With a little research I could probably pinpoint the exact date. The worst day of my life. It was in April of 1986. It was on a weekend, but I don’t recall if it was Saturday or Sunday.

It was the second semester of my freshman year at Penn State. I was living in the dorms. And being April, it was nearing the end of the semester. The weather was warming up, and classes were winding down. And every year about that time, back then, there was an event called the Regatta. “You gotta Regatta.” It wasn’t really a regatta as such, though it was held at a small lake. There was a boat race of some kind, but the real event was a beach party with day-long concerts.

I was a member of the bicycle division of the Outing Club, and we had decided that we would bike out to this event. From State College, to Bald Eagle State Park. Thirty-five miles, one way. One way, because that’s just too far to go, party all day, and ride back. So the president of the club had arranged for his buddy to pick us up in a truck, and bring us back at the end of the day. It was a good plan, and sounded like fun.

We set out early in the day. Thirty-five miles is a hard ride, and we wanted to get there around mid-day to enjoy the bands.

About halfway there, everyone was still doing pretty well. We were of mixed experience, so some were keeping up better than others. Some were really huffing and going through water, so we stopped at a gas station to rest and refill our water bottles. Maybe it was just a service station, because there weren’t actually any gas pumps. Anyway, we found a spigot on the outside of the building, re-filled our bottles and sat on the curb around the building, resting and replacing fluids. After a couple minutes, one of the proprietors of the station came out and addressed us. We were relatively free-spirited college students, used to having to talk our way out of a little hassle from The Man. But what he said took us by surprise.

“You folks ain’t drinking that water, are you? It’s tainted!”

Ptooooeeee! Puh. Puh. Puh! “What?!”

“Yeah”, he continued, “the underground gasoline tanks cracked a few years back. Groundwater and the well have been tainted ever since. It’s poison.”

Great. Some of us had already been out of water. Those who weren’t, had topped off their bottles anyway, ruining what good water we had. We dumped it all out, and moved on.

It did explain why the gas pumps weren’t there any more.

The ride felt longer than we expected, but the thought of the concert and a day on the beach drove us on. At least we wouldn’t have to ride back.

I actually don’t remember the concert itself as being that great. It was mostly local acts, with a semi-famous headliner. It might have been John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band. I know Joan Jett played there one year and had a bottle thrown at her on stage. What I do remember is that it wasn’t a great day for a beach party. Overcast and in the 60’s. Well, it was April, after all. But we college kids had been cooped up all winter, and we were going to have a beach party! We lay out on blankets in t-shirts and shorts and shivered.

As the day went on, we kept an eye out for the president’s friend. The one with the truck. The truck that was going to take us back. Do I have to tell you that he didn’t show up? It’s there in the title, “Worst Day”!

Not wanting to face having to pedal all the way back, we started hitchhiking as we left the park. We quickly found a guy with a pickup who was going to Bellefonte, which was the halfway point. Halfway was better than nothing. We threw the bikes in the bed, and fit ourselves in between them.

Once in Bellefonte, we thanked the guy and mounted our bikes again. We set out slowly. We were all kinda beat from the long ride and a day outside.

Then my front tire went flat.

We stopped at a gas station and filled it up again, careful not to blow it out with a compressor meant for car tires. But it was clear it wasn’t going to stay inflated. It kept getting softer as we rode. Time was my enemy on this tire, and the group was going too slow.

“I’m never going to make it at this pace”, I told my co-riders. “I’m going to go on ahead as fast and as far as I can get. You’ll catch up to me broken down on the road somewhere.”

I took off by myself at my best speed, trying to cover as much distance as I could on that doomed tire. And as I left my friends behind me, I started to think about what was coming up, and if there were any more gas stations ahead. Nope. Nothing. A long stretch of nothing. Nothing except…

…the prison.

Oh, God. There’s a huge prison on Route 26! The land around it is clear of commercial development for security reasons! Even some of the roads are restricted and patrolled! I can’t break down out there!

I pedaled even faster. I had to make it past that area and into the commercial development on the other side. If I could just make it to Nittany Mall, a solution to my predicament would surely present itself.

But I didn’t make it to the mall. On a flat front tire, I rolled into the first public building I came across: a Chinese restaurant. I went inside to look for a pay phone. I would call someone at the dorm to come get me. There were no patrons inside at all, just a huge empty dining room, and the owner. And no pay phone. I asked the owner if I could use his phone.

“No! Phone and restrooms for customers only!”

I didn’t even have enough cash to order anything. I told him my story, how I was stranded, without even enough money to buy a new tire, let alone a Chinese dinner. When the rest of the crew arrived (having recognized my bike outside)it must have lent credibility to my story, because he let us use the phone. I called my R.A., who had a van, and talked him into coming out and picking us up. It was a humiliating end to a long day.

Except it wasn’t over for me. I had a major project due the coming week, and I still needed to do some research at the library. So I got cleaned up and changed clothes. It felt good to be clean and dry and warm. I went down to the Natural Sciences library on the other side of campus. On foot this time.

I looked for books about geology and soils for a while. And I began to learn something more than Natural Science. I learned that even in April, on a cloudy day, you can get sun poisoning. I began to feel tired and nauseous. Really nauseous. The research would have to wait. I was sick, and I just wanted to get to bed. On the way home I swung by the Uni-Mart and picked up a 2-liter bottle of ginger ale for my stomach.

I moped back to the dorm, opened the door to my room, set the ginger ale on my bunk, and set my books on the desk. Then, behind me I heard, “boomp-phfFSHHHH!” The ginger ale had rolled off the bunk (technically, a loft bed), hit the floor and exploded, spraying ginger ale all over the room.

I lost it. I was tired, had a headache, an upset stomach, and I was bright red with sunburn. All I wanted was to go to bed and have a little ginger ale, and I couldn’t even do that. I might have even cried a little. I went across the hall to my friends’ room and told them the story. They all said that I should just give up and call it a day. I couldn’t agree more. They helped me wipe up the ginger ale, and I went to bed.

I probably should have sought medical treatment, but I didn’t. My ankle was swollen with sunburn for the next three days.

I can honestly say, even with all the things that have happened to me since, no one day was ever as bad as that one. I still have the poster that was hanging over my desk that year. And in the corner of it, you can still see the splatter of ginger ale. I did go back to Regatta the following year, but we drove.