And the Wheels Keep Rolling

This semester I am in a feature writing class at Penn State. Our first assignment was to find a story before the first Penn State football game. A tailgate. A dedicated fan. I ventured up to Beaver Stadium Friday night to see what I could find.

Automobiles of different shapes and sizes are congesting roads outside of Pennsylvania State University’s coliseum-like Beaver Stadium.

 

Sedans zip through the intersection of Curtin and Porter roads to find the nearest parking spot. Buses crawl sheepishly through the stop signs to avoid excessive stress on the brakes or a crossing pedestrian. 

 

It’s early Friday evening of the Labor Day weekend – the unofficial end of summer. Football season is looming in Central Pennsylvania, and the Penn State Nittany Lions start their season tomorrow against Ohio University.  

 

As some students chat about their predictions for gameday, a massive RV with Penn State logos turns into a nearly deserted parking lot. A female passenger, Sandee, steps out of the vehicle. Her purple Crocs hit the lot before she hooks a leash on a large, white dog named Toby who wastes no time lifting his leg over a nearby patch of grass. A younger woman, Kelly, also exits the RV and stretches while her father, Chuck, produces a cooler filled with refreshments.

 

They are the McClains. They’ve traveled more than three hours from Delaware to get to this parking space. They are Penn State fans.

 

Only minutes after the McClains pull in, another behemoth, mobile house parks next to them, leaving a full parking space between the two RVs.

 

A mustached man, Brad, gets out of the driver’s side and begins to talk to the McClains. His wife, Suzanne, walks around the RV to greet their temporary neighbors as well.

 

They are the Bookshars. They also travelled over three hours to get to State College, starting their journey near Pittsburgh.

 

Mentally, though, the journey to make it to the Lions’ 2012 season opener has been far more eventful than any other Friday trip to State College the families have made before.

 

National media outlets swarmed Happy Valley last year to report on a scandal that involved former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky. He was convicted in June on more than 40 counts of sexually abusing young boys.

 

In July, the NCAA imposed sanctions against Penn State after Louis Freeh, an ex-FBI chief, released an investigative report about the scandal, implying that some school officials knew about Sandusky’s crimes. One of those officials was legendary head coach Joe Paterno.

 

It set off another firestorm of media in State College, which most are getting used to. Even today news vans are parked only a few feet away from where the Bookshars and McClains have docked. Reporters and camera crews are back to report on the first post-scandal football game in Happy Valley.

 

Suzanne says that she and Brad don’t usually travel to the season opener because of the lack of competition. In the past five seasons, Penn State outscored their opponents 220 - 42.  

 

But, as part of the NCAA sanctions, PSU was forced to vacate all wins from 1998 – 2011. So, the official record books now show five losses instead of five thrashings.

 

But they had to come up for this home opener to support the team, Suzanne says.

 

As both families discuss the scandal, they eventually land on the subject of the media.

 

There was the whole idea that Penn State needed to change its culture, Chuck says with a look of discontent.

 

“What does that mean? They say it like it’s a bad thing,” he says.

 

Brad shakes his head in agreement.

 

“It’s all about the Penn State family,” he quickly adds.

--------------------

Traveling Friday night as opposed to gameday Saturday is not only a strategy to beat the traffic but a necessity when you’re behind the wheel of an RV, Suzanne says.

 

“It’s not fun,” she adds.

 

Chuck says that Kelly, a sophomore at Penn State Brandywine, adjusted her Friday class schedule so that the family could get to State College earlier.

 

The adults begin to reminisce about the long trips to Happy Valley they took as children. The four to six hour trips were longer back then because the roads didn’t allow as much traffic as they do now, Brad says behind his sunglasses.

A seasoned veteran, Brad has been coming to games since he was a student at Penn State. He got his season tickets in 1974. So, it comes as no surprise that the refrigerator in his Reflection RV is stocked with recently purchased ice cream from the infamous Penn State Berkey Creamery. A necessity for any tailgate, he says.

 

On the other hand, Chuck, a lifelong fan, got his season tickets in 2000, after the expansions to Beaver Stadium. He went on eBay and bought his Vacationer RV for the sole purpose of coming to Penn State football games.

 

Chuck says it’s more economical to stay in an RV for game weekends, citing how expensive hotel rooms cost in State College for football events. But with two couches that pull out into beds, sinks, a coffeemaker, a bathroom, a shower, a refrigerator, a table, an oven and a master bedroom, the only distinction between his RV and a hotel room is the wheels.

 

Neither family will be confined to their mobile living space tonight though. They will all be attending Football Eve, the traditional pep rally that takes place before every Penn State home game, before they drive to their “campground” for the night – a Walmart parking lot.

 

It’s the most convenient spot to park for the night because everything you need is only a few steps away, Brad says as he fixes his blue Penn State cap.

