Category: default || By jt3y

I was up in State College on Sunday. Were you aware that there's a university of some sort up there? Apparently it was in all of the papers.

And cows. Lots and lots of cows. I can't imagine going to a college where you can see cows grazing out on the other side of the football stadium. Where I went to college, we had lots of bull manure, but it was produced by the faculty and the students, not by actual bovines.

(Although, now that I think of it, our college also had --- and still has --- a mania for dumping cow manure on the lawns, which can make an impromptu touch football game on the quad a bit of a stinky affair, and which gives the whole campus a certain barnyard aroma. But I digress.)

I always feel like a spy, hanging around State College, like I should be surreptitiously taking photos and bringing them back to my bosses. I walk down North Atherton Street with a feeling of dread; at any minute I expect a blue and white, windowless van to pull alongside. The door will slide open and two burly guys in trenchcoats will drag me aboard, stuffing a rag soaked in chloroform into my mouth. I'll come to in the basement of the Pattee Library, where a bright light will be shining in my eyes.

In the corner, I'll be able to dimly make out a man with a pompadour and dark prescription sunglasses. He holds a football. "We have ways of makin' you talk, wiseguy," he says in a Brooklyn accent.

Nothing of the sort happened, of course. Actually, State College last weekend looked kind of like one of those Twilight Zone episodes set in the aftermath of a neutron bomb attack --- the buildings were standing, but there were no students around. I stopped in a fast-food restaurant downtown for a quick sandwich, and was the only person in the place who didn't work there. The employees were sitting around in the dining room, reading the Sunday paper, and seemed startled to have a customer.

Normally I wouldn't eaten at a chain, but time was of the essence. I don't have to recommend the Diner to you, do I? You surely know about it? The inventors of the grilled sticky? That and a hot roast beef sandwich and some coffee will just about arm you for the rest of the day. Alas, I was stuck with a grease bomb from Arby's.

I did have time on the way out of town to stop at the Ag Arena, where the State College chapter of the American Association of University Women was holding its annual book sale. They tarp over the floor of the horse show ring (I'm assuming they shovel it out first) and sell thousands and thousands of books --- some junk, some gems, and a lot of bestsellers from five or 10 years ago. Supposedly it's one of the largest used book sales on the East Coast.

Any writer who thinks he's hot stuff ought to take a walk through a used book sale, where hardcover tomes that were labored on for a year or more are now stacked in damp cardboard boxes along with old copies of National Geographic and a bunch of Harlequin bodice-rippers. If someone happens to read this and you're within an easy drive of State College, you've got until 9 p.m. tonight to buy some books. Today you can fill a grocery bag for $5.

Among other things, I picked up Ben Hamper's Rivethead, which I had always wanted to read, but never got around to before. If you saw Roger & Me, you saw Hamper. He'll forever be remembered, for better or worse, as the guy shooting baskets and singing "Wouldn't It Be Nice" as he tells the story of having a nervous breakdown on an assembly line in Flint, Mich. When I got home, I looked up Ben Hamper. It will surprise no one at all, I suppose, to learn that he's got his own web page on Michael Moore's server where you can sample his writing.

There was also a pile of used Bibles for sale. Used Bibles are every bit as good as a new one, I guess; you don't hear about them being updated very often --- "If you liked the Book of Revelations, you'll love the new Bible's all-new ending!" But these were presentation bibles, the kind that you give to a child on their confirmation or first communion. Some of them were still inscribed --- "For Joe Smith from Pastor John Jones, May 1, 1963," etc. Nobody gives their presentation Bible away to the used book sale, do they? All I can think is that the original owners had died, and whoever cleaned out their houses gave away the books to the book sale. It's kind of depressing to think about.

The other thing that's kind of depressing is that Sheetz has completely taken over Central Pennsylvania. It is to gas stations in the Johnstown-Altoona-State College corridor what Wal-Mart is to discount stores everywhere else. You have a hard time finding a gas station that isn't a Sheetz, and it seems like every burg big enough to have at least one intersection has a 16-pump Sheetz station.

I suppose Pennsylvanians should be proud that Sheetz has grown to become such an important player in retail --- and after all, it's based in Altoona, so why wouldn't it saturate that market? The problem was that I wanted to fill up the car with gas, don't have a credit card for Sheetz, and I didn't want to put a tank of gas onto my MasterCard, but I couldn't find any stations from the three large, multinational oil companies that I do have credit cards for. As it was, I made it back to Our Fair City with gas to spare, both in me, and in the car.

Now, if someone could only tell me why this blue and white van trailed me home and keeps hanging around my neighborhood, I'd be happy.