(Many moons ago, I had another blog, which got zero attention and documented Pennsylvania’s oddities. This is me, reusing that content.)
As an ex Penn Stater, I focus a lot on the history of the school. Take for instance, the eighth president of the University, George Atherton.
Granted, Mr. Atherton didn’t have as horrible as a job as some of his successors. His first year in office, the graduating class was only seven people. But he had a lot to do with changing and improving the curriculum from a strictly agricultural college to add more studies, and building a lot of the structures still used at University Park today (like Old Engineering and Old Botany) and fixing up Old Main. But still, I think he got a bum wrap. Check out where he’s buried.
You see that great Brutalist monument with the grave-like feature? The one that if you went to University Park, you passed by daily, and possibly found yourself passed out on the opposing bench when the trip back to the dorm was too far? The one with Atherton’s name and face on it?
That is NOT where Atherton is buried. Actually, we’ve sort of misplaced one of Penn State’s greatest presidents over time. The best guess is that he’s buried somewhere near the intersection, which gets phrased nicely to “under the stop sign” to stop any sort of untoward associations with the location.
Still, is he really? One of the best things about attending Penn State was the steam pipes that ran underground, slightly heating the pavement and sidewalk and making it snow free. Plus, the normal underground wires, infostructure to the asphalt… Personally I think regardless of where Atherton was buried, he’s long since been dug out of his six feet under and used as clean fill.
I learned I wasn’t a performer at a young age. Initially I totally thought I was born for the stage. This probably had something to do with my ability to read fluently, memorize stuff, and not fall into tears, which made me an early shoe in for school announcers or the “thank you for coming to our preschool presentation” speeches.
The elementary school had a talent show the last day of school before Christmas vacation. In kindergarden, I just watched, entranced through the kids rehashing their dance recital numbers, playing piano pieces, and twirling batons. It would be a full year before I could participate, but I had planned something grandiose, greater than all the other acts combined.
At my grandparents house, we would play a game where they would cue up old children’s records while I planned elaborate costumes from the dress up chest. Then, I would prance about, chanting along with the record in a sing song way, alternatively twirling and doing quite literal pantomimes of the lyrics of songs. I prided myself on the ability to improvise a full performance each time. My grandparents always loved it, breaking into applause with each performance.
This is the experience I planned to bring to the elementary school talent show. A stunning combination of dance, song, and costume, created on the spot. I chose my piece carefully—a recording of “You Can Fly” from Disney’s Peter Pan.
It was particularly full of possibilities. You could twirl round during the Tinkerbell portions, chant back and forth the various kid’s parts (pantomiming the whole time). You could add leaps around the stage and sprinkles of jazz hands or flap your arms with force during the many iterations of “He can fly! He can fly! He can fly!”. My costume was similarly chosen with care, a combination of a pink hand me down dress up piece with fringe and a white cape my grandmother had made me when I was three and played “Captain Carbohydrate” in the day care performance of “Superhero Nutrients”.
The day of, I took the stage, the music started, and I was off to a great start. I flitted and mimed and sang along with force and gusto never matched. Then I noticed something. Everyone was staring at me. Academically, I knew this would happen on stage, but somehow the reality was different than imagined. No one looked entranced, marveling at my performance creation. No, they looked confused at best.
I faltered. Why was no one responding to my groundbreaking performance? Was I not combining the best elements of every other talent show sketch—dance, music, drama!—into one creation? Then I caught a glance of myself in an offstage mirror.
The late 80s were a sad time for children’s fashion, so I wore oversized plastic glasses with mildly tinted lenses, topped with a poof of teased hair. I wasn’t a thin kid, and had a body type that could best be described as “kidney bean” stuffed into a princess dress that was a bit too small. But mostly, I had never seen my own dance. I didn’t float across the stage like I did in my head, no, my movements were quite leaden, clumsy and random, like a slow moving, broken animatronic.
I was taken aback, shocked even. And so, I stopped, wandered back offstage, and told the teacher I was done. The music stopped mid chorus.
I expected to be bullied for this. I braced myself for it, in fact. But somehow, out of all the things I was teased for in school, this wasn’t one of them. I think it was because it was so strange, so surreal that kids couldn’t recount it. I had actually managed to transcend the realm of being picked on by being too far into left field. “Hey, remember that time Melanie did that weird interpretive dance to an old Disney song?” just isn’t going to be yelled in the school yard.
Subsequently, I’d be tempted to try again on stage. My parents put me in tap dance. I fell down a lot and managed to break the shoes. Much older, I went out for community theater. First year they gave me a role. Subsequently, they resigned me to the chorus, asking for help with props (I was okay with it) and backdrops (I was quite good at painting them). I’d later work on costumes and accessories and scenery, wear a headset and help out backstage in little productions through high school and college. In a way, it was just as impressive, watching tiny little worlds be built out of duct tape and pure force of will.
Of course, I’ve long since resigned myself to the fact that I should never ever be on stage, for the good of everyone. Yet, I’m somehow since friends with a ton of performers. And every time I see them take character or interact with an audience, transform their body language and change their energy, it’s a piece of magic. “Look at that! Look at what that person I know is doing! Look at the other people all caught up with the things that those people are doing, those doers there, wow.” And later, when they are hanging out, half out of stage makeup and costume, psychically drained from effort, it’s even more impressive. It is magic, and in a way I enjoy it more because its magic I don’t have.
Wayward Leather 
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