AUGUST 19, 2013 - The riding has ended - for now. I've abbreviated the name of this blog to Shining Sea.
Becky and I were in State College over the weekend for Kelly and Tommy's wedding. Beautiful event on the side of a Pennsylvania mountain outside State College.
I've always liked State College. Meredith went there for four years and we visited. World-class campus. Nice downtown. Shops and bars and hotels. I always thought of the whole scene as Newark, Delaware on steroids. Cool scene.
Lots of emphasis these days in rebuilding and repairing the pride of the Nittany Lions in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky pedophilia scandal. We saw lots of blue and white signs, large and small - in stores and in corn fields - showing support for Penn State football.
On Sunday, driving east from State College back toward Delaware, we passed a remarkable billboard display. I included it at the top of this blog. Many Penn State alumni and State College residents are determined that Joe Paterno's legacy won't be forever under the Sandusky cloud.
Earl Bradley left a cloud in Lewes too. I still think more needs to be done to get at the root of the sickness that leads to the atrocious crimes perpetrated by pedophiles like them. There is plenty being done - as is appropriate - for the victims of such crimes. But I'm not so sure we're doing enough to help those whose brains take them in such sordid directions.
All that said, Happy Valley is still a wonderful part of the world and Penn State's amazing momentum as a constructive and enlightening institution, and the Nittany spirit, will get them through this sad chapter. Joe Pa's statue is gone from in front of the stadium but his name still graces the library that he helped fund.
Maybe out of that library will come the kind of enlightenment it will take to solve problems like these. In another store window downtown in State College another blue and white sign - patterned after the We Support Penn State Football signs - proclaimed We Support Penn State Academics.
-
Dennis Forney has been a journalist on the Delmarva Peninsula since 1972 and has been writing his Barefootin’ column for The Whale and then the Cape Gazette for more than 30 years. Like his Barefootin' Facebook page to get notified of blog updates.
