Campus Scene: Early February, Between the Snows

It snowed all day on Sunday, leaving campus and downtown covered in about four inches of fresh snow. Another winter weather event is expected on Wednesday, this one a potentially region-paralyzing, significant storm that promises to disrupt everyone's regularly scheduled plans.

It was snowing when I got up on this day, so I took the bus to work, just in case. Once in town, I headed straight to the Corner Room for a quick, hot, and tasty breakfast (which you may see in the extras). It was very good but I must say the place lacked a little something, without Emma's trademark hugs and lovely smile.

Then I walked up through campus to catch my bus out to our offices, stopping to take some photos on the mall below the library as I went. Above is the view looking up the mall toward Pattee Library, taken just below Old Main.

At this point, the latest snow had been cleared from the walkways and parking lots; the physical plant folks had things pretty well in hand. The trees that you can see in this picture are mostly elms, which line both sides of the mall.

I liked the way the coat of the young woman walking ahead of me fanned out behind her. She was striding briskly toward her next engagement in a no-nonsense fashion: look out, world! A woman in red was coming toward us, and you may see a few other figures on the scene.

To my immediate right were a pretty bench and a colorful campus map beside it. To the right of the map is the historic Old Main bell, which was removed from the bell tower, restored, and moved to its current location in 2010 (see news story about the bell here).

To the left, you may see a blue sign that talks about Old Willow, a historically significant tree that fell in a windstorm in 1923, long before I was born. Here is charming detail from a Penn State news story about Old Willow that (as I am a tree lover) just tickles me to no end:

Cuttings of the original tree were given to members of the class of 1921 at their senior banquet, and “the tradition of the old tree may spring up in the backyards of alumni throughout the state and nation.”

Some of the things I enjoy most about central campus are those old-fashioned lamp posts that you can see all lined up like a bunch of Busby Berkeley dancers to the right. I half expect them to begin dancing, forming intricate patterns on the mall, kicking up their knees high, like Rockettes.

But on this day, the lamp posts did not dance. Things were rather quiet, in fact, and there was a sense of waiting for something. And perhaps it was just all of us, waiting with our collective breath held, for the next storm to arrive and do its thing.

The bit of morning snow ended before I even made it in to work, so it turns out I had been perhaps a tad too cautious in arranging my day's travel plans. My husband and I adjusted our plans: he would pick me up later in the day in my car.

Like just about every other person in Pennsylvania who has been paying any attention at all to the weather forecast, we would stop and "pick up a few things" on the way home. (The usual is milk, eggs, and bread, which is why some people call it "the french toast warning.") And then we would settle in as snug as bugs in a rug at home, to watch and wait for the coming storm.

I wanted the song to accompany this posting to be about the sense of waiting, which is how it feels between storms. So here is a favorite: Richard Marx, with Right Here Waiting. I'm including both the original version that I have always loved, as well as an acoustic version (music begins at about 1:15). The song was written as a love letter to Marx's wife, the dancer and actress Cynthia Rhodes.