Tom Shakely Community

Stars near Mercersburg

I drove from Washington, DC to State College last night, taking the more scenic route after Hagerstown that takes you…

…up Route 75 through little Pennsylvania towns like Mercersburg, Fort Loudon, past Cowans Gap Lake, and through Burnt Cabins onto Route 522 through Shade Gap, Rockhill/Orbisonia, Shirleysburg, Allenport/Mount Union/Lucy Furnace where you reach the Juniata River, and then north on Route 22 along William Penn Highway and Big Valley Pike and Stone Creek Ridge Road onto Route 26, and then up Standing Stone Road, past McAlevys Fort, past Whipple Dam State Park and finally through Pine Grove Mills before arriving in State College.

Mercersburg. Burnt Cabins. Shade Gap. Shirleysburg. Lucy Furnace. McAlevys Fort.

Aren’t these great names?

And driving along these country roads at night, you see the stars. How awesome it is to see the stars.

I stopped just past Mercersburg at one point to look up at the sky and took this photo.

After I got back on the road, I kept the window down for a little while to glance up as often as possible. The shimmering stars moving across the sky felt close, and the world felt alive in a special way, with the dome of the sky really feeling like a dome—like a heavens.

I thought about not being able to see the stars—about how many today not only grow up without a view of the stars, but basically never witness the night sky as anything other than a lit hue, polluted and opaque. It reminded me of something a friend told me recently about a distinct challenge of old age; that it is literally the loss of sight as one ages that contributes to anxiety and disorientation. The loss of clarity, of color, of depth and space lead to a confusion about life itself and sometimes hopelessness and despondency.

I wonder if that’s not just as true for those in cities and places where we’ve lost sight of the sky.

Tom Shakely Community

‘Victims of a moral panic’

Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book, Talking with Strangers, has a chapter on the Penn State/Jerry Sandusky scandal. Malcolm Gladwell is speaking in Happy Valley tonight and Ben Novak writes on the whole thing in StateCollege.com:

In “Talking with Strangers,” Gladwell stirred up a hornets’ nest with his chapter on the Sandusky scandal entitled “The Boy in the Shower.” The thesis of this new book is that humans innately tend to form positive impressions of others, even in the face of contrary indications. Using the Sandusky scandal as a case study, he takes on many of the misunderstandings and false “facts,” upon which the media narrative of that scandal has been based.

Since the book’s publication, however, he has stirred the hornets even more in several podcast interviews. In a podcast interview with Bill Simmons, Gladwell asserts, “The leadership at Penn State was totally, outrageously attacked over this. I think they’re blameless,” In addition, Gladwell insists, “Joe Paterno essentially did nothing wrong.”

Statements such as these are sure to send sparks flying and evoke a lot of questions—perhaps even some soul searching. But in another interview, this time with John Zeigler, Gladwell went even further, claiming, for example:

“There is no way Joe Paterno even belongs in this conversation. Everyone should agree he was treated shamefully and that his good name needs to be restored.”

“We were way, way, way, way too quick to come to judgement about the Penn State leadership and on Joe Paterno, and way too quick to think that Mike McQueary’s account is cut and dry when, in fact, it’s not.”

“Joe Paterno, Graham Spanier, Tim Curley, and Gary Schultz were the victims of a moral panic. It was crazy.”

When the NCAA restored Penn State’s victories and avoided its sanctions five years ago, it acknowledged precisely the “moral panic” it both fell victim to and perpetuated.

Tom Shakely Life

Endowing the Michael D. Walsh Student Broadcasters Trustee Scholarship

Penn State News covers our recently concluded campaign to endow the Michael D. Walsh Student Broadcasters Trustee Scholarship:

As a student programmed-and-operated radio station, The LION is integral to the Penn State experience and provides a voice for the student body. The LION has been a platform for many students to gain valuable experience over the years and go on to successful careers in journalism, broadcasting, advertising, and related fields. A unique feature of The LION is that membership is open to students of any academic major, as well as graduate students, members of the faculty, and townspeople.

A recently endowed scholarship, the Michael D. Walsh Student Broadcasters Trustee Scholarship, is helping to support the students who run The LION.

