Road Trip To Widener, A George Saunders Reading

At 5:30 in the morning Dr. Dent drove the university van right up to the doors of our dormitory, and six of us writing majors sequeezed in a for the three-hour drive to Widener University, where we would get to meet essayist and short story writer George Saunders.

Saunders, whose quirky stories frequently appear in magazines like The New Yorker, Harper's, and Esquire, recently appeared on the Tonight Show with David Letterman promoting his newest book, a collection of essays titled The Braindead Megaphone.

Widener University is located in Chester, Pennsylvania, about nine miles south of Center City Philadelphia. Susquehanna connected with Widener through FUSE, the Forum for Undergraduate Student Editors, a burgeoning network of student writers and editors who share ideas and review student-run literary magazines.

The faculty at Widener graciously invited Dr. Dent and some of her students to come to their campus for the Saunders reading. Emphasis on "graciously." Not only were we able to attend the reading, we were also able to sit in on a class discussion with Saunders and eat lunch with the author. The students and faculty from Widener were just wonderful.

As was Saunders. When we pulled into the parking lot at Widener, I wasn't sure what to expect. Saunder's work is so quirky and surreal, like "The 400-Pound CEO," which chronicles the rise and fall of an overweight employee at "Humane Raccoon Alternatives," or "Sea Oak," in which Aunt Bernie returns from the grave. As it turns out, the man behind these stories is warm and thoughtful and very smart about writing.

At the reading, he performed a story he published about two years ago in The New Yorker called "Victory Lap." I say "performed" because he did a different voice for every character. The story is excellent, hilarious all the way through and deeply meaningful at the end. Rather than spoil it by summarizing it here, I'm simply going to recommend that you read the story for yourself. The entire thing can be found on The New Yorker website.

After the reading, we got our books signed and then piled back in the van for the three-hour drive back to Selinsgrove, exhausted, but grateful to have made the trip.

Below are two videos. The first is a Widener video of the actual conversation we had with Saunders during our time in Chester. Below that is a video of a short reading Saunders gave for a Minnesota Public Radio event. The story is "Pastoralia," not "Victory Lap," but it's still definitely worth checking out. It'll give you a really great sense of his voice as a writer.

A Conversation with George Saunders at Widener University


George Saunders reading from "Pastoralia"


Other Links:
"Victory Lap" by George Saunders
George Saunders on David Letterman
The FUSE Blog
The FUSE Website
The Blue Route - Widener University's Online Literary Magazine

Dig In

This past weekend, 100 students from campuses all across Pennsylvania met here at Susquehanna University for the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship "Dig In" conference, 24 hours of worship, scripture study, and socializing.

InterVarsity Christian Fellowship is not (contrary to popular belief) some sort of Christian athletes club. It's an international organization, started in Great Britain (where "varsity" is a common abbreviation for "university"), that is dedicated to creating communities of Christians on college campuses. Susquehanna's chapter currently has about 45 active members.

At the conference freshmen, sophomores and juniors from Bucknell, Penn State, Lehigh, Bloomsburg, Alvernia, Albright, and SU did an in-depth study of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. Seniors like myself spent the conference talking about what it looks like to have faith after college in concrete terms.

After studying a few of Jesus' parables, we talked about how our faith can play active role in our jobs, careers, budgets, housing situations, and romantic relationships. We discussed the problems many twenty-somethings run into when they try to find a church and how we can actively seek out Christian community wherever we end up.

It was busy 24 hours, but I still found some time to connect with some old friends from Lehigh that I've gotten to know through other IV conferences. Susquehanna and Bucknell students opened up their rooms so students from the more distant schools would have a place to crash for the night.

At Susquehanna, a bunch of us ended up in a basement in one of the West Village buildings, spread out in front of the big screen TV, and we talked through all of The Italian Job. InterVarsity conferences are the only place where I've seen such vibrant community spring up so quickly among complete strangers.

Used Books

It was snowing big thick flakes when Justin and I left the campus center to make the walk to the rare-and-used book store, DJ Ernst, on Market Street. It’s a fun way to spend a Saturday afternoon, scanning the old cracked spines to see what jumps out at you. Because you never know what you’ll find, and as cliché as that sounds, it’s true. I picked up John Updike’s Terrorist, Graham Greene’s The Power and The Glory, Stephen Crane’s Red Badge of Courage, and an autobiography of the Dalai Lama.

Justin was broke, and all I had was a dollar in my wallet and some quarters in my pocket, but we were still able to walk out with ten 50-cent paperbacks between the two of us.

