Fleur-de-Classof71

Fifty years is a long time, as I was reminded at my State High Class of 1971 reunion. 

Naturally it was a weekend of storytelling.  As it turns out, it was also a weekend of story-making.

Growing up in the shadow of the Penn State Nittany Lions, State College High School students were known as the “Little Lions”.  But it was our class that made the Paw Print a lasting symbol of our school.

Life in Happy Valley revolves around football.  And State High’s perennial rival (starting in 1890) was Bellefonte, 10 miles away.  There were pep rallies, bonfires and parades for the Iron Kettle Game each November. But my class did things our way in that fall of 1970.

Now, before I go any further, I must set the record straight: I had nothing to do with this. I was a student at State High but I swam for Bellefonte YMCA (the only indoor pool in the county, excepting PSU), so my allegiances were a bit muddy.

OK, back to the story. 

As part of the reunion weekend, we toured the new high school and posed in front of the Paw Print monument at the entrance to the building. Then one of our classmates read an account of the rivalry entitled: “Paw Prints, Rotten Tomatoes and other Memories of State High vs. Bellefonte” by Bill Horlacher (State High Class of 1970).

In the early morning hours before the Iron Kettle Game, a couple carloads of students, armed with stencils, paint brushes and milk cans filled with whitewash, went to work. They started at State High, painted Paw Prints, and then every so often hopped out of their cars to paint more Paw Prints, hopped back in and drove a little further. 

“It was like the Keystone Cops,” reported one participant. The State High students made it all the way down Benner Pike to Bellefonte High’s football field.  As they were leaving, the Bellefonte police arrived.  Some students scattered, but several were caught, including one young woman.

The police called her father with the classic, “Do you know where your daughter is?” 

“She’s painting Paw Prints to Bellefonte,” he replied, “and I told her she’d get caught.”

Long story short, the students didn’t get expelled but had to scrub off the Paw Prints on school property. The community embraced the ingenuity of the crew and State High’s football team was so charged up that they crushed Bellefonte, 44-12.  The Class of 1971 presented a Paw Print monument to the school in honor of the night. 

All of that is ancient history.  The Paw Print story passed through the decades, even though the Iron Kettle game ended in 1999. 

Here we are in 2021 and the 50^th reunion organizational team is zooming through the pandemic, setting up the details for the big weekend.  Then someone caught wind of an enticing coincidence.  Bellefonte High School’s Class of 1971 scheduled its 50^th reunion on the same night as ours. Wheels started turning, Paw Prints started circling.

But these folks learned something in the last 50 years: In this day and age, pranks can have serious consequences. They were 67 and 68, not 17 or 18, and nervous as all get out.

So, they called the country club where the Bellefonte reunion was to be held.  They explained they were from the Class of 1971 and wanted to decorate for the reunion. They were told to check in with the bartender.  They arrived in a village called Mingoville, the night before the big event, and were greeted at the bar.

The bartender was welcoming but one fellow in the bar was a little suspicious.  First, if they graduated in 1971, they were keeping late hours just to decorate. Second, (and he may have had one too many) he told the decorators they looked like they graduated “just yesterday”.  And third, the Paw Print they painted at the front door just didn’t seem right—weren’t Bellefonte students known as the Red Raiders?

 But the bartender helped out, using a huge wrench (she couldn’t find a hammer) to drive a stake into the ground with a sign congratulating the Class of 1971, with love from the Class of 1971.  So, heck, it must be OK. 

No one called the police. No one called the school.  Everyone went home and got a short night’s sleep. 

Who knows what the Bellefonte Class of 1971 thought when they saw the white Paw Print as they opened the doors to the club.  But when the story was shared with State High’s Class of 1971 after its reunion dinner, the graying graduates got a good chuckle.  And each of the “decorators” was awarded a paintbrush to honor the story.  Laurie Lynch

What Goes Around:  I was swimming at the Bellefonte Y in the 1960s through 1971.  In 2021, most mornings you’ll find me in that same 3-lane pool, doing laps during Senior Swim.  There is an 8-lane pool at the State College Y but Bellefonte is much closer to my new home in Pleasant Gap. 

Photo Shocker:  One of my classmates shared his photo album from 6^th grade through high school.  He identified me playing a 6^th-grade dodgeball game—and I was wearing a dress.  Those were the days when public schools had dress codes for young ladies—dresses or skirts only!  I had forgotten.

Paw Print Posing:  Some Class of 1971 members surrounding the Paw Print monument last weekend.  I’m in the back (still one of the tallest), under the double LLs in “College,” wearing sunglasses.

Fleur-de-Flow

When people ask, I often say, “Oh, my blogs write themselves.”

