There’s nothing more intimidating to a freshman boy than a senior girl.
I remember coming to campus my freshmen year and just being in awe of these woman. Part of it was the way they looked and the way they dressed but most of it had to do with the poise in which they carried themselves and walked around campus.
I usually don’t have issues talking to girls. Most of my friends are women, but walking onto campus, I had no idea whatsoever how to interact with these seniors, which is one reason why my friendship with Chrissie was so remarkable.
Chrissie was in color guard. Those are the people that wave big flags during marching band shows. Like the other senior girls I met through marching band and SAI, she walked around campus with an ease and confidence that I envied, but there was something more approachable about her. That feeling probably had to do with the fact that she’s the one who first approached me.
We both lived in the Plex and I would often see her at meals in the cafeteria we called Saga (I’ll go into the whole craziness that was eating with the NUMB-Mu-Alpha-Iota Magnum tables later). One day she just started talking to me. It was one of those conversations where one person talks a lot while the other person responds with one-word answers that keep the conversation going.
Chrissie quickly found out that we had some things in common besides the fact that we lived in the same dorm. We both liked comic books. This was a time that geek culture was just starting to become mainstream so when this came up someone at the table made a derogatory comment about comic books. Then Chrissie lowered her chin and opened up a can.
Chrissie didn’t take crap from anyone. She always had a response, had a death stare at the ready and could drop an insult that could put someone in his or her place as easily as breathing. But she wasn’t mean. She just didn’t like it when people disrespected others for no reason. She was the first person to laugh at a humorous jab at someone else’s expense but she was also the first person to jump in if a line was crossed.
As our friendship grew, I started talking more, while Chrissie continued to talk a lot. She had a parent who was on disability and there was a lot less money in her family than her. My parents paid my way through Northwestern. Her parents did not. She had to work to pay tuition sometimes at work-study jobs at the university and other times at places like Burger King.
When I came to Northwestern University I assumed most people there had families that could afford to send their kids there. There are a large percentage of folks on campus who are in this situation, but there are also a lot of students who take out student loans and work their entire time they are in college.
I didn’t have a sense of this my freshmen year and I assumed everyone was like me financially, because no one seemed to talk about this stuff except for Chrissie. It’s not like she was whining, but this kind of stuff was on her mind.
Chrissie knew how different our families were but it didn’t matter to her. There was no guilt she laid on me because of my level of privilege. We were born into different families and at the end of the day, what was most important to Chrissie wasn’t the circumstances that you were born into but the way you handled whatever crap came to you because of it.
I had a myriad of things to complain about freshmen year. I’m sure that Chrissie had heard it all before but she always validated my complaints, as ridiculous as they were in retrospect.
That was what we built our friendship on. We were very different in many ways, but we were there for each other. We made each other feel like what we were both going through in our lives mattered. For a new freshmen trying to his way and for a senior staring down the reality of life after graduation, what we were for each other as friends, could not have meant more.
As much as we supported each other there were things that were difficult for me to understand and it was joining PMA and Chrissie joining SAI that led me to question my friend . . .
Friday, August 1, 2014
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Monday, July 28, 2014
Parenthood Week 61: Melting Away The Bad
Breakfast was not going well.
Ollie was fussy because he was hungry but instead of putting food in his mouth he was picking up the scrambled eggs off his tray and throwing them on the ground. "That's fine," I thought, "I’ll just feed him myself and not let him pick up the food." This worked for a little bit until Ollie pulled the food out of his mouth and threw a handful of half-chewed-up mush on the ground.
When mealtime is going well with Ollie, it’s really charming. He loves the challenge of using his hands and baby utensils to eat. Ollie normally has a great appetite and he genuinely enjoys the ritual of sharing a meal with others.
Ollie’s a baby and he has his moods just like anyone else and sometimes he just doesn’t feel like eating. Fine, so I pulled him out of his high chair, wiped his hands and face off, which always causes the most melodramatic screams of anguish and I put him down in his pack ‘n play with some toys.
As I started on the dishes from breakfast I heard the sound of Ollie throwing his toys out of his pack ‘n play. I walked over to see Ollie crying and reaching for the toys he had just ejected from his play space. It was one of those mornings when he didn’t want to be held and he didn’t want to be put down. After some fruitless efforts to clam him down and entertain him, it was time for his morning nap.
Maybe it was the previous hours of chaos but his screaming as I rocked him down for his nap, didn’t really seem so bad.