 

As the group continues to share small gameday tips, Toby is sitting in the McClain’s passenger seat, staring at the quiet Pennsylvania landscape and whining a bit. It’s almost time for the families to depart, and Toby needs to roam the grass one more time.

 

Sandee admits that she doesn’t always go into the game with Chuck and Kelly. Sometimes she’ll sit out by the RV with Toby and enjoy the game from afar. She says that Toby is very well-behaved, except for the previous Blue and White weekend.

 

The McClain’s were in State College to get a small taste of football during the April scrimmage when, all of the sudden, fireworks went off.

 

Toby got scared.

 

“We were parked right over there,” she says, pointing to a corner of the lot near Lubrano Park, the university’s baseball facility.

 

“So were we,” Suzanne says, smiling at the coincidence.

 

“We were probably right next to you,” Brad adds.

 

The more the families talk, the more they start to realize that they vaguely remember each other from that weekend - if only for the fact that their diesel-powered, hotels-on-wheels were parked in the same proximity.

 

The sun begins to fall behind Beaver Stadium, and the McClains and the Bookshars get ready to enter the pep rally. Chuck puts the cooler in the RV as Kelly gives Toby some water. Brad and Suzanne make sure that the Reflection is locked up and safe from any potential harm. Before they part ways, Brad looks at the group.

“Hey…let’s go State.”


Next article I'll post is about a health issue. Stay tuned.

Yellow Notepad

I'm waiting for a day's
end
in a box.

the dead pasted
to my desk
sneer
with jealousy.

the voices
cry injury and
filth and
rape, murder,
fire.

I hate Saturdays now.

I've always hated Mondays.

but the diabetics
need aid
and the obese
need up,

so the voices continue
to whisper.

I stare.
I curse the hours.

my only friends
have seizures.

my only friends
can't catch their breath.

you never read about
my friends
on Sunday.

Penn State Poets

This story appears in the June 2012 edition of Voices of Central Pennsylvania.


In the past year, two Penn State alumnae--each with a very different writing style--have gone on to success by publishing their poetry in chapbooks. The program that produced the poets, however, has not shared a similar success.

An Awkward Mix of Beauty of Terror

Sheila Squillante is extremely fond of poetry, but she is also blunt when describing what she dislikes about it.

“I don’t love that, by and large, people feel that poems are these like born-from-the-breathe-of-God things that are not work,” she said.

Squillante, who received her M.F.A. in creative writing from Penn State in 2002, teaches English and creative writing at the university.

And, of course, she writes.

Her first chapbook, released in December 2011, is entitled “A Woman Traces the Shoreline.” In nine pages, Squillante manages to capture the awkward mix of beauty and terror that accompanies pregnancy.

“I wrote it when I was pregnant with my first child – very, very pregnant with my first child,” she said. “It is very much about the bounty of emotions that one goes through [during pregnancy].”

Squillante said that pregnancy, for her, was “the most profoundly weird thing ever.”

The strangeness of her pregnancy experience is best described in the third piece of her chapbook:

“I stare at my belly and he reads Bahktin. I read about amniotomies and they become potatoes thrown by aliens in my dreams. I’m gonna get you! I dream of old loves, of bears, of circumcision. I dream of women, of my own taut skin. I read around in books. I coexist. I am becoming, they tell me, ‘wholer.’”

“Yes, it [pregnancy] is inspiring, of course, but…there’s all this language around pregnacy and the pregnant body that is meant to inspire,” she said. “I think it’s meant to buoy women through what is really, to be totally blunt, a very difficult, painful, and uncomfortable bodily experience.”

“A Woman Traces the Shoreline” flows nicely from one piece to the next. Even the shortest piece, which reads simply “This is ritual,” does not seem the least bit out of place. The chapbook is available for $7.00 through sheilasquillante.com.

Nature and Words

Another Penn State graduate, Rachel Mennies, received her M.F.A. in creative writing from Penn State in 2011.Her extremely intriguing chapbook, “No Silence in the Fields,” is not a confessional work of poetry.

“When I started working on this, there were about five poems, and I realized this is a story – there is something happening between these poems that isn’t about me,” she said.

The chapbook is a series of 20 poems that read like a short story. Some poems are written from the perspective of a male character and some from a female character's point of view.
“I surprised myself when I started writing this piece,” she said. “I took a fiction workshop at Penn State, and while I loved taking the class, I do not have any talent in fiction writing or storytelling.”

Central Pennsylvania’s natural landscape influenced the imagery of “No Silence in the Fields” Mennies said.

“I definitely love the area and I see a lot of it in the chapbook,” she said. “I felt so extremely aware of how rural and how natural central Pennsylvania is…And it’s a really beautiful place to live.” 

The chapbook is also a testament to Mennies’ strong love affair with language.