And, it’s mostly true.

An experience or a coincidence sets something off and the words and thoughts start flowing. Sure, I have to go back and read, edit, re-edit, and re-read, but that’s just part of the process, like deadheading petunias or pulling purslane from rows of cabbage.

This blog entry should have written itself.  I mean, how many times do you see a woman riding a bicycle with a cockatiel on her shoulder?

For me, it was four … and I couldn’t wait to hear her stories.  I had her phone number, and her name (Tina) and her cockatiel’s name (Pepé).  All I had to do was punch in 10 numbers on my phone, re-introduce myself, and presto, the stories would tumble out and the blog would write itself.  But Tina didn’t answer my calls. She didn’t answer my messages to call back. Heck, maybe she didn’t even give me her real phone number, and maybe her name isn’t Tina.

Ah, sometimes, such is life. 

Erma Bombeck once wrote a book titled, “If life is a bowl of cherries what am I doing in the pits?” which segues nicely into my next news blast: I picked and pitted sour cherries for the first time in my 60+ years. (No, I didn’t think they grew without pits in tin cans but I never came face to face with a fruiting sour cherry tree.)

A bunch of friends started a group called the Food Bank Food Team.  For several years Norm has been growing vegetables on his two-acre lot, donating much of his produce to the less fortunate of Centre County. He’s got it down to a science and has so much to teach. But, he’s past me in years and has the good sense to know that work goes better with a couple extra hands—a team.

So, we have planting teams and weeding teams and harvesting teams.   Just this week, I held plastic grocery bags open so Norm could stuff in two huge heads of lettuce and then I’d stack them in a wheel barrow.  In an hour’s time we gathered 70 bags, weighed them, and boxed them for easy transport.  (We weigh and count everything because Norm’s co-captain, Jan, is a numbers and organizational stickler.  Norm calls her “The Countess.”  Don’t you love it?)

Anyway, after these work sessions, Norm might take us to see lupines that have self-seeded around his property, promising seeds when they ripen.  Or he will casually point to some graceful calla lilies bordering his front porch and hand you a paper bag of calla lily rhizomes. “Oh,” he might add, “you said you like rhubarb? Well, here are a few stalks.”  Norm is all about sharing. 

One evening he had a bunch of us working.  After our mission was accomplished he led us to his sour cherry orchard, handed us green paper quart boxes, and let us pick away.  “Now, go home and make yourself a cherry pie,” he instructed. 

If I made a cherry pie, I would eat the whole thing—and I have a 50^th high school reunion coming up.  So, I pitted my cherries and put them on a cookie sheet in the freezer.  Once frozen, I packed them into ½ cup containers and stuck them back in the freezer, ready to spread the wealth gradually in several batches of scones.  Laurie Lynch

There’s No Place Like Home:  Yes, Dorothy loved those ruby slippers.  My daughter Marina was an ocean away from Kansas but it was finally her turn to get the COVID vaccine.  When she went in for her first injection, it wasn’t the needle that caught her attention, it was the nurse’s footwear:  She was wearing high-top canvas sneakers with Keith Haring figures dancing around the ankles. Kutztown’s icon reappears in Belgium! 

Classic Erma:  “If you can’t make it better, you can laugh at it.”  Erma Bombeck

Woman and Bird

Fleur-de-Translation

Well, it took a WhatsApp text conversation on my granddaughter’s 7^th birthday to find out what a lousy American grandmother I am.

She turned 7, long legs and all, and doesn’t know what a chocolate chip cookie is!

Lais got two guinea pigs for her birthday.  She named the beige one Flash because he’s fast.  The black, brown and white one is named Cookie.  (She said all of that in a beautiful French voice mail and, thank goodness, her mother, Sabine, translated it for me.)

When I texted back, thanking Sabine for the translation, I referred to them as Flash and Chocolate Chip Cookie.

Lost in translation. 

Neither Lais nor her mom knew what I meant by “Chocolate Chip” cookie. 

I explained: “They are the best.”

 The name is “Cookie,” Sabine corrected me.

 So, while I was texting a response, Sabine Googled “Chocolate Chip Cookie.”  

Definitely American.  Or as she would say, “biscuit américain.”  

I think the French Belgians call a plain cookie “un biscuit” but one with multi-flavors, especially chocolate, “cookies” … but I’m not sure.

