Years ago, in my decadent days when I was “attending” Penn State University, a was hanging with a group of like-minded individuals one evening of January 31st.
“Hey, lets go to see the groundhog this year”, someone said. The topic floated around the room for a few hours.
At some point in the marijuana and beer soaked evening, four of us became sufficiently inspired to actually consider this a serious lark. We made plans.
Fully aware of our condition, we decided to write down our plans in a little red notebook that some college kid had for some reason. After tearing what looked like calculus notes out, we wrote down a list of names of the people who wanted to go, and had each person sign…….indicating their intent; far from a contract, but we hoped that this action would motivate the majority of speculative participants to stay true to their word.
The next day, we packed four of the list of 12 people into my VW Bus, stopped at the beer store, then headed towards “Punxy” (PUNK-See) as it is called here.
By the time we arrived in the Punxy area, it was dark….and cold. My van had a propane heater in it…and the gas had run out. It was SO cold that the beer that was NOT on ice in the cooler began to explode. We needed to warm up……I could hardly lift my arm to sip my beer. We found temporary relief by stopping in convenience stores and warming our hands in and on the hot dog machines, our visits to these stores were usually cut short by puzzled clerks, but there are a LOT of UniMarts in central PA.
Finally we reached town, only to find that NO hotels were available………or at least not to drunken college kids in microbuses. Frozen and desperate, we soldiered on through the night, which was rapidly approaching morning. We finally found a place to stay in Home, PA……..and yes, we were fully aware that we had undergone the trip from hell and ended up at “Home”. The fellas with me who’s sense of humor was lacking didn’t seem to let go of that one.
The first odd thing about Rocky Glen Hotel in Home, PA was the hospitality. The owner/desk clerk was all too happy to accept our group of ruffians. He told us that there was a sports bar in the hotel and the food was great. Looking around, we noticed NOBODY else in the place, no signs of life, no bar smells, no music from a lounge, NOTHING. There were NO other cars in the parking lot.
The owner’s name was Norman too.
After we checked in our room and politely refused the owner’s repetitive offers to go and borrow his daughter’s VCR so we could watch movies, we shuffled down to the “bar”.
The bar was actually VERY nice. Several beers on tap, good food specials, and an apparent disregard for underage drinking laws.
The owner/clerk/audio-visual tech/cook/bartender prepared chicken wings and spaghetti and meatballs for us…….encouraging us to eat more….on the house. It was at that time that we began to realize that perhaps he was fattening us up.
Despite our best efforts to remain alert to avoid any possible horror movie scenes, we soon succumbed to smoking pot, drinking beer, and huffing NO2 in the hotel room. It was probably 3AM when the last nitrous cartridge fell and five very intoxicated, but well fed, college kids went to sleep.
Of course, we made sure to schedule a wakeup call for 5AM so we could drive the hour back into Punxy and see the groundhog…….and of course, we chose not to pick up the phone and slept till 10AM. Missing the groundhog, we figured that we could at least get the heat issue resolved to we found a little trailer sales place that had propane.
The toothless old proprietor grinned at me and said/spit happily that he “gave us a little extra”……..cool?
At the time, my knowledge of liquid propane containment was limited to the extent that I didn’t know that a “little extra” in the tank would cause severe leakage. This little physics lesson was quickly administered to all as we were barreling down RT80 at 90 MPH in a VW bus……..with lit cigarettes. We ditched the butts when we smelled the gas, but were afraid to run the heater for the entire trip back………and let me tell you something……you CAN get a buzz from propane inhalation.
We grinned the whole way home, I even found that if I kept my lit cigarette outside the window, the car would not explode, much to the chagrin of the nonsmokers, who were whining about my window being down.
In summary, I went to see the groundhog one year, and never did because I was too intoxicated, but it is a better story this way.