The scholarship was initiated in 2014 with a gift from Michael Walsh, a Penn State alumnus who graduated with a bachelor’s in telecommunications from the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications.

“I was excited to strengthen Penn State student radio through this scholarship because it occupies a distinctive place amongst Penn State’s student organizations,” said Walsh. “It enables people anywhere in the world to literally hear some of the life of the Penn State campus and Nittany Valley communities. As a powerful platform for free expression, for artistic creativity, and for authentically diverse perspectives, The LION has for decades brought people together in a way no other student organization does. I hope this scholarship increases access for Penn Staters to become a part of the continuing tradition of student radio.”

The Penn State Media Alumni Interest Group – one of more than 300 Alumni Association affiliate groups – led the fundraising efforts to raise the $50,000 needed to permanently endow the scholarship. In 2019, the group met their fundraising goal.

“Penn State has been a leader in broadcasting college radio since the Senior Gift of the Class of 1912 led to WPSC and some of the earliest student broadcasts in American history,” said Tom Shakely, Penn State alumnus and campaign chair for the scholarship. “Penn State student broadcasters enrich the campus and community through the free expression of the human voice. Now, thanks to the generosity of alumni from across many generations, students will continue to benefit from the establishment of the Michael D. Walsh Student Broadcasters Trustee Scholarship and will have the potential to participate in this distinctive Penn State tradition of student broadcasting without being as burdened by the cost of their degree.”

Since its establishment in 2014, the scholarship has provided more than $25,000 of support to students.

The Penn State Media Alumni Interest Group was also instrumental in the installation of the Student Broadcasting historical marker in 2017. The marker, located outside of Sparks Building, celebrates the long history and significance of student broadcasting at Penn State.

The scholarship is open to Pell-eligible undergraduate students with preference given to members of The LION 90.7 FM. Members of the University and community can contribute to this by visiting www.giveto.psu.edu/walshscholarship.

Hands down, The LION 90.7fm was the best part of my Penn State experience. Experience running a federally licensed radio station, experience managing budgets and a large team, experience with stakeholders, fundraising, and most important: learning how to speak in a compelling and relevant way in public.

I hope many generations are still to follow.

Tom Shakely Community

State College for six waking hours

I woke up around 7am in State College, Pennsylvania this morning at the Super 8 on South Atherton Street, went for a short run, showered, and headed to the Mount Nittany Conservancy’s second board meeting of the year. It’s hot out, and I left the window of my hotel room open and woke up to the Nittany Valley’s near-muggy air. I love weather like this partly because, whether walking or driving through town or the outlying countryside, you encounter the near-summertime in a sensual way—the scents, breezes, and verdant sights are right there for you, if you’re open to receive these gifts.

After the meeting, I drove to Meyer Dairy to pick up some cheese and lemonade, and then to downtown State College for a short walk. Penn State and State College have emptied out with the end of spring classes, and so campus and town are especially peaceful this Sunday morning:

I like solitary trips like this as both a way to think and as a way to go deep with audiobooks. I’m listening to Wilson D. Miscable’s “American Priest: The Ambitious Life and Conflicted Legacy of Notre Dame’s Father Ted Hesburgh” and Camille Paglia’s “Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson.”

I drove up from Washington last night for this morning’s meeting, and am heading right back to Washington for a dinner meeting tonight.

Tom Shakely Culture

HIST 148: History of Penn State

I wrote two years ago about Penn State’s “HIST 197: History of Penn State” course, which was debuting as a “special topics” (temporary) course for the Fall 2017 semester as an undergraduate elective. A handful of Penn Staters had started talking about the need for a course that would formally introduce Penn Staters to their own history, and in both Professor Michael Kulikowski and Professor Mike Milligan we found kindred spirits who believed in the importance of such a course. Penn State News reported on the launch of the course at the time.