We came in about twenty minutes till closing time, but the store owner had no problem chatting with me about books while Justin made his final selections. The owner has always struck me as a person who just genuinely loves books. He reads and has read many of the books that pass through his store.

When Justin had his third and final book in hand, the owner rang up the purchase on an antique cash register, tapping its metal keys, rattling it like a typewriter.

Iowa Roadtrip

"Ray, people will come Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past." - Field of Dreams

We drove all through the night—it’s about an eighteen-hour drive from Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania to Ames, Iowa—and napped in a Wal-Mart parking lot just over the Iowa border as the sun came up.

We made the final three or four hours of our drive in the daylight down the straightest roads I’ve ever seen. No curves, no diagonals. They cling tight to the cardinal directions and they always intersect at right angles.  Even the broadest curves are heavily marked off by yellow-and-black chevron signs.

If you look at a map, you'll see that in Iowa the roads are a grid of pavement that divides the land into squares of corn. As we drove, we saw fields and fields and fields and fields, all of them stubby and newly harvested. The sky was huge, completely unmitigated by mountains or trees, and it almost made me feel naked.

“It looks like a stereotype,” I laughed and Holly nodded.

*     *     *

For me and Holly the main attraction in Iowa, the reason why we were pushing our four-day Fall Break weekend to limit, was our friend Casey, an SU alum who had just started his first year of grad school at Iowa State studying statistics.

Casey greeted us with a wide-armed hug and then cooked us some grilled turkey sandwiches before he showed us around his new campus. Compared to Susquehanna’s cozy green campus, Iowa State is like a town in and of itself, with tall buildings (the library is four stories!) and traffic and its own busing system.

The town of Ames had that classic college-town feel, narrow streets lined with quirky bars and restaurants that sported the red and yellow of the Iowa State Cyclones. Casey took us to a bar called Es Tas, and we sampled their specialty: fried tacos.  We caught a movie at the dollar-theater, ate at The Fighting Burrito, helped Casey cheer the New York Giants on to victory against the Detroit Lions at a sports bar called Wallaby’s, and, on our final night at Casey’s apartment, watched Field of Dreams—which, Casey explained, is the greatest (and maybe the only) Iowa movie ever made.

*     *     *

Before we left the state, we stopped in Iowa City to see another SU alum, a writing major named Marcus who's working on his MFA in creative writing at the prestigious Iowa Writers' Workshop.  We circled his block twice before we found his apartment, and then he talked almost nonstop about how much he loves the program.

Then he showed us around the city, and we ended up at place called Shorts, the restaurant that served, Marcus assured us, the best burgers in town.  It was good stuff.

Then, because the MFA program at the University of Iowa is one of the grad schools I'd like to apply to, Marcus took us over to the Dey House, the home of the Iowa Writers' Workshop.  He showed us around the classrooms and the library (stocked with books written by Iowa alumni), and then he introduced us to a few of his classmates and his professor, Pulitzer Prize-winning author James Alan McPherson before we hit the road for another night of driving.

Not bad for a four-day weekend.

The Bloomsburg Fair

It's like a fair, only bigger.

When Holly talked me and Rob into to making the 45-minute drive up to Bloomsburg, I was expecting a handful of rides and maybe two dozen food stands, but I was wrong.  With over 400,000 visitors, 1,200 concession stands, and big-name music acts, the Bloomsburg Fair is one of the biggest fairs in Pennsylvania.  They were offering ten-dollar helicopter rides by the entrance as we walked in.

The fair draws in big acts (which this year included Jeff Dunham, REO Speedwagon, and Lady Antebellum), but it also features some off-the-wall entertainment: an Elvis impersonator, a "Dock Dogs" dog-jumping competition, Cinderella-style carriage rides, and a lawn mower race.

And there's the standard fair stuff: bright-colored rides, farm animals and food.  We pet some sheep, stumbled into a 4H auction, tried (and failed) to win Holly a goldfish, oggled at the giant prize-winning pumpkins, and wandered through the concession stands trying to decide what we wanted.  Funnel cake?  Candy apple?  Apple dumpling?  Frozen banana?  I went for a waffle cone full of Chocolate Pretzel Crunch ice cream from the Penn State Creamery booth.

The National Aquarium

After enjoying the Mini Coop, the Inner Harbor, and, of course, delicious seafood, we finally made it to the main event, the National Aquarium. Home to over 16,000 animals representing over 660 different species including poison dart frogs, tree sloths, dolphins, and jelly fish, the National Aquarium in Baltimore is Maryland’s most popular tourist destination.

Below is just a brief glimpse of what the aquarium has to offer.

