Perhaps one of the places you wouldn’t like to visit these days is Happy Valley, PA.
Heart of Penn State Football. Normally alumni would post home-game tickets as if they were for Albert Hall‘s Fab reunion concert.
Now, it’s a place that is much condemned: punishment for Penn State, penalty for Penn State.
Alumni started to flip the script: BOT this and that, the Governor himself, where was he? etc…
This fiasco reminds me of a rack-focused shot from a David Lynch‘s movie, perhaps Mulholland Drive? which slowly reveals what’s beneath the well-manicured auto-irrigated lawn. Finally, real Happy Valley is revealed.
We know now, there is no perfect place. Nor people. Just ordinary human beings with highs and lows.
Like you and I.
It’s like when we receive our transcript: some courses we did better than others.
Oh well.
Ethically, Penn State is getting its report card. We Penn Staters are getting a black-eye.
Hard to imagine “senior panic” plus austerity, plus this. Perfect storm.
I feel for graduating seniors. I want to remind them of Steve Jobs‘ commencement address “Stay hungry, stay foolish”, plus, “Stay clean”. BTW, I am not ashamed to admit I started out there at Penn State in my first job as a janitor at the HUB. Reports say one of the janitors at PSU saw what happened but “was afraid for his job”etc…
Maybe he too should be taken into custody for not doing his job: cleaning up the mess at Penn State.
Not “where was the Governor”, but “where was the janitor”. Highs and lows.
Thang Nguyen 555 