Overheard in the grocery store

7 Comments

Two women in their 60s or so, talking in the frozen foods section of the grocery store here in California:

Woman 1: I went to a conference last year, at that big university in Pennsylvania, you know, the Quaker one—

Woman 2: Swarthmore?

Woman 1: No, the big fancy one.

Maybe she meant the University of Pennsylvania?

Anyway, I was amused 'cause I almost said "Swarthmore?" just before the other woman did, even though it's neither big nor a university. (And I was kinda surprised she said it, 'cause most people out here have never heard of the place.)

7 Responses to “Overheard in the grocery store”

  1. Celia

    Well, she could have meant Haverford or Bryn Mawr, but that’s even less likely. 🙂

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  2. Jeff H.

    Yeah I’d say University of Pennsylvania is a good bet for what she really meant. None of the large PA universities are actually Quaker in origin, but the nickname for Penn’s sports teams in the Quakers, so people have a tendency to believe that it is a Quaker school. When they aren’t confusing it with Penn State that is.

    -Jeff, UPenn faculty brat

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  3. Celia

    Oh! And speaking of quakers, you don’t get to mention oatmeal boxes and have it count as a religious mention, and that boy (I always assume people who annoy me are boys 🙂 is lucky I don’t track him down and kick his ass for listing those as relgion mentions.

    I love Judith Moffet’s books. I haven’t read Pennterra, but mostly because I haven’t seen a copy of it in years, but I loved Time, Like an Ever-Rolling Stream and it’s sequel-ish book, “The ragged World”.

    And I’m now going to have to read _the Difference Engine_ (which has been on my list and a copy is even near by) due to the mention they make of the ‘susquehanna phalanstery’ which I’m pretty sure was supposed to be located around where I grew up (and live now).

    Over all, though they list 39 books, I’d count about 10 of them, I think. Clearly there’s a need for more Quaker SF. 🙂

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  4. Jed

    Heh—for those who missed it, Celia’s referring to the list of Quaker science fiction, which does indeed include a couple references to cereal boxes. Odd. Like counting a character named Christian or a reference to the YMCA as making a book Christian science fiction. …The page does say that it lists references to Quakers, not just works about Quakers, but even so, Quaker Oats is a brand name, owned by Quaker Foods & Beverages, which is based in Chicago and owned by PepsiCo and doesn’t appear to have any obvious connection (other than being named after them) to the Society of Friends. (They make Gatorade, Rica-A-Roni, and Aunt Jemima, too, not to mention Cap’n Crunch and Life cereals.)

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  5. jere7my

    I’ve always said you don’t know religious persecution until people associate your religion with oatmeal. :)=

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  6. Fred

    I don’t think you’re going to find a Susquehanna phalanstery. The reference in The Difference Engine (a brilliant book!) is to Pantisocracy, a movement which included Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey, and attempted to found a utopian community in America, but the scheme never got off the ground.

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  7. Celia

    Oh, I know it never took off. We studied the Worldly Philosophers in AP economics, which included a chapter on social utopianists, which was of particular interest because the land that they thought would be such a good place to have this society was on the banks of the susquehanna, just down the river from me, where Joseph Priestly did in fact settle. 🙂 I just loved the idea of the social utopianists the best. The ‘novel’ idea that if the poor could just decide to not be poor they would have done it already. 🙂

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