Meaningful Arts Fest Find, New Traffic Light, More PSU Students: A State College Summer Potpourri

Diane: We're not 18 anymore .
Carol: No. We're sure not spring flowers.
Vivian: No. More like potpourri.

My wife and I were looking for some family-oriented entertainment over the weekend and she came across the movie “Book Club,” which was released in 2018 and stars Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen.

The synopsis is they are longtime friends – meaning they’re getting older – who belong to a book club. They read a book that results in them looking for romances or rekindling old flames, and the humor that ensues from them doing that at an older age. Fate and destiny are common threads through the movie – or movies, as there is a 2023 sequel where they go to Italy – so, I thought I would take the potpourri hint as fate.

I had a nice follow-up column planned to my media literacy thoughts from two weeks ago, but as fate would have it, the president’s announcement that he is withdrawing from the presidential race made much of the column unimportant.

So, as I said, blowing with the winds of fate, I decided to go with potpourri. My wife and I then tossed around some of the many things we have discovered as we are out and about in State College this month. And yes, we’re enjoying the usual summertime opportunities to “get out while the getting out is good,” as my wife says.

Consequently, here is a potpourri of my summer thoughts about Happy Valley!

Nothing says summer in Happy Valley like the Arts Festival. Of course we made it downtown, parked in the Beaver Avenue garage and walked the complete loop – stopping to talk with all the friends and neighbors we invariably run into. For outsiders, Arts Fest is about the art. For locals, Arts Fest is just a giant outdoor coffee klatch with art as a bonus.

As we walked up the mall on campus, we approached the obelisk between Sackett and Willard buildings, and being halfway into our festival loop, I had worked up a hunger. Luckily, we were near the usual spot for the Penn State Creamery tent. But, knowing that there was always a line at the tent, I had to temper my desires and remind myself that all good things come to those who wait.

Except, when the tent came into view, I was shocked. No line! I almost broke into a sprint – assuming that there must be some mass of people nearby just waiting to jump in front of me (a la “The Truman Show”). I’ve been to Arts Festivals for decades upon decades, and I’ve never not had to wait in line at the Creamery tent. But, sure enough, no mass of people jumped in front of me. I walked right to the counter, ordered, paid and got my Death by Chocolate cup – perfectly tempered, I might add.

Granted, it was later on Saturday, and Happy Valley had been under a heat advisory, but this was a never-before Arts Fest experience for me – no line at the Creamery. I was tempted to go back after I finished the cup because there still wasn’t a line. You can’t pass up that kind of opportunity, can you?

Now, even though we locals use the Arts Fest primarily as a meet-and-greet, we do occasionally indulge in art purchasing. William Colburn from Birmingham, Alabama, has been displaying his sculptures at the festival for years, and this year his metal ducks caught our eye for very personal reasons.

My wife’s father died a few months ago, and the day he died a mother duck took up residence in a bush right off our front porch. She created a nest, laid a number of eggs and spent several weeks on them before marching her new brood off in the early-morning darkness before we awoke, leaving only a nest with broken egg shells behind.

You should know that the bush the mother duck chose is in a five-foot stretch of mulch, right next to our driveway, between our front porch and the sidewalk from our driveway, and miles from any water – stream or pond. Not exactly a quiet or secluded spot. In fact, it’s probably the most highly-trafficked spot outside of our house.

My wife is a follower of Celtic traditions, and to her the ducks felt like a connection to her father. When we saw William Colburn’s ducks at the Arts Festival we immediately knew we had to get them. A large mother duck and two smaller ducklings now stand ready outside our house to welcome back the mother duck if she decides to nest here again next year.

Continuing my potpourri but staying near the Arts Festival, I was surprised to see that the single-lane road work at College Avenue and Atherton Street didn’t have a work-around in it planned for the festival. A minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things, but when you can’t turn left from Fraser Street onto College Avenue because traffic is backed up from Atherton Street, that’s a little more traffic than we’re normally used to.

Speaking of traffic, the brand-new red light at Toftrees Avenue and Waddle Road has been installed and is functioning. What has for decades been a 90-degree right or left turn – without stopping – for almost all traffic, is now suddenly a controlled intersection!

Since we make regular trips to The Village at Penn State, we go through that area a lot. I would like to suggest to Patton Township that they adjust the timing on the red light for those making a left onto Waddle Road from Toftrees Ave. The light stays red for a very extended period even though there is still no traffic coming from the new development. In time I’m sure the traffic from the development will appear and justify the light, but for now it’s odd to see cars and buses backed up on Toftrees Avenue waiting for a light with no cross-traffic to be seen.

Continuing on this traffic topic, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a general traffic gripe that we’ve noticed locally more this summer: “parking” in the left lane. In other words, on those rare sections of local roads that have four-lanes, two in each direction, don’t get in the left lane and drive the same speed as those in the right lane.

Our most common interaction with this is when northbound drivers on Blue Course intend to make a left turn at Martin Street or Atherton Street, and will get in the left lane right after College Avenue. Again, this is a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things, but if your turn is two miles ahead and you’re blocking cars behind you, please show a little courtesy and stay in the right lane if you’re not passing anyone.

Lastly in my summertime potpourri is the acknowledgement that in less than five weeks students will be back in town, because classes start for the fall semester on Monday, Aug. 26.

But there will be more students than ever before. Penn State has publicized that this year’s freshman class is going up by 325 students, and that in a few years they expect to have freshman classes that are 825 students larger.

Current tuition and room-and-board rates here at the University Park campus are $32,656 for PA residents and $52,610 for non-PA residents. Because there are more PA students than not, we’ll use $40,000 a year for some quick calculations.

With 325 additional students this year Penn State will get $13 million in new revenue. When that goes up to 825 students, it’s $33 million in new revenue. And as those classes cycle through and there are four classes on campus, each with 825 students more, that’s $132 million in new revenue.

The university has been dealing with a budget deficit. As we all know from our own personal lives, if you’re running a deficit you have two choices: decrease costs and/or increase revenues. The administration is clear that Penn State’s Board of Trustees has little tolerance for large tuition increases, so how else does Penn State increase revenues? By admitting more students, that’s how.

I’m guessing the 10,000 student goal they are setting for the freshman class won’t be the ceiling. Certainly, additional students will create additional costs for Penn State’s academic and housing infrastructure, but those new expenses can be minimized in many ways. In other words, our local student population will soon go past 50,000 students.

Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing is up to you.  But, if you were wondering who was going to live in all those new high-rises downtown, now you know.

So much for my summertime potpourri. Some of it smells good, but keep in mind that although our definition of potpourri is a mixture of flowers, herbs and spices used for scent, or a miscellaneous collection, the etymology of the word is from the French pot pourri, meaning literally, rotten pot. Sometimes we take the good with the bad.

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