Sea Robins, named for their wing-like fins

Fish native to Pennsylvania and Maryland

Yellow-Headed Parrots living in the
Aquarium’s Amazon Rainforest Exhibit

A mean-looking Austrailian Freshwater Crocodile

And, of course, there are sharks.

• More on the National Aquarium
• More on Baltimore's Inner Harbor

The Inner Harbor

It takes about two and a half hours to drive from Susquehanna University to Baltimore, so we arrived at the Inner Harbor a little past noon. Our plan was to visit the National Aquarium and then grab a seafood dinner before heading back to Selinsgrove to turn in the rental car. After purchasing our aquarium tickets, though, we had to rearrange our plans.

The National Aquarium only admits a limited number of visitors at a time (with over 1.6 million visitors annually, the aquarium is Baltimore’s most popular attraction).  Our tickets gave us a 2:30 admission and a chance to walk around the Inner Harbor.

The National Aquarium, home to over 16,000 different animals.

With its brick-paved sidewalks and leafy green trees, the Inner Harbor is one of the most scenic urban places I’ve visited. We walked beside the water and took in the sights: a street musician playing the guitar and the harmonica; an artist sitting on the sidewalk painting dolphins into a seascape; an old Coast Guard cutter docked beside an old submarine, both open for tours; a unicyclist performing for a crowd; and, in the window of the American Visionary Art Museum, a pink poodle that was easily six feet tall.

Since we were getting into the aquarium late, we decided to grab a big lunch. There are a ton of places to eat in and around the Inner Harbor—Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, Capital Grill, Hard Rock Café, ESPN Zone, to name a few. We decided on Phillips Seafood Restaurant at the Harborplace shopping center.

We sat at an outside table with a view of the harbor and enjoyed delicious seafood. I had the Chesapeake crab cakes and “potatoes gratinée;” Holly got the melt-in-your-mouth salmon with cucumber and yogurt sauce; and Andrew ordered a little bit of everything—a good choice because I think everything at Phillips is probably good.

Lunch

After visiting the aquarium, we still had about 45 minutes on our hands before it was time to hit the road, so we walked over to the Barnes & Noble we’d passed on our way in. I’m a sucker for bookstores in generals, but this wasn’t just any bookstore. This was two stories of books inside a refurbished power plant. Really cool. They had shelves wrapped around the four old smoke stacks that take up the center of the store.

When we were finished looking around the book store, we headed back to the parking garage to take the Mini Coop home.

Barnes & Noble

Connect by Hertz

“It’s like a time machine,” Andrew said, peering over my shoulder to get a better look at the glowing dashboard.

Sitting behind the wheel of the BMW Mini Cooper, I couldn’t have described the car better myself.

Honestly, it took me a good five minutes to figure out how to work the keyless push-button ignition.  First you stick the fat disc-shaped key fob into the slot by the steering column, then you press down the start button and the brake pedal.  This I learned from reading the laminated "How to Start a Mini Coop" instructions tied to the gear shift.

Once we got the wheels rolling, though, the Mini Coop was a blast.  We hooked my I-Pod up to the stereo and pointed the little car toward Baltimore.  While I enjoyed the car's smooth ride and tight turning radius (at home when I drive, I'm usually behind the wheel of my dad's big, long F-250), Holly and Andrew experimented with the switch that opened the sun roof.

My friends and I got ahold of the Mini Coop through the Connnect by Hertz car rental program.  Connect by Hertz provides Susquehanna students and employees with easy access to high fuel efficiency vehicles.

Students participating in the program can go online and reserve a car days in advance or just hours before their trip, choosing between the eco-friendly Toyota Prius or the also-eco-friendly BMW Mini Cooper.  Both cars, when they're not in use, are parked between Weber Chapel and the campus center.

Hertz offers both daily and hourly rates, so the cars can really be used for anything—short errands or long road trips. It only cost us $81 to take the car to Baltimore for the day, which isn’t bad at all if you divide the cost by three or four people.  Plus the rental fee covers the cost of gas and insurance.  There’s a fueling card just above the visor that you swipe at the pump like a credit card whenever you stop to fill up.

You're not going to spend much time filling up, though.  These cars really are fuel efficient. Holly, Andrew, and I took the Mini the whole way to Baltimore, but we didn’t have to stop for gas until we got back to Selinsgrove. I spent more time enjoying the breeze coming in through the windows and the Dave Matthews Band coming in through the speakers, watching the needle on the humungous speedometer waver between 60 and 80, than I did worrying about where the next gas station is.

