Triptych: Morning View Into West Halls

It was cool overnight, and the morning was just outstanding, crisp and chilly, all sunshine and blue sky. The kind of blue that makes your heart ache, just blue as blue can be.

I took the bus to and from work because my husband had my car to take it to the mechanic. The air conditioner hasn't worked since early July, and I had been making due, but it was time to get it fixed. So he took my car and I rode the bus.

Which meant I had the opportunity to visit our lovely campus on a perfect blue-sky morning. What a bonus for me! I arrived early and walked around campus with my camera.

It was amazing, everything so beautiful, and I was reminded of when I arrived on this campus back in August of 1982, and how overwhelming it all was. How I felt fortunate, one of the luckiest girls ever, for I had taken a scholarship test and been awarded a full-tuition scholarship to Penn State, a school I never would have been financially able to attend on my own.

It felt like such a gift to me, for college was something I had never expected I would do. And the campus felt huge and beautiful, but unfamiliar. And while my family lived only about an hour away from Penn State, it felt much, much further away than that.

I reflected on all of these things as I walked around campus on this morning, the past and present blending all together. And I admired our lovely campus, and tried to see everything as though it were for the first time.

I lived in North Halls during the time I was a student on campus. However, this particular scene is a view into West Halls, on the other end of campus, but I thought it was fetching, almost like a Medieval triptych.

The tune to accompany this view of morning arriving on our lovely campus is a song that talks about what it's like to be away from home. No, it wasn't 500 miles for me, but it sure felt like it on those first few August mornings, 31 years ago! The song: Peter Paul and Mary, 500 Miles.