Honest Abe: Son, One Day This Tree Will Be Yours!

There were flurries and rumors of flurries. The one forecast had said we'd get either just flurries or one to three inches of snow. I woke up. I looked out the window. There was white stuff on the ground. It was snowing lightly. I made an administrative decision: I took the bus to town.

Later in the day, I would feel sort of stupid and regretful over it, for it flurried around all day, but never really amounted to anything. I would have been fine driving my car. Who can predict at 7 in the morning what the day will bring? But as they say, in the winter months especially, "Better safe than sorry."

The good thing about it was this: in the time I had on campus between buses, I was able to pay a quick visit to the blue and white Christmas tree inside Old Main. It is one of my favorite festive trees on campus this time of year. Yes (like the Nittany Lion Inn gingerbread replica), it is one of my annual holiday traditions to pay a visit to it.

I have some history with this tree. A photo of it was the first picture I ever posted on Blip. So there is that. Here is a photo of the Old Main frescoes and tree from a few years ago, to give you the full view of things. Those frescoes behind the tree, painted by Henry Varnum Poor in the 1940s, are pretty famous. They were restored a few years ago and they look better than ever.

I visited this year's blue and white Christmas tree last week and realized I could take a shot from this angle that would make it look like Abe Lincoln was pointing to the Christmas tree. It needed a bit of work, though, so I came back on this morning for a second try, which you see above.

I'll include a link to a more detailed picture of this section of the frescoes. The description says "The walls of the original Old Main rise behind Abraham Lincoln giving a rooted sapling to a young student." So that is actually what is happening between Abe and the young man. I like my story better! ;-)

By the way, why is Lincoln such a key figure at Penn State? He was the President who signed into law the Morrill Land-Grant Act in 1862, which provided federal funding to establish the Land-Grant Colleges, of which Penn State is one. (Up to that date, the school had been known simply as The Farmers' High School.)

And so it was that Honest Abe and the student-dude and I - and all the other people and creatures depicted in the frescoes - were rocking around the blue and white Christmas tree on this morning. Let's let the song to accompany this photo be a Christmas classic by Brenda Lee: Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree.