The Lion Mascot

For the past two years I’ve been researching the history of the Nittany Lion mascot — that nameless, ever smiling, sometimes mischievous, always approachable, King of Pushups.

It’s been a wonderful journey — almost magical.  And I’ve talked to some truly humble, gifted, and fun-loving former Lions.  To a man, they credit being the Lion as one of the most gratifying experiences of their lives.

What is the Lion?  It’s memories.  Not just for the men who wore the suit, but for the many thousands of fans and alumni who have enjoyed the Lion over the years.  When people come to Beaver Stadium or the Bryce Jordan Center they are entertained by the mascot’s antics.  Most of those antics have been essentially the same for 70 years, but each new Lion brings a personal touch to the role.

There are few people who remember their specific Lion — the one who was active when they went to Penn State — so each new Lion becomes their Lion.  Each mascot leads the pep band, crowd surfs, makes mid-court shots, dances, and leads the deafening “We ARE… Penn STATE!”  Each one struts the field or court, each one does the impossible one-arm pushups.

Everything’s a story

I used to be one of those writer wannabes who asked published authors how they got their story ideas. Once I came up with an idea I was good to go, but the challenge, I thought, was to find that great story concept.

After putting considerably more miles on my computer keyboard, I no longer ask that question. I’ve realized that everything’s a story–there are too many story ideas out there for me to ever write them all. The challenge is being selective and finding the best perspective to tell that particular story in a way that will speak to the intended audience in a compelling way.

What elements contribute to a compelling story? The writer’s voice, conflict (lots of it!), pace, plot, believable characters that the reader can identify with, good dialogue, just the right amount of descriptive narrative to set the scene and mood….

Finding the story idea is the easy part. Then the real work begins!

Writing Like a Writer Instead of Like a Reader

I have been writing fiction since I was a little girl, maybe nine or ten, and today at twenty-four I still haven’t finished a single novel.

What is the hindrance, you ask?

The problem I find myself having can sometimes throw away my whole story idea. I’ve been working on one story for about 3 years now, writing and rewriting it over and over, threatening to abandon it for all time. And the main reason is because I don’t want to be cruel (enough) to my characters. I like them too much.

You know how it goes: you come up with that great protagonist, who’s smart and sweet and generally so awesome you’d hang out with her on the weekends if she existed. You give her a pretty name and a cute love interest and set her up with a nondescript, never-actually-around loving family in a setting that you’re currently interested in. And once that’s all been sketched out, you realize you just can’t write her story.

mrs. dalloway, revisited.

another day’s done;

caught between the confines

of capitalism & swine flu

well, its a very public private sphere

if you ask me.

hell-bent to appreciate

but can never fully articulate

“before you can join the struggle, you have to recognize that there is one.”

a series of truths,

but no absolutes.

went skinny dipping in a pool of last night’s filth

a book on buddhism at the side of the bed

thinking,

“atheism never looked so cool.

virginia thought so, anyway.

i’d be lying if i said

it wasn’t about the aesthetics

just as i’d be lying to say i didn’t

hate sean

for threatening to kill the girl with a hunchback

who never did a thing to him

or to anyone, for that matter.

porch poetry disrupts another

half-hearted attempt at academia

hard pressed for time,

but why stop the wine when it’s flowing

and why stop the pipe

when you’re not ready to stop blowing?

Judgement Day

Morning

I take a deep breath and I cough. The J&L Plant in Southside must be venting coke gas, which stings the nostrils slightly, tasting like matches mixed with rotted charcoal. It’s the smell of home.

From our front porch, I can see most of my world. The horizon to the right is dominated by the Junior High where I was sentenced to three long years before I got that scholarship to a more civilized High School in Minnesota. Some rich folks set up a program for disadvantaged and minority kids. I guess being poor and white in 1970’s America lands me in the disadvantaged category. Past the school is Grandview Avenue, with its panoramic views of downtown Pittsburgh, Oakland and the Northside.  Grandview Avenue is the place to take chicks, especially chicks from other parts of town. They are always impressed.

Closer, I can see the woods and the park where we hung out as kids. We played ball on the fields and board games at the Rec center before the city shut it down. It was supposedly some kind of code violation, but I think they just hate seeing kids have fun in the summer. They would rather see us working. Hell, I got my first job from the city the summer before I turned 15, as a janitor’s assistant at the grade school. They start early, training us for a life in the steel mills or some equally soul numbing place.

My street is a tidy working class neighborhood made up of frame and brick homes. Most houses have postage stamp yards, inviting front porches and on street parking. Our house sits on a sort of dividing line; from our house to the end of the street is newer construction, modern bungalows with driveways, garages, and level back yards.  Before my mother kicked out my boozing, womanizing prick of a stepdad, we had been doing pretty well. Now we take it day to day. 

Untitled Story

A week after Ed tried to kill himself by swallowing a bottle of pills, the doctors had cleared him to be discharged from the hospital. I was the one who dragged him into a car and got him to the hospital just in time.

For a while it looked like I may have gotten him there too late. The emergency room doctor told us he might not make it and if he did make it, he might have brain damage. Fortunately, the doctor was wrong on both counts.

I visited Ed twice during the week, once because I had promised I would check on him and once because as, I left that first visit, his mother, tears in her eyes, asked me to visit again. “Of course, I’ll visit again,” I told her, without a shred of evidence that it was the last thing I wanted to do.

I was as relieved as anyone that Ed survived and didn’t suffer any damage but I hated being in hospitals and I didn’t want to be involved in Ed’s drama any longer. We had been friends when we were kids but our friendship had devolved into acquaintanceship during high school, partly because of girl, mostly because he had watched The Godfather and Good Fellas too many times and wanted people to believe he was a big guy, an important guy, connected to the mafia somehow when, in fact, he was really just a big asshole.

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