Becca Jane St Clair

My mom lives in Penn State country. University Park is about an hour and a half away, and then there’s also at least a half dozen satellite campuses within an hour’s drive, some as close as 20 minutes away. I was always well-supplied with Penn State merchandise growing up, once I expressed an interest in Penn State to my family. I think I declared I was going to Penn State right around the time my cousin Tim was attending, and the same time my German teacher’s son was attending, but that’s another story.

I grew up with my aunt getting me small Penn State items at her local shops – pencils, notepads, napkins, etc. And when I finally was accepted to Penn State my senior year of high school, she went all out and bought me a stadium blanket, paper plates, napkins, plastic cups, everything imaginable with the Penn State logo on it.

Living in the UK you can imagine I don’t see a whole lot of PSU merchandise unless it’s something I brought with me or I get sent, so while I was back in PA I thought I would stock myself up on some Penn State merch. The regular football season has ended, but we still have a bowl game to play, so I was expecting to see merchandise all over the place.

I have been in 2 of the local grocery stores as well as Wal-Mart, Target, and K-mart and have barely seen a whisper of PSU merch.

What’s going on? Have all the shops decided to quit selling Penn State merchandise based on the actions of one man? It’s ridiculous. I am and will always be proud to be a Penn Stater.

If I have to order my merchandise directly from State College, I will.

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Yesterday, Tim and I went over to visit our friends N and P. They live over the Wolds, about 25 minutes away and we always try to get together with them as often as we can. We like spending time with them, and we love their three daughters, S-l, K-m, and A-r. Matter of fact, A-r loves Tim so much, I tease Tim and tell him he has a little girlfriend ;).

S-l is their oldest child, at 6. She’s allowed to stay up a little bit later than her younger siblings, and yesterday evening she told me she wanted to read to me. The book was about going to the grocery store, and the first thing I noticed was that all the pages rhymed….except for the page with potatoes and tomatoes.

Now, in American English, we would pronounce them alike. Puh-tay-to, tah-may-to. But in British English, it’s different. Potato is still puh-tay-to, but tomato is pronounced tah-mah-to. They don’t rhyme. And makes the children’s book confusing as a result since it’s the one pair of words that don’t rhyme! Even S-l pointed out that it didn’t rhyme!

And then the rest of the adults pointed out how weird it was that in British English, they don’t say poh-tah-to….which of course, made everyone sing a verse of that silly song.

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A brief post today and then I will try to get back to my regular posting…I just haven’t been in a good enough mood to sit down and write happy things this past week while I’m still crying if I see a grey tabby cat on the telly.

On Saturday, my chorus held a workshop followed by a short performance for the attendees to invite their family and friends to. Tim tagged along to take pictures and video for us, and we were chatting in the car…

Me: It’s such a shame we were both stuck inside on this beautiful day.
Tim: The day isn’t over yet.
Me: I know. We should have gone to the seaside today or something.
Tim: Want to?
Me: Err…serious?
Tim: Serious.
Me: Yes!

So we did. We stopped off at home briefly to put tea in flasks, grab some jumpers and a blanket and we were off! Living close to the North Sea coast has it’s benefits for sure.

We stopped off in Sutton-on-Sea to pick up some fish and chips, and by a happy accident, followed a turned sign for parking completely bypassing the shore. Instead, we wound up in Sandilands, which I kept referring to as “Candyland”. It was gorgeous and empty, save for one fisherman and the occasional dog walker.

We spent a pleasant hour or two sitting on the beach, walking, and collecting some seashells before we decided to head home. As we turned a corner, I spotted a closed down hotel with a broken sign reading “We are”. I shouted “Penn State” and then I had to explain the cheer to Tim. He said “do you want to get a picture of it?” Erm, yes please! So we turned around and got some shots of Tim holding up my Penn State stadium blanket under the sign.

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.