If you don't have a car on campus or a girlfriend who has a car on campus (like I do), the Hertz Connect Program is a really great way to explore the world that exists beyond SU's campus.

We spent the day in Baltimore hanging out at the aquarium, but really you could take the car anymore—catch a concert in Scranton,  spend a day at the hands-on science center in Harrisburg, watch a hockey game in Hershey, maybe eat some chocolate too, visit friends at another university, catch a Broadway Show in New York City, head to Philly, D.C., or wherever.  With Connect by Hertz, it's really up to you.

• Learn more about Connect by Hertz at connectbyhertz.com.

Laundry Day

Laundry is an essential aspect of campus life.

I clean my clothes at the laundromat a block off campus.  It's cheaper than using the on-campus machines, and if you have more than one load to do, it's usually quicker too.  (Plus, it's kinda fun to watch the clothes swirling around in the machines.)

If you don't happen to have a girlfriend with a car who can drive you to the laundromat, the washers and dryers on campus can get the job done.  All the major residence halls have them.  Half the machines are coin-operated, and half are card-swipe, drawing cash from an account linked to your student ID.

Hands-On Science: The Whitaker Center

Saturday morning the six of us piled into Holly's car and Jeff's jeep, and we headed forty-five minutes south into Harrisburg. Our destination was the Whitaker Center, a hands-on science museum. We were definitely the biggest kids there, but I'm pretty sure we had just as much fun as everybody else. See for yourself, check out the pictures below.

Kelsey and Holly enjoying the 3D IMAX movie Dolphins and Whales.

Holly learns about levers.

Eric and Andrew race to see who can be the first to burn

one hot dog bit worth of calories.

Me, experiencing F1 hurricane-force wind in the Hurricane Chamber.

Andrew, Holly, and I have fun with pulleys.

This is what we think of the Whitaker Center: two thumbs up.

• More about the Whitaker Center

The Sunbury Ice Rink

The scariest thing I did this week was on Saturday, when we went to the Sunbury Ice Rink and I learned how to ice skate.

The Sunbury Ice Rink is just a twenty minute drive up the river from Susquehanna. The rink is where Susquehanna, Bucknell, and Bloomsburg Universities all play their hockey games. The place is a little tricky to find (we had to stop and ask directions), but it’s worth the search. Altogether admission and skate renting will only set you back $5.

Next to the big fireplace outside the rink, Holly showed me how to lace up my skates. Then she talked me into standing up on those two thin little blades, and she lead me out to the ice.

After much wobbling, slipping, near-falling, and death-gripping of Holly’s hand, I finally started to get the hang of it. Soon I found myself passing the little girl in the pink coat who’d been lapping me all night.

Eventually I lost track of how many times I’d passed her, and ice skating shifted from kind of scary to really fun. I could let go Holly’s hand and move away from the wall. I could go faster. I could watch Kelly skate backwards around the rink or Andrew wildly flapping his arms to regain his balance as he went around the turn. I could enjoy the way my breath came out in little clouds and listen to the local radio station’s eighties after eight that the rink was pumping through the speakers. I could skate.

And I didn’t fall once all night. (I swear!)

Me, braving the ice rink.

Brian Regan: Stand-Up Comedy at Shippensburg University

Friday after class four of us piled into Holly's car, and we took 81 South to Shippensburg University.  Shippensburg is usually about an hour and half drive from Susquehanna, but the trip was longer for us because we drove fifteen minutes past Shippensburg to my hometown, Chambersburg, where we squeezed my friend Jimmy into the car and grabbed some Tex-Mex food from Moe's Southwestern Grill.

Then we took 81 North up to the Luhrs Center at Shippensburg University for the main event: stand-up comedian Brian Regan.

Brian Regan has appeared on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien and "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson."  Regan has had two Comedy Central specials, and he recently made his twentieth appearance on the "The Late Show with David Letterman."  Tickets for Brian Regan's show at the Luhrs Center went on sale online at 11:00 AM and were sold out by half past noon—and Luhrs Center seats 1,500.

We were lucky enough to get five great seats in the front center section of the theater.  That was the part I couldn't get over—we were only about twenty yards away from him.  I've been listening to Brian Regan's albums since I was in high school, and there he was, right in front of me.

And his act was hillarious.  I don't think I could convey to you in words how funny he is.  Instead of listening to me give you his jokes secondhand, you should just see him for yourself:

As we headed back out to the parking lot, my face was sore from smiling so much.

More on the Luhrs Center
More on Brian Regan

Hershey Hockey Game

I have yet to see the Hershey Bears win a game.

