Nov. 19, 1986
Campus Commentary
My Square Roots
Inspired by Alex Haley,
I have just completed a ten year
search to find my own roots. I
had to know the origin of the
Pincus clan and where my people
came from.
My search led me to an
obscure Uribe of Native Americans
and my most ancient direct
ancestor, Kunte Kinte Pincus. It
seems my people lived in
harmony in the Catskill
Mountains until the white man
Cynicism &
Humor
Alan Pincus
came and took many of them
into slavery down south.
Evidently, although they lived a
rather primitive existence, they
had a tremendous talent for
accounting. In fact, they are the
only known tribe to invent
double-entry bookkeeping before
the wheel. The slave traders sold
them as breeder stock to keep the
plantations full of accountants
and MBAs. Many were forced to
keep two sets of books against
their wills. They did not always
do all this back-breaking work
with a smile on their faces,
however. It was my ancestor,
Mogambo Pincus, who led a
bloody slave revolt shortly after
failing his CPA exams.
Despite this cruel
treatment, one of my relatives,
Squanti
A visit to the Sculpture garden at dark
reveals some interesting shadows that
make the statues appear almost lifelike.
the pilgrims at the First
Thanksgiving. They were happy
to take his recipe for turkey, but
rejected his suggestion to
substitute a bagel and cream
cheese for stuffing and cranberry
sauce.
Many fled west and no
doubt you have heard of the great
contributions they made. Kit
Pincus became a famous indian
scout and Buffalo Bill Pincus
helped clear the prairies of bison.
However, Buffalo Bill was forced
to go bankrupt when his chain of
Kentucky Fried Bison stores went
under. Wyatt Pincus was the
comptroller of Tombstone until
he was removed from office for
giving a huge, unsecured loan to
his cousin, Buffalo Bill Pincus.
I have been able to trace
my relatives to the present day
and the spirit of invention they
have shown continues to present
itself. Clarence "Chickpeas"
Pincus is generally credited with
inventing the salad bar and Franco
"Super-supreme" Pincus invented
the artificial sausage they put on
pizza nowadays. Sigmund Pincus
almost won a Nobel Prize for his
discovery of the runaway libido
which he found by observing the
behavior of his brother, Ron
"Don Juan" Pincus.
Unfortunately, Sigmund's work
was cut short when Ron was
arrested in an ugly incident inside
the dressing room of the Solid
Gold Dancers. Another near miss
came when Edison Pincus
invented the solar powered
flashlight.
I am truly thankful to
have found out about my famous
relatives and hope to add
something to their luster with my
own efforts. I intend to follow
the advice of my politician
relative, Teddy R. Pincus, who
said to walk softly but carry a big
Capital Times
Haunting Noises Heard in
Olmsted
By Joe Kupec
I have been hearing
some funny noises in the
Olmsted Building lately. Around
the end of the third week of
October it all began as faint
whispers and sighs. Initially I
shrugged it off as the Central
Pennsylvania wind whistling
down the river valley and through
the windows and walls of the
campus physical plant.
As Halloween drew near
the sighing grew to audible
moaning and the whispers were
transformed into tortured choruses
of thousands of voices. No
problem I thought, after the
thirty-first of the month these
sounds of the season will recede
into the acoustic tile ceiling from
whence they came.
Election Day has come
and gone and those disembodied
voices are still here. During the
day the noise of the students in
the corridors and instructors
lecturing drown them out. At
night, when most serious
students are awake and at work
the sounds can be somewhat
distracting. The source of all this
unearthly cacophany isn't the
unquiet dead associated with
Halloween. The arrival of the
spring schedule is the real source
of the nightly noise.
The number of
similarities between Halloween
and scheduling are amazing.
Many children go to great lengths
conceiving the perfect costume
for a night’s trick or treating.
Others create a diversion
Saying Thanks
By Vicki Koon
With Thanksgiving Day
approaching in the midst of
papers due and tests to be taken
we may forget to take the time to
say thanks to those that make us
feel loved, alive, and human.
