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

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 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.