This morning when I opened my inbox, I saw a note from Penn State letting me know that the University Faculty Senate has approved the course for permanent status, and with that comes a change in its number to “HIST 148: History of Penn State”. Here’s the newly-listed course in Penn State’s LionPATH course catalogue:

 

What makes “HIST 148: History of Penn State” even more special is that the permanent course number itself refers to some of Penn State’s earliest history:

When President Lincoln called for 300,000 more troops to quell the rebels from the South [in advance of the Battle of Gettysburg], Centre County produced 700 able-bodied men who would largely fill the roster of the 148th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry regiment. Later tagged the Centre County regiment, it was led by Col. James Beaver, who would go on to become the 20th governor of Pennsylvania as well as acting president of Penn State after the death of George Atherton.

Matthew Swayne puts a bit more color on the portrait of the 148th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry regiment:

Robert M. Forster (spelled Foster in some records), who served as the Farm School’s first postmaster, actively recruited students to join Lincoln’s call for an additional 300,000 soldiers in 1862. Several students left with Forster, joining the 148th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. …

While dozens of Farm School students fought to keep the Union together, the institution’s president, Evan Pugh, struggled to hold onto enough students to keep the new institution from fading into oblivion. …

As Gen. Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia marched north, war fever and war fears spread throughout Pennsylvania and into the Farm School. Lincoln and Pennsylvania Gov. Andrew Curtin called for 50,000 volunteers from the state. Students, often without consent from their parents or from school officials, left to join the hastily formed militias. …

The battle of Gettysburg had less to do with the Confederate Army’s hunt for shoes — a common explanation of why the two armies decided to fight it out in the southeastern Pennsylvania community — and more to do with the town’s position as a transportation hub in the mid-1800s, according to Carol Reardon, George Winfree Professor of American History at Penn State. The town was at the center of several roads, or pikes, as well as a rail line, that connected to the cities of Baltimore, Washington D.C., Philadelphia and Harrisburg. …

On July 2, 1863, Postmaster Forster, now a captain of the 148th’s Company C, and his fellow soldiers, including several former Farm School students, were positioned near the Union’s vulnerable left flank [at Gettysburg] in a wheatfield that would be transformed into, as Reardon describes it, “a horrific no-man’s land covered thickly with the dead and wounded from both armies.” …

[Captain Forster] was listed as one of the many casualties during the bloody fighting in the Wheatfield on July 2. … A nearly daylong series of charges and counter-charges ensued. While leading one of those charges to maintain the Union position, Forster was shot in the head. He was initially buried near the remains of Confederate Gen. William Barksdale on a Gettysburg farm. Forster’s brother-in-law later retrieved the captain’s remains and re-interred them in Centre County’s Spring Creek Presbyterian Cemetery. …

While Pugh struggled to stop students from leaving the school to fight in the war, he also considered joining the Army. Pugh wrote in a letter to Johnson, “Prof. Wilson and myself have been helping to raise a military company at Boalsburg. He is elected captain and will go if called upon. I would have gone if I could have left. Walker, Buner, Stoner, and Rich have gone.” He added, with uncharacteristic venom, “I would leave my quakerism at home till we could give those traitor scoundrels such a thundering thrashing as no people ever got before.”

Instead, Pugh fought the war by wielding a pen to write letters, campaigning endlessly for the Farm School in Harrisburg and enduring batteries of meetings with government officials and bureaucrats to shore up its land-grant status. Pugh, though, had an almost prophetic belief that while the war would be won on battlefields, the peace and the reconstruction that would follow would be won on the campuses of universities like Penn State.

If you want to support this course, consider a gift to the Stephen D. Garguilo Nittany Valley Society University History Endowment in the College of the Liberal Arts, which specifically supports HIST 148: History of Penn State.

I’ve made a habit of visiting Penn State to sit in on the course for a lecture each semester it’s been offered so far (Fall 2017 and 2018), and am planning to do that again sometime this autumn.

Tom Shakely Community

What the Freeh Report is good for

I haven’t thought much about Penn State’s November 2011 Jerry Sandusky scandal for a while. Not since the NCAA reversed itself in 2015 and voided its sanctions against Penn State and Joe Paterno, in acknowledgement of a rush to judgment driven by emotivism and vindictiveness. And not since the 2016 dismissal of felony conspiracy charges against Penn State’s former leadership, which was the most significant remaining issue with the potential to either confirm or refute the narrative of an institutional cover-up.