People talk about how you should nap when your baby naps. Well, this is a ridiculous idea since your baby's nap-time is the only time you have to do chores or work. However this idea nap-time is often unrealistic when the time that your baby was awake was stressful and taxing. This transforms your baby's nap time into something completely different like lying face down in a bed, too wound up to take a nap but too tired to get anything done.
Hearing Ollie wake-up, I got up from my zombie-like state on the bed, not feeling refreshed or satisfied that I was productive during this time. When I walked into the room I could seem him smiling in the dim light. Even as I changed his diaper, which usually is a little uncomfortable for Ollie right after he has woken up he was giggling.
I carried him over to my bed and lay down with him, hoping that he would chill out with me for a second, so I could get myself together. To my surprise, he crawled on top of my chest, placed his thumb in his mouth and reached around my neck with his other arm to cuddle up.
Ollie isn’t much of a cuddle-bug when he’s awake. He does these super cute re-charge cuddles in-between crawling around the house. He comes up to one of us, usually Diana, cuddles up to her for ten seconds and then scurries away.
This was different. I had gotten plenty of cuddles in with Ollie when he was younger but now that he has begun to be more active, he wants to move around more than anything else. This made the fact that he chose to stay and cuddle with me even more special.
He scooted off of me after about ten minutes and started vocalizing. He was being super-cute as he tried to mimic sounds I was making.
And then this happened:
Yes, Ollie was a handful that morning, but so what? He was being a cuddle-bug and actually said his own name! That's the balancing act that is parenthood. Endless hours of frustration melted away with the sound of your child's laughter or a sloppy open-mouth toddler kiss.
Ollie was fussy because he was hungry but instead of putting food in his mouth he was picking up the scrambled eggs off his tray and throwing them on the ground. "That's fine," I thought, "I’ll just feed him myself and not let him pick up the food." This worked for a little bit until Ollie pulled the food out of his mouth and threw a handful of half-chewed-up mush on the ground.
When mealtime is going well with Ollie, it’s really charming. He loves the challenge of using his hands and baby utensils to eat. Ollie normally has a great appetite and he genuinely enjoys the ritual of sharing a meal with others.
Ollie’s a baby and he has his moods just like anyone else and sometimes he just doesn’t feel like eating. Fine, so I pulled him out of his high chair, wiped his hands and face off, which always causes the most melodramatic screams of anguish and I put him down in his pack ‘n play with some toys.
As I started on the dishes from breakfast I heard the sound of Ollie throwing his toys out of his pack ‘n play. I walked over to see Ollie crying and reaching for the toys he had just ejected from his play space. It was one of those mornings when he didn’t want to be held and he didn’t want to be put down. After some fruitless efforts to clam him down and entertain him, it was time for his morning nap.
Maybe it was the previous hours of chaos but his screaming as I rocked him down for his nap, didn’t really seem so bad.
People talk about how you should nap when your baby naps. Well, this is a ridiculous idea since your baby's nap-time is the only time you have to do chores or work. However this idea nap-time is often unrealistic when the time that your baby was awake was stressful and taxing. This transforms your baby's nap time into something completely different like lying face down in a bed, too wound up to take a nap but too tired to get anything done.
Hearing Ollie wake-up, I got up from my zombie-like state on the bed, not feeling refreshed or satisfied that I was productive during this time. When I walked into the room I could seem him smiling in the dim light. Even as I changed his diaper, which usually is a little uncomfortable for Ollie right after he has woken up he was giggling.
I carried him over to my bed and lay down with him, hoping that he would chill out with me for a second, so I could get myself together. To my surprise, he crawled on top of my chest, placed his thumb in his mouth and reached around my neck with his other arm to cuddle up.
Ollie isn’t much of a cuddle-bug when he’s awake. He does these super cute re-charge cuddles in-between crawling around the house. He comes up to one of us, usually Diana, cuddles up to her for ten seconds and then scurries away.
This was different. I had gotten plenty of cuddles in with Ollie when he was younger but now that he has begun to be more active, he wants to move around more than anything else. This made the fact that he chose to stay and cuddle with me even more special.
He scooted off of me after about ten minutes and started vocalizing. He was being super-cute as he tried to mimic sounds I was making.
And then this happened:
Yes, Ollie was a handful that morning, but so what? He was being a cuddle-bug and actually said his own name! That's the balancing act that is parenthood. Endless hours of frustration melted away with the sound of your child's laughter or a sloppy open-mouth toddler kiss.