The game started out all right. The Binghamton Senators scored two goals early in the first period, but the Bears answered with two goals of their own. Then Senators scored again early in the second period and then once more early in the final period. The Bears pulled their goalie to try to make a comeback, but Senators slip past them and scored one more, clinching the game 5-2.

You can’t put all the blame on the Bears, though. They’ve been having a pretty good season this year, and last year they even won the Calder Cup, the American Hockey League equivalent to the Stanley Cup. The Senators’ goalie was phenomenal. The Bears just couldn’t get enough shots past him.

The Senator's goalie, Andy Chiodo, in action.

It was still a great night though. Hershey, Pennsylvania is only an hour’s drive from campus. Holly’s car bounded through deep puddles on Chocolate Avenue while billboards welcomed us to “The Sweetest Place on Earth.” The town smelled like roasted peanuts as we passed the Hershey Factory on our way to pick-up Megan, a friend of ours from Hershey. We ate lunch at a place called Houlihan’s, in the shadow of the Kissing Tower and the Great Bear rollercoaster.

The game, while not as exciting as it could have been, was still full of all those crazy spectacles you’d expect at an amateur-league sporting event: The cameras panned the crowd looking for the Almond Joy “Nut of the Game,” a small blimp circled the arena and sprinkled cash on the crowd, t-shirts tossed into the stands by Coco the Bear.

During the Kit-Kat "Break" between the first and second periods, they brought two women out to center ice dressed in inflatable sumo suits so we could watch them bump into each other.

During the second break, one lucky fan won $1,000 for hitting a puck through a bean-bag sized opening placed in front of the goal. Then there was the Hershey's Kiss Cam, the "Dish of the Game" cooking segment played up on the jumbotron (we learned how to make corn pudding), and a guest appearance from the Red Robin mascot for a gift card giveaway.  Somebody even won a free oil change.

Like the Bears, Holly, Megan, and I didn't win anything ourselves, but the tickets were only $22.  It was a great way to spend a Saturday.

More about Hershey, PA
More about the Hershey Bears

Driving down Chocolate Avenue, note the Kiss-shaped streetlights

The Hershey  Chocolate Factory

Houlihan's on Chocolate Avenue

Houlihan's on Chocolate Avenue

The Giant Center, home of the Hershey Bears

Dave Matthews Concert

On the phone, Holly carefully explained it to her grandfather: yes, we’re going to a concert on a school night, but no, we’re not going to cut class. We finished all our homework ahead of time. We’re good kids.

Once Jimmy – a friend of mine from back home – got on campus, we threw his overnight stuff in my room, grabbed some dinner at Red Robin, and then the three of us headed out.

The Toyota Pavilion on Montage Mountain, a concert venue just outside Scranton, is about an hour and a half drive from Selinsgrove, east on I-80, north on I-81. We knew we were in for a long night, but we didn’t care. That’s a small sacrifice for a Dave Matthews Band concert.

The show was phenomenal. Dave’s violinist took several extended solos. They were incredible. He’s an amazing musician, but, then, you could say the same for any member of the band—the lead guitarist, the trumpeter, the saxophonist, even the bass player.

The drummer is the most fun to watch, though. He’s always smiling like he’s got the best job in the world. He chewed gum and popped bubbles throughout the show.

The band played for two hours straight and then came back out and covered “All Along the Watchtower” with some “Stairway to Heaven” thrown in for their encore.

It was an incredible night.

Floating Down the Susquehanna River

Saturday was supposed to be Fall Frenzy at SU (and, technically, it was), but really it was too blue-skied, warm, and sunny to be anything other than one of the few remaining days of the summer. My girlfriend, convinced that this was not a day to be wasted, suggested we go tubing.

For two dollars apiece, you can rent big black inner tubes from the Info Desk in Deg. Before I knew what was going, Holly had borrowed $12 out of my wallet and we were trying to figure out how to squeeze six inner tubes and six people into two cars.

We dropped Corinne’s car off on the Isle of Que, then drove the two other cars we’d loaded with inner tubes upstream to the Selinsgrove boat dock. Once everyone’s car keys were safely fastened to the strap of Corinne’s swimsuit, we boarded our vessels ("Jodi," "Hobut," "Bubba II," "Jay," and "Doughnut") and took to the water.

We spent the next two hours drifting down stream, warmed by the sun and cooled by the water, watching the railroad trussles in the distances slowly grow larger as dragonflies skimmed the surface of the river. Very chill.

When the railroad tracks finally passed over our heads, it was time to make a frantic, awkward-inner-tube paddle back to the Isle of Que so we wouldn’t float past Corrinne’s car, our ride home.