But I thought about the Sandusky scandal again today in light of the just-leaked “Report to the Board of Trustees of the Pennsylvania State University on the Freeh Report’s Flawed Methodology and Conclusions,” a minority report of the Penn State Board of Trustees. The 2012 Freeh Report was held up at the time of its release as an independent and trustworthy investigation of Penn State’s leadership. The Freeh Report’s conclusion of institutional coverup for the purpose of protecting the image of the university not only legitimized the Penn State Board of Trustees’s snap decision in November 2011 to fire then-Penn State President Graham Spanier and Coach Joe Paterno, but it also formed the basis for both devastating legal culpability for the victims of a former employee and for the NCAA’s decision to sanction the university and its student athletes.

It was in 2015 that Penn State’s new president Eric J. Barron dismissed the Freeh Report:

“There’s no doubt in my mind, Freeh steered everything as if he were a prosecutor trying to convince a court to take the case,” Barron said, adding that Freeh “very clearly paints a picture about every student, every faculty member, every staff member and every alum. And it’s absurd. It’s unwarranted. So from my viewpoint the Freeh report is not useful to make decisions.”

These criticisms of the Freeh Report echoed those of Dick Thornburgh, former U.S. Attorney General, who in 2013 had underscored that the Freeh Report constituted merely “raw speculation and unsupported opinion—not facts and evidence.” Malcolm Gladwell has said as much. Bob Costas has said as much.

What has been amazing to those who followed the Penn State and Jerry Sandusky scandals, though, is that the Penn State Board of Trustees (the same Board of Trustees that commissioned that report) has never formally accepted or rejected the Freeh Report’s findings. This, despite the fact that the Freeh Report functioned to confirm the worst possible, most malicious narrative about Penn State leadership’s handling of Jerry Sandusky, and despite the fact that the Freeh Report opened Penn State up to hundreds of millions of dollars in liability for Sandusky’s crimes. Hence the need for a minority of Penn State Trustees to produce the now-leaked “Report to the Board of Trustees of the Pennsylvania State University on the Freeh Report’s Flawed Methodology and Conclusions,” which the larger Penn State Board had attempted to suppress last year. The minority trustees shared this statement in light of yesterday’s leak:

“The fact is the Board’s tacit acceptance of the Freeh Report led to profound reputational damage, along with over $250 million in costs so far to Penn State. It is perplexing that the University clings to the conclusions of a report that has been criticized by so many, including Penn State President Eric Barron. We fervently believe that the best way forward is for the Board and the University to openly and thoughtfully consider the comprehensive and well-researched findings from our review so that we can finally come to an honest conclusion.”

Gary Sinderson of WMAJ, which leaked the minority report, puts the news in context:

The document, officially titled, “Report to the Board of Trustees of the Pennsylvania State University on the Freeh Report’s flawed methodology and conclusions” was completed and presented to the full trustee board in the summer of 2018.

The seven trustees who commissioned the report said the full board decided to not make its findings public.

In 2011, in the wake of the arrest of former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky on charges that included involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, the university commissioned former FBI Director Louis Freeh to compile a report on the university’s involvement. Freeh was reportedly paid $8 million.

In its report, the group of seven former and current trustees concluded Penn State paid for an independent investigation that was not independent, fair or thorough.

The trustees’ report said the Freeh report investigators used deeply flawed methodology and the report is full of factual mistakes. Page 18 of the trustees’ report, titled “Use of coercion,” said the Freeh investigators “shouted, were insulting and demanded that interviewees give them specific information — such as — tell me Joe Paterno knew Sandusky was abusing kids.”

This report said some university employees who were interviewed were told cooperation was a key to keeping their jobs. In fact, one employee told the investigators of the Freeh report that he was fired for not cooperating.

The trustee’s report said the Freeh team did not interview many key figures in the Sandusky scandal, including Sandusky, Paterno and university administrators Tim Curley and Gary Schutz, as well as Mike McQueary.

The Freeh report said Penn State has a football culture problem. But the trustees’ report says Freeh had a conflict of interest with the NCAA, and that his company was attempting to be the organization’s go-to investigative firm.

The trustees’ report also contains a long discussion about the Freeh team’s claim of being independent, with the trustees’ report finding the Freeh team was actually sharing information with the NCAA, Penn State administrators and the prosecutors in the Sandusky case.