The only thing I do know is the next time I pack my bags for Belgium, I won’t forget a couple of bags of Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chips.  We American grandmothers have a reputation to uphold.  Laurie Lynch

Long-Legged Lais

Meanwhile:  I called them guinea pigs when I saw the photo but maybe they are hamsters … or gerbils?  I don’t want to get into the French words for those, this is all too confusing. But I did warn Lais to keep Cookie away from her dad. When he was in Peru, he actually ate guinea pig, which Peruvians have been doing since the time of the Incas. After all, what is a grandmother for if not to keep family stories alive. L

Daddy Long-Legs

Fleur-de-Gifts

It’s been said so many times it is cliché. But, I’ll say it once again.  When you volunteer, you get back much more than you give. 

This past week I received three gifts that had nothing to do with the actual volunteer work I was doing, and that made them even more enjoyable.  As I’ve quoted my Italian grandmother Nives often before, “Things come in threes.”

The first was a gift in the lesson of civil disobedience.

Not far from the trailhead of Mount Nittany is a piece of land owned by the township where workers pile chipped wood from old Christmas trees, branches, and other woody debris collected from residences.  People are allowed to help themselves to this mulch, so, as a Master Gardener, I often go here to replenish the mulch around our raised beds at an affordable housing complex. 

The other day Penny and I were filling up buckets and boxes when a fellow came by with a milk jug filled with water.  Since the last time we were there (pre-COVID), the area had been blocked off with concrete barriers, making a parking area for Mount Nittany hikers, separating it from the township’s “work area”—piles of asphalt, concrete, rusted metal, assorted debris and wood mulch. 

A bearded fellow carrying a milk jug filled with water was watering a potted flower on each of the two dozen concrete chunks that surrounded the site. We started a conversation. He asked what we were doing and we explained.  He told us that the township dumps debris in this area and then bulldozes it down the mountain, contaminating a natural spring.  When the township placed the ugly concrete barriers around the area, he placed flowers on each to call attention to the beauty of the mountain.  He called it his act of civil disobedience … 

I started a new gig with Acoustic Brew Concerts, a volunteer organization that sets up a series of folk music concerts throughout the year in the State College area.  My mother and I attended many of their intimate musical events over the years and they were always so kind and accommodating to her that I decided to “give back”. 

So, I became an official ABC ticket-taker at a new venue, the Boal Mansion Museum amphitheater.  Most people buy tickets ahead of the event online and then we check them off on a printout.  I scanned the printout before cars started rolling in, and one name popped out at me—which I’ll refer to as Molly B.  As we checked off people on the list and stamped their hands, one woman said her name was Molly B.  I looked at her and asked if she graduated from State High.  She said her family moved out of the school district when she was in 10^th grade, so no, but until then, she was a local. 

I introduced myself.  Molly B grew up in Oak Hall, which was on the Lemont School bus route that I rode on.  She had long, chestnut hair and a free-wheeling, Pippi Longstocking personality—a crown jewel in my elementary school memories.

Later, as everyone waited for the soundcheck to end, Molly B came over to my chair and we caught up. 

“Your hair is short,” I said, (a totally stupid remark, I know.) “Mine is too,” I giggled nervously.  She recently retired after a career as a nurse at Mount Nittany Medical Center.  I told her I planned to retire at the end of the year.  She has a daughter and son, as do I. She lives on a small farm in the country. Sounds familiar.  More than 50 years have passed since we were grade school buddies but I’m hoping our early friendship will result in an encore. It would be a gift. 

Later, during a pause in the concert for banjo and fiddle tuning, I spotted a young woman sitting on a stone wall wearing my favorite T-shirt.  So, I walked over to her, and told her so.

“Thank you. I designed it.”

“What?”  

“I designed it for the (PSU) Student Farm.”

I felt so honored to meet her.  The design is of Penn State’s Old Main, but instead of white columns below the familiar dome, there are bright orange carrots with green feathery tops. So clever. We exchanged names.  Hers is Alyssa.  It was such a gift to give a compliment honestly and innocently, and meet a young designer with creative talent.  Laurie Lynch

Three Plus One:  The first time I saw her riding a bike through Pleasant Gap, I decided I was overdue for an eye exam.  The second time, I did a U-turn in my car but lost her.  The third time, I was again driving in the opposite direction, and late for an appointment, but I was sure. After three sightings, the woman was riding her bike—with a cockatiel perched on her shoulder.  

This morning, I passed her for the fourth time, not far from the former Macy’s which is being renovated into a casino.  I parked on the side of the road and waited.  When she approached, I stepped near the road and asked if I could take a photo.  She’s quite a talker, even when stopped by a stranger alongside a busy road. I got her phone number and soon you will be reading more about my fellow Pleasant Gapper.

Written on Slate: “I was in darkness, but I took three steps and found myself in paradise.  The first step was a good thought, the second, a good word, and the third, a good deed.”  Friedrich Nietzsche