The Penn Stater magazine is published by the alumni association of The Pennsylvania State University. I didn’t have an assignment from longtime editor Tina Hay, but sent this to her unsolicited. Tina published it in the My Thoughts Exactly column in 2005 under the title “Gathering Memories,” which is exactly what happened on this day. 

Bruce’s parents, George and Charlotte Kovak, sent me a framed copy of the page, which I keep in my office.

 

Not only had we all gotten old, we looked it.

Bruce and Brian’s hair had turned gray under those blue-and-white ball caps. Dave still had his full beard, but somewhere along the way it had metamorphosed from Mountain Man mahogany to Kris Kringle vanilla. Ron—well, there was a whole lot more of Ron than we had ever seen before. I thought that I hadn’t changed all that much, until my daughter Caroline pointed out that the most prominent place for her to paint a a blue capital S was the bald spot on the crown of my head.

Last summer, the five of us—all friends and roommates at Penn State during the late 1970s—had finally decided that it was time. We’d get game tickets, collect our wives and our kids and our grills, and meet after the Iowa game on Homecoming Day. It would be a Waupelani Boys tailgater, just like during our undergraduate days, only a little more…civilized.

At first it seemed that very little had changed in 25 years. Fans still had to park in cow pastures, the drum major still led the Blue Band onto the field with a tremendous running front flip, the Nittany Lion mascot was still getting passed up the rows. And, of course, there was JoePa, stalking the sidelines and gesticulating to players between downs, same as when I was a teenager. This place was a giant time capsule!

In the second quarter, though, I started experiencing a few cramps during my swim through this Happy Valley fountain of youth. Those kids sitting in the student section looked too young. Did an entire seventh-grade class sneak in? Also: Why was I so cold? Our seats high in the end zone weren’t uncomfortable, exactly, but a pad really would have helped. And I noticed that by the third chorus of “We Are! Penn State!” my throat was a little sore.

There was another, very serious sign of our aging, however, one that had nothing to do with the game. One of us was in the midst of a battle with cancer. His illness had compelled us to finally have this reunion, because the five of us getting together in this place we all loved was the single best thing we could do to support him in his fight.

We all knew how severe his illness was, and there was nothing to say about it that had not already been said in all the phone calls and emails that eventually led to this day. So, in the parking lot after the game, we stood around the smoky grills and sipped beers and talked about the game and avoided mentioning our friend’s struggle.

But as the sun began setting, our subdued spirits began rising. The catalyst for this transformation was literally under our noses. While the adults were occupying themselves with the food, the kids—some of whom hadn’t met each other until this day—were having themselves a tailgater. They were running around in blue-and-white face paint, throwing footballs to each other over parked cars, whooping and laughing. It was irrelevant to them that the burgers were overcooked, that Route 322 would be crowded with traffic on the way home, or even that one of us had a serious ailment. Instead, our children were doing exactly what we’d done here all those years ago—which was exactly what we’d come back to do.

Once we realized this, the evening seemed warmer, the food tasted better, the reminiscing got funnier, and the loss to Iowa became easier to explain away. We made plans to meet at another game next year. WE’d stay overnight and show the kids the campus. We’d get ice cream at the Creamery and buy new sweatshirts at the bookstore.

Toward the end of the day, Joe, my son, stood looking at the stadium and the still-departing crowd in the field beyond. “When I go to to college, I want to go here,” he said. I clapped Joe on his shoulder and told him I agreed. Then the entire group, friends and families, stood together and we took turns with the cameras, sealing the day and sealing us.