Freeh has long defended his work at Penn State, saying in the past, “Since 2015, these misguided alumni have been fighting rearguard action to turn the clocks back and resist the positive changes which the PSU students and faculty have fully embraced.” Freeh’s report included more than 100 recommended university policy changes, many of which were adopted by Penn State.

And Elissa Hill at Onward State writes on the report’s takeaways:

The seven current and former trustee signatories to the report are Ted Brown, Barb Doran, Bob Jubelirer, Anthony Lubrano, Ryan McCombie, Bill Oldsey, and Alice Pope. They used their access to this source information to develop the report that was published by WJAC, disputing the Freeh Report’s findings and calling the Board’s previous “tacit acceptance” of the Freeh Report “a fiduciary breach.”

The report lays out its findings in a pretty straightforward manner:

  • There’s no support for the Freeh Report’s conclusion that Paterno, Spanier, Curley, or Schultz knew of Sandusky’s sexual abuse of children.
  • There’s no support for the Freeh Report’s conclusion that Penn State’s culture was responsible for allowing Sandusky’s sexual abuse of children.
  • The independence of the Freeh Report was compromised by collaboration with the NCAA, then-Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett and the state attorney general, and members of the Board of Trustees.
  • The NCAA, Corbett, and the Board of Trustees influenced the Freeh Report with conflicts of interests.
  • The Freeh Report used “unreliable methods for conducting and analyzing interviews” upon which it based its conclusions.

The report from the small group of trustees rejects the Freeh Report, saying Freeh “did not fulfill his obligation to conduct an independent and comprehensive investigation.”

No serious person who has been paying attention to this story since November 2011 can still plausibly argue that Freeh conducted an “independent and comprehensive” investigation into Penn State’s role and culpability for Jerry Sandusky’s actions. No one seriously defends the Freeh Report except for those who paid for it and benefited from its since-repudiated findings—that is, no one seriously defends the Freeh Report except for the leadership of the Penn State Board of Trustees itself, which has a perpetual interest in discouraging any public acknowledgement of their own culpability for fiduciary breach, rush to judgment, and downright naiveté.

Tom Shakely Community

Wally Triplett, RIP

Wally Triplett died in Detroit earlier this month. He was 92 years old, and both an American and Penn State athletic hero:

Wally Triplett became the first African-American to start on the Penn State Nittany Lions, play in a bowl game, and be drafted by the NFL, where he set multiple records. He was a key inspiration for Penn State’s iconic “We Are” chant, which came to signify unity as Penn Staters in the face of racial segregation.

Kevin Horne wrote on “Wally Triplett and the Men of ‘47” earlier this year:

Triplett’s modesty is a tenant of his personality today, as it has been for virtually all of his 91 years on this earth. But those now-weathered eyes witnessed one of the most beautiful Penn State stories ever told—one in which he was the central figure, transcending the bounds of time and, even if not the literal inspiration, embodying the meaning behind the phrase “We Are Penn State.”

The story is told in two-parts. Triplett saw limited playing time in 1945—becoming, along with Dennie Hoggard, the first African-American to take the field for Penn State—and earned a varsity letter in 1946, also the first black player to do so for the Nittany Lions. Triplett made the switch from tailback to wingback early in the 1946 season and was the team’s most adept kick returner.

But Wally Triplett is defined more by the game he didn’t play than the ones that he did.

Triplett first felt trouble when he noticed that familiar name on the team schedule after he returned to campus in the fall of 1946. The University of Miami, the same school that revoked his scholarship less than two years prior because of the color of his skin, was scheduled for a home game against Penn State on November 29.

Not only did Miami not let black players on its team but, like many southern schools, did not even allow black players on its fields with visiting teams. Miami officials alerted Penn State that traveling with Triplett and Hoggard might prove problematic. The situation gnawed at Triplett — Penn State had a solid squad that year, with only one 3-point loss to Michigan State mid-way through the season and were poised to make a run at a postseason bowl.

