Tales from the Old Road – Pennsylvania in the Fall of 1987
Tales from the Old Road – this week in Pennsylvania in the Fall of 1987
My first job out of college was as a University Collegiate Consultant for my fraternity, Sigma Alpha Epsilon. On this exact this date in 1987, I found myself in the middle of Pennsylvania in State College PA at The Penn State University. This was the 11th university visit, and as it turned out, it also happened to be Homecoming weekend for Penn State.
A few excepts from the journal I kept dated October 8-12, 1987. Homecoming weekend in State College. Should be a fun & wild weekend. Penn State is a beautiful campus, and town may just be the ultimate college town. Lots of students, many bars and an incredible chapter house.
I pulled off another miraculous early morning visit (October 9th) with a university greek advisor after partying late night. In the midafternoon I went some of brothers to a bar called The Rathskeller. We bought a case of Rolling Rock beer in 7 ounce bottles, and I was introduced some of the coed friends of the guys I was there with. The evening started off with darts in the Vice President’s room, We drank beer and played darts while listening to all the stories the guys were telling. We then went to a bar called The Lion’s Den. The big thing there was $1.75 pitchers of beer, and drinking directly out of them. Everyone thought I was scamming on a former Penn State football stars girlfriend because I said she was cute. I ended up meeting two cool gals and their friends, lacrosse players, and ended up hanging out with them the rest of the night. By this point, I was very drunk, and came back to the house and ate Apple Jacks at 1:30 AM.
Saturday morning I was super excited to go the tailgate party before the Penn State game. There were thousands of motorhomes and cars in the parking lot. At the tailgate, we ate hoagies, drank beer, and socialized. It was a nice day too, with weather inf the mid 60’s. A great day for football, and Penn State beat Rutgers 35-21. There was a date party that night, and I needed a date. So I asked one of the young women Kristen (girl in the middle above) who I had been socializing with the night before at the Lion’s Den since they were conveniently at the same tailgate.
Sunday I slept until 11:30, I had a good night sleep. Gave my chapter address, and that evening went to go see REM and 10,000 Maniacs, it was a great show. Ironically (or not), the one thing I remember most about the visit to Penn State was the REM show. Since I was a huge fan, and their cassette tapes were what I mostly listened to on my road trip travels. One of the encore songs was a cover of Midnight Blue by Lou Gramm of Foreigner. And it sounded amazing with Michael Stipe on lead vocals. There is a video on YouTube from the tour (not the Penn State show) that you can find to hear it.
Penn State… I thought was the ultimate college experience.
Funny side note: about the gal that I took to the date party. She mentioned her brother Pete was an SAE at Florida State. I had been there about 6 weeks earlier for an intiation ceremony that I was participating in. One of the new members stood during the ceremony like he has been drinking all night. I had keyed in on him in part to be sure he made it through the initiation. Afterward I was giving this kid, his name was "Pete" a hard time, but all in fun. Yes, the guy was Kristen's brother. What a small world, and what were the chances of the that happening?