Friday, July 25, 2014
Frat Boy: The Sisters
My wife Diana was a member of the Beta chapter of Sigma Alpha Iota (SAI) at Northwestern. I’ve been to two other weddings between a member of PMA and a member of SAI. Off the top of my head I can think of ten other married couples between these two houses and endless dating couples.
SAI and PMA wasn’t merely a dating pool. I didn’t lead with that to give you that impression. There were many people who didn’t date between the houses. But the fact that so many people did and created life-long relationships like me and Diana speaks to the power of the relationship between these two different organizations.
PMA and SAI are the two music fraternities on campus. Once upon a time PMA was focused less on being social and more on bringing musicians together. At Northwestern this has evolved more into a social fraternity. SAI is still a music fraternity for woman. Like PMA, SAI has a house on campus and has more a social aspect than many other SAI chapters at different colleges.
There are also many people in SAI and PMA who are NUMB, hence the NUMB-Mu-Alpha-Iota social group name. This Venn-diagram of social group was one made my experience in PMA so much more than just hanging out with boys. SAI as part of our fraternal family gave balance to everything we do, and we did the best we could to help out SAI.
One time SAI organized a dance party with another fraternity on campus. Me and other PMA guys weren’t planning on going until a call from Heather, one of my best friend and SAI’s social chair at the time. The party was dead and the brothers of that frat were either out or playing video games, so she asked me if we could help. Ten minutes later, most of my frat was at that frat house bringing the party back to life.
SAI many times was the life of our parties. We could always depend on their support for our events no matter how poorly planned or communicated. One of my favorite things that the girls would do is come to our Rush events. These events were supposed to be for only boys but they would come and turn our informational meeting into a real social event. They would ask silly but sometimes helpful questions and broke the ice with many of these prospective members in a way none of us could.
There were some people of both houses who resented the relationship between the houses. Some boys felt that we should branch out to other sororities. My read of this was that these were guys who made a couple too many bad moves dating a girl in SAI and had an unsalvageable reputation. There were girls in SAI who weren’t interested in hanging out with us. Some girls join a sorority to get away from boys, so I understood that. College boys can really suck and be annoying. So there were those who kept to themselves during joint events.
The vast majority of members of PMA and SAI enjoyed the relationship between the houses. We were similar enough in our political structure that many of us could work together on projects but different enough that comparisons between these two groups could be disregarded if they got in the way of discussions.
Like two people in a long-term relationship there were times when things were really great between PMA and SAI and times when things were a little rockier. Some of this had to do with who was in charge. My freshmen year, the people on e-boards (executive board committee) in both groups would coordinate dates to make sure conflicts didn’t happen and sent out invites well ahead of time.. The e-board after them didn’t interact with SAI as directly and things soured a little bit. No one did anything deliberately vindictive, it was just that the people on the different e-boards were not as good friends, and therefore weren’t as excited to work together.
When my class got into power the social ties we had formed in NUMB and as underclassmen in PMA and SAI led to joint events and planning for individual events that took into consideration for the other organization.
There was a sense that there were things that these organizations could do together like have a joint music recital but things that we could not do like have a joint formal (dinner dance). But years after I left, they had a very successful joint formal, so who’s to really say what can or cannot be done.
SAI was my second home I spent so much time there that they sisters were never surprised to see my hanging out. It’s impossible for me to talk about my brothers in PMA without talking about the girls in SAI who were part of my life as a frat boy.
For me, SAI was part of the package deal that came with joining PMA. While others argued that we were not the same organizations, I always felt that SAI and PMA were one big family.
SAI challenged my brothers and I to be more organized, to strive to do things better and to be better men. This started with my first pledge party hanging out with the girls who came to welcome us to the family and has continued to this day with Diana, a sister of the SAI, who has never let this frat boy settle for being anything less than a man.
SAI and PMA wasn’t merely a dating pool. I didn’t lead with that to give you that impression. There were many people who didn’t date between the houses. But the fact that so many people did and created life-long relationships like me and Diana speaks to the power of the relationship between these two different organizations.
PMA and SAI are the two music fraternities on campus. Once upon a time PMA was focused less on being social and more on bringing musicians together. At Northwestern this has evolved more into a social fraternity. SAI is still a music fraternity for woman. Like PMA, SAI has a house on campus and has more a social aspect than many other SAI chapters at different colleges.
There are also many people in SAI and PMA who are NUMB, hence the NUMB-Mu-Alpha-Iota social group name. This Venn-diagram of social group was one made my experience in PMA so much more than just hanging out with boys. SAI as part of our fraternal family gave balance to everything we do, and we did the best we could to help out SAI.