Triplett has recounted what happened next hundreds of times. As the legend goes, the team met at Old Main to discuss the situation. They knew of Miami’s stance that bringing Triplett and Hoggard on the trip would make it, as their officials put it, “difficult for them to carry out arrangements for the game.”

The team discussed the situation and held a vote. It wasn’t close. A revote was held, however, so that the few holdouts could make it unanimous. “There was no second thought,” voter Joe Sarabok recalled to the Penn Stater.  Penn State would bring all of its players, or it would not play at all.

The dean of the School of Physical Education and Athletics, Dr. Carl Schott, relayed the team’s decision to the Daily Collegian in the November 6, 1946 newspaper:

“We recently advised the University of Miami that two colored boys are regular members of the Penn State football squad,” Scott said, “and that it is the policy of the College to compete only under circumstances which will permit the playing of any or all members of its athletic teams.”

There would be no game. It would not be rescheduled.

“I call it ‘that team’,’” Triplett recalled during a visit to the All Sports Museum in 2009. “The tradition of leaving your colored players at home was going to be tolerated no more.”

To add to the mythology, it is said that All-American captain Steve Suhey, the coach’s future son-in-law whose family line would produce generations of great Nittany Lions, stood up after the discussion and declared that the team would never have a vote of this sort again. It would never be spoken of; they already knew the answer. It was decided forever.

“We Are Penn State,” Suhey said. “We play all or we play none. There will be no meetings.”

Kevin relates Triplett’s story through Lincoln Hall in State College and a host of familiar, tangible landmarks that bind and unite Penn Staters:

Penn State student government leaders voted in 2016 to use the student facilities fee to erect a monument to Triplett near the location of Old Beaver Field, and though the project went in another direction once it reached the administrative level, it is a testament to the enduring appeal of his inspirational story that today’s students were willing to honor him in that way—nearly 70 years after Triplett and “The Men of ‘47” stood in their place.

But what compels such devotion? What is the Spirit of Penn State? Answers can be found through experiencing the ways in which the echoes of our shared past still reverberate through the places that we love. It is revering Mount Nittany. It is tipping your cap to Old Willow and admiring the remaining Elms on the Henderson Mall. It is celebrating the unique vision and singular determination of people like Evan Pugh, George Atherton, and Joe Paterno. And it is remembering places that never should have needed to exist at all, like Lincoln Hall, and the quiet dignity of the pioneers who lived there. It is learning and cherishing – and thereby keeping alive – the story of noble Lions like Wally Triplett, Steve Suhey, and a band of teammates who were ahead of their time.

The Spirit is still there if you want to experience it. Try it. Walk down North Barnard Street and stop in front of the second house on the right. Close your eyes. If you try hard enough, it’s not difficult to imagine Wally Triplett, the African-American son of a Pennsylvania postal worker, his smile reaching ear to ear, bounding down the wood-covered concrete steps of Lincoln Hall, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, on his way to catch the team bus to the Cotton Bowl, ready to change the course of history.

I hope Penn State administration comes to its senses and commissions a lasting stuatuary monument to Wally Triplett someplace near Beaver Stadium. Wally Triplett, rest in peace.

Tom Shakely Community

Penn State Homes Sales

This mid-20th century “Penn State Homes Sales” office has sat on North Atherton Street, just a few minutes from Downtown State College, for decades. I wondered about it when first arriving at Penn State in 2005. In driving by it when leaving State College on Monday I noticed lots of equipment surrounding it, and thought this might be one of the last times I see it if it’s scheduled for demolition. I hopped out of my rental car and took this photo:

26881B87-0794-4D8A-808A-E2570E3E0072

I emailed a friend who grew up in the area to ask about it, and here’s what he wrote:

Yes, it was the rental/sales office for what was the mobile home park that existed back there up until the mid 2000s or so. I have a vague memory of visiting my aunt who lived there for a year sometime in the mid 80s… Although it was run down toward the end of its life it was actually pretty decent in the prime of days. There also wasn’t a ton of non-student housing available in the State College area back then either (believe it or not considering the expansion of housing options today).

And here’s a bit from Matt Carroll in the Centre Daily Times a few years ago on what looks like a park that was adjacent to this one:

The last of the North Atherton Street mobile home parks is closing.

