the beginning

The first chapter, like many stories, begins with family.  As kids, we learn far more in our households than the schooling system could ever dream of teaching. Not that there’s anything remotely wrong with that, that’s just the way it is.

My house was especially good with this.

Everyone’s family teaches them to walk, and talk, and use manners, to do well in school, try your best, and then, if you’re lucky, you also get to learn something special. I got to learn about passion – the unconditional love that takes place when you’re able to get lost in something greater than yourself.

To me, that passion has always been Penn State.  The fundamentals are easy: my grandfather went here, my dad did, my sister does, and now I do too. The pattern is easy to follow – though maybe not necessarily as easy to understand.

I was raised in a Penn State home; a white house with navy blue shutters, filled with Penn State memorabilia, season football tickets every fall, the alma mater memorized before I was ten. I grew up hating places like Notre Dame and Pitt before I even knew that they were prestigious universities, and I knew the full roster every fall before I knew the names of my new classmates in school.

That’s just how it was. A bad football loss meant a grumpy Monday and Tuesday from Dad (the early 2000’s were brutal). A holiday dinner was spent recapping the season, even to the point of breaking down individual plays. And whether I was at home or at my grandparents, every blanket was navy, and everywhere was framed with iconic images of Old Main or the Lion Shrine.

At a time in life when everything is a fairytale, my setting was Happy Valley, and the protagonist was Joe Paterno, with a supporting cast of Nittany Lions.

The Amish are raised in a certain lifestyle, and they live it for a long time. When Amish children become of age, they have the opportunity to leave the community for a year and explore the world that modern society considers them to be “missing out” on. Most of the time, they come back. They come back to what is familiar, what feels right, and they come back to their family.

I may have considered other schools, but it seemed only right that I come to Penn State. To what is familiar. And to my family.