Russell Frank
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‘It May Have Started as a Battle’: On the Site of the Bear River Massacre
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PRESTON, IDAHO – Just north of Preston, the town where “Napoleon Dynamite” was filmed, past Polar Bear Burgers and Shakes, past the Pop’n Pins bowling alley, past The Hangout, the Jiu Jitsu studio, Big J Burgers and the Spit Shine car wash, is a terrible, peaceful place – site of the worst massacre of native…
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Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, Mindless Chants Have Got to Go
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Protests are messy affairs. They sprawl beyond the intentions of their organizers, attracting reformers and revolutionaries (and counterrevolutionaries); rebels with related and unrelated causes (I remember “Save the Whales” signs at Vietnam War protests); sowers and seekers of chaos; false friends intent on discrediting the protest through their excesses; and of course, “outside agitators.” With…
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What Is a Spring Day If Not a Poem in Your Pocket?
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As I walked up the mall last Wednesday, a sign caught my eye: “Free Poems.” Adjacent was a folding table on which were displayed a plate of cookies; pens and notebooks; and four piles of poems that had been printed and cut to a size small enough to fit in one’s pocket. Thus did Penn…
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The Eclipse: Words Failed Me
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The eclipse chasers who insist the only way to experience a total solar eclipse is in the path of totality are totally right. I think I said those exact words in 2017, when I was part of a quartet of State Collegians who journeyed to South Carolina for the same experience. (A crazy trip: We…
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Isn’t It a Riot, Russell’s on a Diet
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I was a chubby kid. I was a chubby kid but I wasn’t the chubbiest kid. That was my friend Arthur, to whom I owe a debt of gratitude because he bore the brunt of the teasing that has been the lot of every chubby kid since the invention of Mallomars. To counteract the shunning,…
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The Problem with Vacations: They End
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I always tell students in my column-writing class: You’re only allowed to write about your vacation if everything goes kablooey. My vacation was fabulous. Then, kablooey.
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News from a Parallel Universe: TPU Prez Says No to More Dough
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Citing Teen Pants University’s budget woes, President Elida Benniedup has declined the increase in her compensation package approved by the Board of Trustees at their February meeting. “Of course I’m honored that the trustees think my performance to date is deserving of additional compensation,” Benniedup said in a statement, “but at a time when $94…
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Preliminary Report of the Pennsylvania Name Commission
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It’s true. A blue-ribbon commission has been meeting behind closed doors to rename the Keystone State. I know this because They, the chair of the commission, asked me to be one of the nominators.
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Of Right-Setting and Ring-Fencing: Old Mainese as a Second Language
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Inspired by Penn State’s road map for the future, and in keeping with my commitment to delivering the highest value to readers, I have enrolled in a class in Old Mainese, the better to communicate my strategies for positioning this column for future success in an evolving and challenging journalism landscape. In what follows, I…
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New Hope for Subu Vedam
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The case against Subramanyam Vedam was always flimsy. Now it may have disintegrated altogether. Vedam has been locked up for 40 years, having been arrested and then convicted of murdering his roommate, Thomas Kinser. Both men grew up in State College and were the sons of Penn State professors. Both were 19 years old in…