The Silken Tent
My Letter to the World
October 2000
October 25, 2000
Wednesday
The writing course I take is in an off-campus "satellite center," specifically a high school about twelve miles (and some wicked construction projects) from where I live. The college's main campus, however, is in my back yard, two miles or so as the crow flies -- there is even a picturesque "over the river (okay, it's a creek) and through the woods" route that I can take without going out on the highway.
I graduated from this college, Harrisburg Area Community College, earning an Associate in Arts degree in 1967 before transferring to Millersville for junior and senior years. I was in the second graduating class. HACC was the first "community college" in Pennsylvania, and an early example of the concept of low cost, community-supported centers for traditional academic as well as career-focused vocational education in such professions as nursing, radiology, and legal assistant. It is meant to serve diverse populations, each with its own needs. Thus among those who choose HACC you'll find students who have not the means nor perhaps the desire to go to a traditional four-year residential school or whose life situation makes becoming a coed at Penn State impractical, people changing careers, people updating skills. And, because of its "open admission" policy, you'll also find students who spent their first year at a place like Penn State majoring in Beer Consumption or Party Planning and Attendance and who found themselves invited to leave, as well as those for whom HACC is The Very Last Chance.
I was on campus today for the Wildwood Reading Series. (The buildings are on a tract of land north of the city once known as Wildwood Park. When I was in high school it really was wild, with a swampy lake -- it's a "nature study area" now -- and numerous uncleared areas that became popular as a lovers' lane. At least that's what I've heard.) The creative writing department has been most aggressive in developing such programs -- there is a spring writers' conference with a nationwide draw, a literary magazine which is beginning to establish a reputation beyond the region, and periodic readings.
This one was a marathon -- four hours beginning at 9 a.m., each hour offering two faculty members reading from their own works for about twenty minutes, with ten minute breaks at normal class change times. I stayed through the first two, hearing a woman whose son I taught and a man who was the instructor for the first poetry writing course I took back in 1992. As I listened, images and lines kept popping into my head and I began scribbling these fragments on the back of the program.
Even I felt zoned out after two solid hours of poetry, so I decided to go home and develop or at least organize some of the notes I'd made.
The readings had taken place in a recital hall on the second floor of the building which houses the dining and lounge area. Because the building is smoke free, there are always crowds of people standing around outside.
The college has traditionally employed several people with Down syndrome as groundskeepers. They pick up leaves and bits of loose paper, change the bags in the trash cans, sweep, and in general keep the place tidy. (The campus has been landscaped with great care, with many elaborate flower beds and specimen trees.) These workers are familiar fixtures on campus, moving about with their carts and their two-way radios. They are openly friendly, and most people respond to them with cheery greetings or brief conversations.
As I walked through the crowd at the building entrance and turned to go to the parking lot, I became aware that something wasn't quite right. I did lunch duty and dance chaperoning in a public school a l-o-n-g time, and my instincts in these matters are finely tuned.
One of the groundskeepers was being abused by a group of students. Actually, one student was doing the abusing, and an alarming number (one would be too many, this was about a dozen) were enjoying the show. The abuser (a stereotypical Last Chancer) was a tall young man with a scraggly blond beard, scruffy jeans, and a motorcycle jacket. He was wearing a pink and white (yes, pink) bandana, and somehow he'd gotten hold of a radio unit that could communicate with the groundskeeper's. "Harold, this is God," he was saying, to gales of laughter from the onlookers. "Do you see that girl with the blond ponytail? She wants you. She wants you to..." Here insert the sex act of your choice, and don't make it romantic.
The groundskeeper was clearly confused and uncomfortable. He kept at his work, but he appeared anxious and in great distress. He spoke out several times in the direction of the crowd, but I couldn't hear what he said.
I watched long enough to determine that this was indeed a bad situation. I started walking toward the guy with the head rag. He knew I was watching him, he knew I was not happy. I remembered in time that I am among peers (so to speak) on this campus, that I have not the authority to say, "Yo!! Where are you supposed to be?," disperse the crowd, and write the perpetrator up for a Level II (harassment and intimidation) disciplinary violation.
I went into the building, around the corner out of sight of the front hang-out area, and entered the first office I came to. It was the Student Government Association office, and there were maybe six students sitting around eating chips and working at computers.
"Where's the security office?" I asked. "The groundskeeper with Down's is being abused by some students."
"Harold?" said one of the men, with some alarm. "Are they out front?" Four of the students got up and moved quickly out the door. One of the girls dialed Security and handed me the phone.
After I talked to Security I went back out to the lobby to wait for them. One of the young men who had been in the office told me he knew who the main abuser was. He also identified one of the gleeful onlookers as an officer in the student government and expressed disappointment at this.
By this time Harold had moved on across the broad walkway and was working at a large trash barrel near the Alumni Fountain. The bandana guy was now just standing around smoking a cigarette. The kid from the student government office and I went up to the security guards and told them what we knew. Harold, still clearly shaken by the incident, thanked us for intervening. As the security guards moved toward the crowd, I saw that the bandana guy was suddenly bareheaded and was on his way into the building.
I went home, shaken by the whole thing.
About 7:30 this evening I returned to the campus. There was to be an "open mike" event hosted by the staff of the literary magazine in the same recital hall as the faculty readings had been. My instructor had invited all of us to participate. I decided to showcase my "on-line journal," and chose two pieces that I thought illustrate my "suburban hockey mom" role (the one about Lynn's first date and my shopping trip with her to King of Prussia).
There was no one there. Not one person. I went over to the library to see if I had the venue wrong. At about five of eight I went back. Two young men had arrived. They were busy setting up jazz band gear. Some girls wandered in. They talked to the guys about how no one ever comes to these things on time. By 8:15 there were fewer than a dozen people there. Everyone seemed to know everyone else, and they were all very laid back.
Suddenly I felt very out of place. Everyone there was at least thirty years younger than I. I decided that this was not the right audience for the work I had brought, and I slipped quietly out the back door.
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