One time SAI organized a dance party with another fraternity on campus. Me and other PMA guys weren’t planning on going until a call from Heather, one of my best friend and SAI’s social chair at the time. The party was dead and the brothers of that frat were either out or playing video games, so she asked me if we could help. Ten minutes later, most of my frat was at that frat house bringing the party back to life.
SAI many times was the life of our parties. We could always depend on their support for our events no matter how poorly planned or communicated. One of my favorite things that the girls would do is come to our Rush events. These events were supposed to be for only boys but they would come and turn our informational meeting into a real social event. They would ask silly but sometimes helpful questions and broke the ice with many of these prospective members in a way none of us could.
There were some people of both houses who resented the relationship between the houses. Some boys felt that we should branch out to other sororities. My read of this was that these were guys who made a couple too many bad moves dating a girl in SAI and had an unsalvageable reputation. There were girls in SAI who weren’t interested in hanging out with us. Some girls join a sorority to get away from boys, so I understood that. College boys can really suck and be annoying. So there were those who kept to themselves during joint events.
The vast majority of members of PMA and SAI enjoyed the relationship between the houses. We were similar enough in our political structure that many of us could work together on projects but different enough that comparisons between these two groups could be disregarded if they got in the way of discussions.
Like two people in a long-term relationship there were times when things were really great between PMA and SAI and times when things were a little rockier. Some of this had to do with who was in charge. My freshmen year, the people on e-boards (executive board committee) in both groups would coordinate dates to make sure conflicts didn’t happen and sent out invites well ahead of time.. The e-board after them didn’t interact with SAI as directly and things soured a little bit. No one did anything deliberately vindictive, it was just that the people on the different e-boards were not as good friends, and therefore weren’t as excited to work together.
When my class got into power the social ties we had formed in NUMB and as underclassmen in PMA and SAI led to joint events and planning for individual events that took into consideration for the other organization.
There was a sense that there were things that these organizations could do together like have a joint music recital but things that we could not do like have a joint formal (dinner dance). But years after I left, they had a very successful joint formal, so who’s to really say what can or cannot be done.
SAI was my second home I spent so much time there that they sisters were never surprised to see my hanging out. It’s impossible for me to talk about my brothers in PMA without talking about the girls in SAI who were part of my life as a frat boy.
For me, SAI was part of the package deal that came with joining PMA. While others argued that we were not the same organizations, I always felt that SAI and PMA were one big family.
SAI challenged my brothers and I to be more organized, to strive to do things better and to be better men. This started with my first pledge party hanging out with the girls who came to welcome us to the family and has continued to this day with Diana, a sister of the SAI, who has never let this frat boy settle for being anything less than a man.
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Monday, July 21, 2014
Parenthood: Week 60: Top 5 Things I Rock At As A Parent
Last week, I listed off the stuff I suck at as a parent. This week, I got the top 5 things that I’m actually good at. Yes, my arm will probably get sore from patting myself on the back but when you’ve been doing this parenting grind for a while, it’s important that you take some time to be proud of what you actually do well.
5. Taking Pictures
When my sister-in-law was pregnant, my brother got into photography. His amazing pictures of his daughter inspired me to get a good DSLR camera and learn how to take photos. I had a Canon point and shoot I used to take pictures of Buffy as she grew up but this new camera opened up a new dimension of photography. I have no photography training, but I have a good eye and have learned a lot through experience. One of these days we will get a professional photographer to take a picture of Ollie, but with the photos I’ve managed to get, I don’t feel a strong motivation to hire one.
4. The Diaper Change
I used to be pretty bad at this (check out this post on “Adventures In Diaper Changes.”). It’s been over a year and I got this down. I’m fast, I ignore his screams and I know how to keep him from rolling over. Sometimes its unpleasant, okay it’s actually never pleasant, but after its done, I love picking him up, giving him a kiss and knowing he’s clean and comfortable.
3. Feeding Ollie
Part of this has to do with how I taught Ollie how to use a bottle, which I discussed in this earlier post. Now that Ollie is eating solids, I cook for him and he likes most of what I give him. I have a lot of fun helping Ollie get food into his mouth whether it’s using chopsticks, his baby utensils or simply sitting back and letting him cram handfuls of food in this mouth. No, there’s no airplane flying in for a landing to get that spoon in, but there are a lot of giggles and funny facial expressions.
