gave us the okay and we flew out the door, running to the sidewalk. Suddenly, there he was – Santa Claus, in all his glory – on the La Verne fire truck. We were so excited we could hardly stand it. He threw us candy and waved to us, smiling his usual jovial smile.

For me, La Verne is a place with fond memories of visiting my grandparents for the holidays and on weekends. It is where we would get to see our cousins who came to visit from far-away Northern California. It is a place where everyone came together. La Verne is also the place I met Clover for the first time.

As we drove to my grandparents’ house one day, something seemed different. Mom did not pull up to the front of their house. Instead, she parked in front of a neighbor’s house. Margo and I had no idea why we were there. When we walked inside, I saw him. He was the size of a large hamster, with charcoal grey fur and white paws and a tuft of white fur on his little chest. And we were going to take him home. Clover, our cat, named for the day he was born, St. Patrick’s Day, was another of my favorite memories of La Verne.

But my favorite memories are the long walks Margo and I used to take with Grandma and Grandpa around their neighborhood. Grandpa used to tell us about the orange groves that used to be where all of the houses are. Margo and I collected leaves on the ground as we walked. It was always so beautiful.

Although those memories are a part of my past, I am making new ones in La Verne. This year, during the University of La Verne’s Homecoming Weekend, Mom and Dad and I walked through the street fair in Old Town La Verne. And this is where so many of my new friends are. I never thought I would come back to a city I grew to love so much as a child. It’s funny how life does that. The good things in life always have a way of coming around again.

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Erin Konrad, Editor in Chief

I have many fond memories from my childhood in La Verne. There were the Fourth of July parades; Christmas mornings when Santa drove around on his fire truck; and going to the La Verne Library on Saturdays to listen to story times.

But some of my favorite memories are from visits to Heritage Park. It was just down the street from my house, a short walking distance to the swings and white gazebo.

Each season held a different adventure. During the fall, there were birthday parties for friends, with streamers wound around oak trees and balloons tied to picnic tables. I would run around with my friends, chasing rabbits that hopped out of the underbrush by the hill. We competed to see who could get across the monkey bars the fastest. When I think back to those parties, I marvel at how innocent we were. There were no worries, except maybe for who got the slice of cake with the most frosting.

In winter, the park was perfect for running around in the sand and jumping off the railroad ties that surround the playground. My face would get bright red from the cold wind, but it was exciting to run around and see which of my friends had dragged their parents to the park as well.

Spring marks the time that Heritage Park looks the most stunning. Bright yellow flowers surround the gazebo, and the hillside turns a beautiful green. My family and I would walk up the trail toward the back of the park and cross the bridge running over the wash. There was an entire month that I refused to walk that trail after my sister’s friend warned me about the trolls that lived underneath. If I was lucky, my parents would hold my hand as we carefully walked around the banks of the wash, scooping up tadpoles to take home in a glass jar.

Summer was my favorite time to explore the park. Although the weather was hot, it never deterred my friends or me from running across the grass in a game of tag, or going as high as we could on the swings. But the best part was the summer concerts every other Sunday. When I was younger, it was so exciting to pack a blanket and some snacks and sit with my parents while the music filled the air. After I reached middle school age, I was more likely to be found hanging out with my friends, attempting to look cool.

Although I’m now too old to go down the slides or chase rabbits, I love that the park looks almost exactly the same as it did when I was younger. Every once in a while I think about taking a break from my schoolwork at the University of La Verne and walking down that old dirt path, and maybe catching a tadpole for old time’s sake. Even if I don’t have time for birthday parties at the park nowadays, at least I know that some of my own heritage lives on at the park.

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