Franklin Manor Mobile Home Park is shutting down, according to a letter sent Friday to residents and Patton Township officials. The 22 families that live in the park were informed that they have until Oct. 1 to find new homes.

The park is next to the former Penn State Mobile Home Park, which closed July 31.

Natalie Corman, Centre County Office of Adult Services director, was informed Friday that the mobile home park is closing, and she said officials already are organizing assistance for residents.

Owner Ed Temple, when reached Friday, said the condition of the park’s infrastructure is failing, as are many of its trailers, and that ultimately led to the decision to close.

“This winter was a tipping point,” Temple said. “So many people had failures, frozen-up water lines broke. It just became evident they were just not functional anymore.”

He said closing the park is a “difficult decision.” It was established by his father in 1953, and Temple grew up there.

“It’s been a situation where I had generations of people there — parents and now their children,” he said. “We’ve tried to facilitate it. It’s just come to the point where we have to do something.”

Temple said the park was not being closed to make way for development, but did not rule that out as a possibility in the future.

I hope this little office survives and is repurposed into something more publicly useful someday. It’s such an aesthetically distinct park of North Atherton Street, compared to the derivative shopping centers and hotels that line both sides the whole way north.

Tom Shakely Community

Labor Day in State College

Happy Labor Day. I’m in State College, Pennsylvania this morning and enjoying this beautiful late summer day on my friend’s South Allen Street front porch. A view from that porch below, from last week when I was in town, along with some scenes from Downtown State College and Penn State’s campus from yesterday. Penn State has its flags at half mast in honor of Sen. John McCain.

College football season has started, and autumn will be here in earnest before long. Looking forward to what the next few months have in store.

Tom Shakely Life

Appalachian State

Incredible season opener today for Penn State. I got into Happy Valley just after 1pm, visited with Ben Novak and Hollow briefly before Ubering to Beaver Stadium and tailgating for a few hours. Once the game started, met up with Anthony Christina and headed back to Park Forest Village where we watched the game. Closer than comfortable for most of the game, and ultimately driven into overtime before Penn State’s lucky, somewhat incredible victory.

Here’s Joan Niesen telling the story of this game:

For the second time in three years, Appalachian State pushed a top-10 Week 1 opponent to overtime—and lost.

It took a late-game touchdown by Trace McSorley and an Amani Oruwariye pick in the end zone in overtime, but Penn State got its win, 45–38. It was, coach James Franklin said in his postgame Big Ten Network interview, “an ugly one, tough one,” but as night fell in Pennsylvania, the Nittany Lions hung on to their College Football Playoff hopes.

Going into Saturday, Penn State was a popular pick to make college football’s final four, despite playing in a contender-laden Big Ten East. By halftime, the conference’s other favorites had logged wins; Wisconsin defeated Western Kentucky, 34–3, on Friday night, and Ohio State charged to a 77–31 win over Oregon State—without its coach, Urban Meyer, who is suspended from in-game coaching for two more weeks. Meanwhile, Penn State was tied at 10 with a Sun Belt team playing a first-year starter at quarterback. …

It looked possible, probable even, that the Mountaineers would get their first major upset as an FBS team, 11 years to the day after they spoiled Michigan’s home opener from the ranks of the FCS.

In the end, though, the game came down to two plays: McSorley’s 15-yard, game-tying touchdown pass to K.J. Hamler with 42 seconds remaining in regulation (a perfectly respectable throw against a Group of Five defense replacing its own accomplished coordinator, which Matt Millen in the Big Ten Network booth described a “Heisman play”), and App State coach Scott Satterfield’s choice to attempt a 56-yard field goal on fourth-and-four with 15 seconds to go. That decision to try to pull off a long kick rather than eke out four yards would haunt Appalachian State; the field goal was no good, and in overtime, reality took hold. McSorley and company were able to march down the field, and when Appalachian State got its turn, it barely nudged its way to a first down before Thomas threw the end-zone interception that decided the game. …

Penn State looks like it has ground to gain if it wants to live up to its lofty expectations. The win kept them—and McSorley’s Heisman chances—alive, but with Pitt in primetime next week and Ohio State on September 29, things won’t get any easier from here.