2. Putting Ollie To Bed
I love the challenge of putting Ollie down. I don’t give up easy (which I demonstrated in this post) and I’ve developed a bag of tricks that has helped me get him to sleep. Now, I don’t get him down every time and there’s plenty of moments when I need to tag out and Diana needs to come in and take over. As bad as the screaming get, it never fails to warm my heart to have him sleeping in my arms.
1. Knowing My Son
As a parent, I am most proud of the fact that I know my son. Ask me anything, Ollie’s food preferences, favorite book, song, or toy, and I have an immediate answer for you. I know the look in his eyes when he’s sad, the sound of the cry when he’s in pain and I know exactly how to position his arms so that he is most comfortable when he’s falling asleep. I have conversations with Ollie every day and while he’s only now beginning to talk, he’s told me about his world and his feeling since the day he’s been born, through his eyes, his body and his breath. Ollie is smart, curious, sometimes fearless and has an amazing sense of humor. He believes in the goodness of all people and the power of a smile.
5. Taking Pictures
When my sister-in-law was pregnant, my brother got into photography. His amazing pictures of his daughter inspired me to get a good DSLR camera and learn how to take photos. I had a Canon point and shoot I used to take pictures of Buffy as she grew up but this new camera opened up a new dimension of photography. I have no photography training, but I have a good eye and have learned a lot through experience. One of these days we will get a professional photographer to take a picture of Ollie, but with the photos I’ve managed to get, I don’t feel a strong motivation to hire one.
4. The Diaper Change
I used to be pretty bad at this (check out this post on “Adventures In Diaper Changes.”). It’s been over a year and I got this down. I’m fast, I ignore his screams and I know how to keep him from rolling over. Sometimes its unpleasant, okay it’s actually never pleasant, but after its done, I love picking him up, giving him a kiss and knowing he’s clean and comfortable.
3. Feeding Ollie
Part of this has to do with how I taught Ollie how to use a bottle, which I discussed in this earlier post. Now that Ollie is eating solids, I cook for him and he likes most of what I give him. I have a lot of fun helping Ollie get food into his mouth whether it’s using chopsticks, his baby utensils or simply sitting back and letting him cram handfuls of food in this mouth. No, there’s no airplane flying in for a landing to get that spoon in, but there are a lot of giggles and funny facial expressions.
2. Putting Ollie To Bed
I love the challenge of putting Ollie down. I don’t give up easy (which I demonstrated in this post) and I’ve developed a bag of tricks that has helped me get him to sleep. Now, I don’t get him down every time and there’s plenty of moments when I need to tag out and Diana needs to come in and take over. As bad as the screaming get, it never fails to warm my heart to have him sleeping in my arms.
1. Knowing My Son
As a parent, I am most proud of the fact that I know my son. Ask me anything, Ollie’s food preferences, favorite book, song, or toy, and I have an immediate answer for you. I know the look in his eyes when he’s sad, the sound of the cry when he’s in pain and I know exactly how to position his arms so that he is most comfortable when he’s falling asleep. I have conversations with Ollie every day and while he’s only now beginning to talk, he’s told me about his world and his feeling since the day he’s been born, through his eyes, his body and his breath. Ollie is smart, curious, sometimes fearless and has an amazing sense of humor. He believes in the goodness of all people and the power of a smile.
Friday, July 18, 2014
Frat Boy: From Some Other To A Brother - Part 2
Here’s a link to Northwestern’s hazing policy, which was revised towards the end of my undergraduate time on campus. We didn’t do anything that is described in that opening paragraph. There was no infringement on “personal liberty,” no harassment and no one was ridicule significantly in my frat’s pledging process.
The examples of “such activities and situations may include, but are not limited to, the following” include things we did in marching band, in my fraternity, and even in the classroom with my own students like:
These listed activities aren’t necessarily hazing. Asking my 8th graders to do a scavenger hunt around the school to find references to music in certain pieces of art that are displayed on campus isn’t hazing. Zip-tying a pyramid of folding chairs on someone’s bed in retaliation for them putting french fries in your sheets as a prank isn’t hazing. Inviting members of marching band to a dance that bleeds into normal sleeping hours isn’t hazing and taking one mug at a time from one classroom to another over a period of months isn’t hazing.
But these things could be hazing if they are interpreted as causing some kind of negative feelings with the person involved.
Hazing is deplorable. Kids getting alcohol poisoning or getting beat up physically to join a fraternity is crazy. But if you go go with this policy about hazing (which is not unique to Northwestern), than almost anything you do as part of a group can be interpreted as hazing.