Thanksgiving is a day to
Respond. Most people take this
to mean hugging Mom with a
pot of mums in your hand,
sitting in front of the TV making
football stadium noises with Dad,
devouring turkey and stuffing and
sweet potatoes and peas and
broccoli and carrots and salad and
cranberry sauce while saving
room for dessert, and finally
going to sleep feeling only
indigestion tugging at the
conscience.
What about the person
who called you and said how
happy she was to read your
distracting mother and then pilfer
a percale sheet from the hall linen
closet. This ingenious child
makes a few modifications with a
pair of scissors and in a second a
generic ghost hits the streets in
lime for Halloween.
A parallel may be
observed when students set up
their schedules. For some
students, an amazing amount of
research is involved in
scheduling. They run a grading
profile on the instructors, check
with classmates who have already
taken the course as to its degree
of difficulty and attempt to
acquire the last semesters notes
and exams. The free spirits
simply pick out courses that
fulfill minimal requirements for
academic progress and schedule no
classes prior to 10 am. Forging
their advisor's signature on the
drop/add form is not beneath the
dignity of a free spirit. I'll let
you guess which student probably
stole their mother's sheets on
Halloween.
Halloween and
registration just would not be the
same without a few pranks. Her
at Penn State the system has
more than its normal share of
"tricks" for the student. As kids,
we used to sing a jingle, "Trick
or Treat, smell our feet, give us
something good to eat!" when
we slopped by a house. It wasn't
unusual to get a "trick" in the
form of a bucket of confetti
dumped on us or like the
unfortunate Charlie Brown, a
rock. The biggest "trick" in
scheduling is knowing that the
schedule has come out. It's one
of the best kept secrets on
campus. The next "trick" in the
article, or the understanding editor
of the paper who sweated out
receiving your late assignment?
Or the person who lent you his
notes when you missed a day of
class? What about the person
chasing his hat on the expressway
that made you laugh, or the
person who wrote that book that
made you cry? What about your
neighbor who signs for your UPS
deliveries, or lets you use their
clothesline? What about the day
your mother helped you clean
your new apartment when you
moved, or when your father was
understanding when you quit you
job? What about your teacher
who gives you confidence, and
inspires you to set higher goals
for yourself? What about that
Chuck Brown tune that made you
feel like rolling your chair out of
the office and dancing instead of
going home at three in the
morning? What about that
person that smiled back at you?
scheduling adventure is getting a
copy of the spring semester
schedule from your respective
department office and meeting
with your advisor to OK your
choice of curriculum. The former
being much easier to accomplish
than the latter leads me to observe
that come scheduling time
advisors may be as illusive as the
great pumpkin. Fear not, the
university in its omnipotent
wisdom has set scheduling dates
so far in advance that there is
plenty of time to track down your
advisor. Remember though, the
last people to see ghosts are
ghost hunters. This also applies
to students seeking advisors.
Registration has one last
trick in store for most students. I
am referring to that inevitable
wait in the Gallery Lounge. It is
not the time in line that I'm
referring to but that dreaded
comment, "I'm sorry but that
section is full."
Suddenly the possibility
of having to repeat the entire
process of writing a schedule,
tracking down the advisor, and
getting back to the Records Office
to schedule is like being
condemned to cross all the bridges
on the Susquehanna between
Middletown and Marysville before
midnight. It could be worse
though. You could get up to the
counter in Records and present
that slaved-ovcr schedule and the
computer could go down. This
last prank is like having your
outhouse tipped over while you
are using it-a great prank except
for the guy inside!
When you respond to
life around you, you arc asserting
your alivencss, your humanity.
The more you respond to others,
the more they respond back. It's
a boomerang full of all the
unpredictable surprises of life.
On Thanksgiving this year give
thanks for all of life, and then
Start Responding to it. Soon
enough, you will be thanking
yourself.
Page 5