At a party last semester with State College friends, I ran into a couple of my Hazleton friends. I introduced one of them as "my friend Kevin, from ..." -- but I don't remember finishing the line.

What I remember is his reaction. His face turned bright red and his gaze shifted downward. He held out a hand to signify, "enough." Pure shame. I was trying to say, my friend Kevin, from Hazleton.

He didn't want to be known as Kevin from Hazleton. If you spent two years there, you'd understand.

Penn State students at a campus other than University Park: Sure, it can be embarrassing.

I have a mix CD from this two-year stint, labeled "Haze," because it was too painful to spell out. My freshman and sophomore years have been captured in a Webshots photo album labeled "livin' the struggle." Are you beginning to understand?

Hazleton was bad. We affectionately referred to it as Hazlehell. Highest senior citizen population in the great state of Pennsylvania. An old mining town, stripped of its resources and hope for economic growth. The bar scene consisted of a couple of dives. And we got in without IDs. A trip to the mall yielded nothing more than a slice of pizza.

There definitely wasn't some hip underground scene that we weren't aware of. Because the high school hangout was the Blockbuster parking lot.

I am not over dramatizing when I say all we had was each other.

We were between home and State College, physically and mentally. "Campus" was a few buildings scattered atop a very steep hill. There were three dormitories. One café. One gym. One bookstore. The only place to get cell phone reception was outside. Every freshman smoked cigarettes on the same stoop.

We got close.

It's commonly thought of as a step between high school and college. And any college student knows there's this sort of equilibrium between academic life and social life. There, the academic path was not nearly as demanding as it is here. This is where social life entered.

And our freshman class set the record for the worst-behaved class. I personally knew a bunch of kids who were really, really fun freshman year. Really fun. They didn't come back for a sophomore year.

We compensated for the lack of college town atmosphere. For fun, we smuggled six-packs into dorm rooms. We took off closet doors to play beer pong. And we got caught.

Our humble beginnings as a tight knit community. Good times. But there was more to it.

I spent Sept. 11, 2001, with this community. In my classroom building, everyone crowded the hallway, eyes fixed on the same small screen. From northeastern Pennsylvania, we watched the attack on New York City. Everyone knew someone who knew someone who worked in the city. I remember everyone roaming around outside on their cell phones, some frantic, some dazed.

We were scared, but we were scared together.

We grew familiar with one another. We recognized who drove what car. It was easy to find out who was dating whom.

We shared rides to State College on the weekends. We all loved the same cafeteria cashier. She was like a grandma to all of us, but one that you could talk to as a friend. We all whispered about the same creepy RA adviser.

We went to the basketball games. We put on a play. Being atop a hill in the mountains, it snowed. Often. We were spoiled with snow days. We went sledding. When the weather broke, we had barbecues, luaus and carnivals. But we all did it together.

When our second year came to a close, we were ready to move on.

Yeah, it was Hazlehell. But those kids who never came back? I think that they missed out on something -- something good that can't be defined or visualized. Something not as big as Penn State, but bigger than ourselves.

And there's absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about there.