We need to have strict policies about these things but we also need to understand that there is a big difference between literally water-boarding someone with vodka and having them go on a scavenger hunt to find university landmarks.
It’s kind of like the porn vs. fine art argument, you know it when you see it but unfortunately not enough people can make this distinction, so the university has to come down hard. I see the core distinction about hazing not in the list of activities but with the intent to hurt implied in the first paragraph.
The reasons we were asked to do the activities we did as pledges was to help us bond, to give us shared experienced that helped us understand the values of Phi Mu Alpha. It worked. By the time initiation came about, everything about the fraternity made more sense. There was a reason our seal looked a certain way and there was a even reason our letters were Phi, Mu and Alpha.
All of the symbolism and metaphors melded together describe not only what it meant to be a brother of this fraternity but what it meant to be a man. These themes have stayed with me and have become such a part of my inner monologue, I sometimes forget that these statements of values came from PMA.
Even if I wasn’t sworn to secrecy, I wouldn’t tell you the details of our initiation. I don’t want to spoil it for those who may someday go through this amazing ceremony. It defined what it meant to be in a fraternity, it was mysterious and beautiful and it spoke to the truth of what we believed was most sacred to ourselves as brothers and as men in society.
This ceremony was a gift that I was fortunate to give to many other pledge classes and even though I loved every time I got to be part of it, it never replaced the grandeur of the first time.
After the ceremony was done, I was brother of Phi Mu Alpha. I had a group of brothers who swore loyalty that night to our fraternity and each other. For the first time in my life, I was truly a member of a larger social group. I had no idea how long these bonds would last or how much that time with those men would mean to me. But these memories lasted me thirteen years and have impacted me enough to write these words.
Not bad work for a bunch of frat boys.
The examples of “such activities and situations may include, but are not limited to, the following” include things we did in marching band, in my fraternity, and even in the classroom with my own students like:
- quests, treasure hunts, scavenger hunts
- engaging in stunts and buffoonery
- late work sessions or activities that interfere with scholastic activities and/or normal sleeping hours
- removing public or private property
These listed activities aren’t necessarily hazing. Asking my 8th graders to do a scavenger hunt around the school to find references to music in certain pieces of art that are displayed on campus isn’t hazing. Zip-tying a pyramid of folding chairs on someone’s bed in retaliation for them putting french fries in your sheets as a prank isn’t hazing. Inviting members of marching band to a dance that bleeds into normal sleeping hours isn’t hazing and taking one mug at a time from one classroom to another over a period of months isn’t hazing.
But these things could be hazing if they are interpreted as causing some kind of negative feelings with the person involved.
Hazing is deplorable. Kids getting alcohol poisoning or getting beat up physically to join a fraternity is crazy. But if you go go with this policy about hazing (which is not unique to Northwestern), than almost anything you do as part of a group can be interpreted as hazing.
We need to have strict policies about these things but we also need to understand that there is a big difference between literally water-boarding someone with vodka and having them go on a scavenger hunt to find university landmarks.
It’s kind of like the porn vs. fine art argument, you know it when you see it but unfortunately not enough people can make this distinction, so the university has to come down hard. I see the core distinction about hazing not in the list of activities but with the intent to hurt implied in the first paragraph.
The reasons we were asked to do the activities we did as pledges was to help us bond, to give us shared experienced that helped us understand the values of Phi Mu Alpha. It worked. By the time initiation came about, everything about the fraternity made more sense. There was a reason our seal looked a certain way and there was a even reason our letters were Phi, Mu and Alpha.
All of the symbolism and metaphors melded together describe not only what it meant to be a brother of this fraternity but what it meant to be a man. These themes have stayed with me and have become such a part of my inner monologue, I sometimes forget that these statements of values came from PMA.
Even if I wasn’t sworn to secrecy, I wouldn’t tell you the details of our initiation. I don’t want to spoil it for those who may someday go through this amazing ceremony. It defined what it meant to be in a fraternity, it was mysterious and beautiful and it spoke to the truth of what we believed was most sacred to ourselves as brothers and as men in society.
This ceremony was a gift that I was fortunate to give to many other pledge classes and even though I loved every time I got to be part of it, it never replaced the grandeur of the first time.
After the ceremony was done, I was brother of Phi Mu Alpha. I had a group of brothers who swore loyalty that night to our fraternity and each other. For the first time in my life, I was truly a member of a larger social group. I had no idea how long these bonds would last or how much that time with those men would mean to me. But these memories lasted me thirteen years and have impacted me enough to write these words.
Not bad work for a bunch of frat boys.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)