|
Saturday, April 15th This hike was up the "tourist" route of Mount Nittany, and it took just about 35 minutes to make the climb in our slightly over-packed packs. My brother, Joe, and Lori came along on this trek. Weather was perfect, 70 during the day, 50 at night. Nothing unusual about the hike that I haven't mentioned in my other descriptions . . . but the camping was quite different. Penn State, like many other universities, has a few "secret societies" which nobody is supposed to know about. The urban legend is that this is where all the best and brightest go to get powerful. While I don't doubt that there is some truth to that, my experience on this night was underwhelming. About 4:30am, a group of hooded and blindfolded (I learned this later) people woke me up. The main chant was something like, "Lion's Paw! A secret society dedicated to the life, values and traditions of Penn State!!" I thought that by yelling "a secret society" along with "Lion's Paw!" would make them a bit less secret . . . nevertheless, they seemed to not care. From what I could tell, most of these people were either exhausted or very drunk. I guess if I had made the trek up the wrong side of Mount Nittany in a blindfold, I would be pretty exhausted myself. In any event, this was the initiation ceremony for the "Lion's Paw" secret society. They were mostly normal looking undergraduate people--some girls and various races were represented--which I thought would not be the case for some reason. After a horrible rendition of "We're not gonna take it" and PSU's Alma Mater, the ceremony was over and they walked back from the vista where they had stopped, and back down the mountain. If this is the best and brightest, then God help us. |
|
Copyright © 1999-2008 -- The Other Half, Inc.
State College, PA USA - All rights reserved |