“The thing that has always been the most intriguing to me about poetry is how important and interesting and diverse and complicated the little, tiny words in our language are,” she said. “No Silence in the Fields” is available online for free through bluehourpress.com.

"A Terrible Shame"

Both Squillante and Mennies are products of a program that no longer exists.

“When I graduated, we had a scare when we were told the program was being cut,” Mennies said.

Mennies, who graduated before the program was cut due to budget restraints, called the loss of the program a “tragedy.”

“I took so much from it,” she said. “It was very important for me to have that kind of support and Penn State, in particular, had such a great program for young writers wanting to be teachers.”

The lessons in writing and the tools she acquired while attending Penn State contributed to her well-crafted chapbook.

Squillante, who was the associate director of the creative writing M.F.A. program for eight years, said she was “heartbroken” when the program was cut.

“I think it’s a terrible shame,” she said. “It’s sort of indicative of this attitude we have towards the arts locally.”

Squillante also said that creative writing programs are “falling out” of every level of education across the country.

“Personally, I had a wonderful experience in the Penn State program,” she said “It makes me sad because it’s the end of an era.”

Even though their beloved program is no more, both writers will continue to use what they learned at Penn State in their future projects.

Mennies said that she has finished the first act of a full-length manuscript, and she is also working on a project that she started at Penn State that is “very different” from “No Silence in the Fields.”

Squillante’s next chapbook, “Women Who Pawn Their Jewelry,” includes “relationship poems” that “chronicle the breakup” of her first marriage. The chapbook can be pre-ordered until June 15^th through Squillante’s website.

Additionally, Squillante has a project that she worked on with her current husband, Paul Bilger, who is an abstract photographer. It is a series of 10 of her poems that were written in response to 10 of his images.

Squillante does enjoy the thought of her work in other people’s hands.  

“I do feel like once you write something and put it into the world, it’s no longer yours,” she said. “If someone reads my little chapbook, and it brings them to a place that I didn’t necessarily intend, but it’s an important place of self revelation or deep feeling, then I’m happy for that.”

Dare I?

I want to try something. As I get progressively busier, my motivation to write posts for this tends to decrease. However, I still write poetry because I love it. I know that I'm not amazing at it either, but I can get better as long as I allow myself to continue writing it. And I'd like to share some of it with whoever feels it necessary to read this thing (which I assume is only a handful of people). Most importantly, I want to encourage anyone who is unsure of themselves or their creative endeavors to continue with them and try to put them out into the world in some way...no matter how small.

Is It Raining?

you don’t know

how lucky

you are.

when you walk down

those golden streets you

stare at your feet

and listen to the

rhythm of your own

movement.

look up!

see just how high the trees reach.

notice the colors that embrace you.

reflect the smiles from all those women.

hell, maybe you’ll even find a lover

who sings all the wrong words to

every song you’ve ever heard,

but she sings them

with every ounce of conviction

in her soul. 

it’ll make you want to be wrong too.

she’ll marinate you in gasoline and light

a match.

she’ll watch you burn with sin on

her tongue and sweep your ashes under

her welcome mat

as she hums a cold

love song.

hold her close and hold her often

because

one day it will all be gone.

all the spoils of celebration –

the cigarettes and the champagne –

will one day vanish.

the leaves will stop falling

and the sky overhead

will fade to grey.

and all the pretty senoritas from your

youth

will dive deep into the ocean and

hide far from

the sun.

there’s no denying that it

can be a cruel

scene just beyond

your front door,

but we can still find beauty

among the chaos.

we are most alive

near the edge.

we are all just

wine stains on

a carpet.

a better day is behind us,

but there are victories in our sights.

just look

up. 

For a Fallen Hero

Thursday was the 31st anniversary of John Lennon's death. As I made my way to classes, I couldn't help but think about what Lennon might have been doing in the present if his life had not been cut short. 

He probably would have multiple charities.  

He probably would have more inspiring music. 

He probably would have more children. 

He probably would have touched more people's lives...                                                                        

And with that last sentiment, I immediately thought about Lennon's influence on me. He may have been a captivating figure to some people. He was certainly a visionary when it came to peace and free speech. His solo work proved that he was a musical genius. 

But, to me, he was a Beatle.

I would be a completely different person if it wasn't for John Lennon and The Beatles. When I was younger, maybe 5 or 6 years old, I met The Beatles for the first time. Even though it was the mid-nineties and CD's were becoming the preferred method of consuming music, I heard my first Beatle melodies through a cassette tape. It was their very first album recorded for Capitol Records: Meet The Beatles! 

I also had The Eagles' Hell Freezes Over and a mixtape by The Moody Blues. While I listened to all three frequently (my dad says some relatives were amazed because I had most of The Moody Blues one memorized), it was Meet The Beatles! that set the foundation for my musical preferences. Instead of meeting The Beatles later in life, I condemned contemporary pop and hip-hop and became a classic rock junkie. 

Had it not been for Ringo Starr, I would have never picked up drumsticks. 

Had it not been for Lennon/McCartney, I would have never appreciated the power of words.

I still listen to The Beatles today, but not as much as when I was a kid. Everyone's musical tastes grow throughout their lifetime, and I am no exception. I think the connection I made with The Beatles as a child had something to do with the value of simplicity. They were innovators in the 1960s, but after three decades of musical evolution, they're music, while still respected and revered, seemed plain. Or perhaps uncomplicated. Most importantly, like me, Meet The Beatles! was the first stage of something. And while my journey is far from over (or so I hope), each Beatle went on to do great things with their lives. 

Especially John Lennon. 

I offer John these couple sentences today because his band welcomed me into the arms of rock n' roll. And, like the music of The Beatles, there's beauty in this post's simplicity.  


Rest in peace, John.

The (not-so) Horrible Crowes

        In a world full of contemporary listeners who value auto-tuned jibberish and ninety-nine cent singles, The Horrible Crowes may be seen as outcasts. 

    I mean, an entire album of great tunes? Who do they think they are?

   Brian Fallon of The Gaslight Anthem and mate Ian Perkins bring excitement to today's musical landscape with their debut LP Elsie. It is a lean, twelve-track beauty filled with sad, soul ballads ("Cherry Blossoms", "I Believe Jesus Brought Us Together") and upbeat, rock with heart-on-sleeve lyrics ("Go Tell Everybody", "Crush", "Behold the Hurricane"). 

   To fans of TGA, Elsie is like a younger brother. Annoying at first, but eventually a worthy rival for affection from outside sources. Regardless, the genetic similarities are evident. Fallon's lyrics are up to par, but they become a focal point with songs that lack TGA's punk edge. "My first love was an arsonist/Black eyes, deep set and avarice/Red lips built like a tomb," he sings over a faint guitar tingle in the early seconds of "Blood Loss". Instead of a symphony of chords and wild change of pace, Fallon's voice is accompanied by an organ before the song hits its stride. 

   Personally, this is one of the best "side project" efforts I've ever heard. I was weary when I heard Fallon announce his intention to make an album without members of TGA (although they contributed to some tracks) because solo work has a tendency to, for lack of a better term, suck. Instead of proclaiming this work a "solo album", Fallon called up his old pal Ian Perkins and created a new band to experiment with a new sound. 

   Don't be hesitant to listen to The Horrible Crowes. Please. I'm begging you. Too many of us have been hiding in our musical comfort zones for too long. We download popular and ignore promising. We support artists through single tracks and disregard full albums. 

   It's time to wake up and smell the vinyl.   

Sweet Tracks: "I Witnessed a Crime", "Go Tell Everybody", "Crush", "I Believe Jesus Brought Us Together" (But just get the whole damn album).     
    

Eternally Enthused: A Quick Look at Larry David

     His face reeks of disgust and disdain. His glasses and hair (or lack thereof) are almost as iconic as his hatred for social conventions. He is Larry David, co-creator of Seinfeld and star of Curb Your Enthusiasm.  

     LD’s popularity has been growing at a furious pace ever since he decided to play himself on the HBO show Curb Your Enthusiasm, but I only realized it recently with his cover story in Rolling Stone. He has managed to grace the same cover that so many other pop culture icons have in past years. Larry David is experiencing an epic rebirth; rivaled only by Steven Tyler and J.Lo on American Idol. The only difference is the world needs Larry David now more than ever.

     In a time when there is so much wrong with society, Larry David has made it cool to be brutally honest. He has elevated frankness into a style; a craft. In a recent episode of Curb, co-star Jeff Garlin sums it up when he refers to Larry as a “social assassin”. Many of his pet-peeves and annoyances with humankind were made public in the 90s through Seinfeld. Thankfully, he still had more grievances with civilization around 1999, so he found another platform. Curb Your Enthusiasm has served as an outlet for more current and risqué gripes. From texting with a Blackberry while someone is talking to Catholics constantly forcing their religion onto others, it is evident that LD has plenty of material to use (and he found a great home with HBO because his delivery of the word “fuck” is hilarious).

     I have tremendous respect for LD. He is my favorite television writer/actor combination of today, and a superb role model for young talents who strive to fill the same position. Seinfeld and Curb are heavy with observational comedy and quirky coincidences. They may not be the most intellectually written shows, but they rely on more than cheap kicks and corny punch-lines. I firmly believe that anyone in the United States can sit down and watch a Seinfeld or Curb episode and experience the “I’ve been there” effect. Although the plot and episode as a whole may be a bit far-fetched; the experiences of each character reflect people in our lives.  

     We get it, Larry. We hear you. You’re pissed. You’re annoyed. You are the fucking man. And you have my attention for years to come.