Tag Archives: college memories

Sorority Daze

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This is a picture of the pledge paddle that my sorority “Big Sister” decorated for me. (For you kinksters, these were symbolic only and never used for hazing. And for you bros, we never had pillow fights in our shortie pajamas. But I digress.) The paddles were decorated to reflect the interests of the “Little Sisters” and mine was painted with a Lord of the Rings theme, which was somewhat trendy as a book trilogy before it ever became mega-trendy as a movie trilogy. (That’s Gandalf and two hobbits at the bottom and the Doors of Moria in the middle. Luby was my Big Sister’s nickname.)

For those of you who know me now, it may seem difficult to believe I ever belonged to a sorority in college. But I did, for a year at least, until I found out it didn’t suit me, which I should have known from the beginning.

It was really fear of housing that led me to join. First-year college students lived in the dorms. After that, dorm preference went to seniors, then juniors, then sophomores. (I don’t know who devised this system, which seems silly to me.) But first-time sorority sisters (sophomore pledges) got first crack at rooms in the sorority house. So, after “rushing,” where I understand my application was controversial, I joined Delta Phi Epsilon.

D Phi E, as it was known, was not one of the more glamorous sororities. We were more of a quiet, studious house, not running with a frat or wearing spiffy designer outfits. (We did have gold and purple t-shirts, our house colors, after “the lovely iris,” which was our symbol.) It was also known as “Dogs, Pigs, and Elephants” by most of the fraternities, which was fine with me, as it meant they didn’t pursue us or invite us to rowdy parties where, if you drank the punch, you peed blue. 

At any rate, I was a lousy sorority sister. I wore my floppy leather hat for my official photo. I once threw a boot (not a shoe, a boot) at someone who opened the door to my room without receiving a reply to her knock. (It was 6:00 a.m., an ungodly hour for getting up on a weekend, for some pledge activity, and I was merely trying to reinforce proper civility. I mean, you’ve got to have some standards, especially if you’re living with 30 other women.)

The chapter house had an interesting history. Legend says that it was built in prohibition days and had a secret stash for a bottle of booze, which none of us ever found, in the stair newel post. Instead of a house mother, we had a president (we were very independent), and a cook, who packed lunches and made dinner for us. I never convinced her that a single cup of yogurt qualified as a lunch, but it was a very popular choice. On Sunday, we had “Week in Review,” a New York Times joke that meant we were having leftovers. My husband and I still use this saying.

I “deactivated” after my first full year there, having found group housing and sisterly activities less enchanting than I thought they would be. (I had the bottom bunk; two other pledges, Sue and Cindy, had the top bunk and the single bed.) The next year I found a basement apartment in Cayuga Heights, which was very solitary, except I had to share the bathroom with a guy who lived in the smaller room. I never had to throw a boot at him. 

Later, after I graduated, I severed my ties further, so I wouldn’t get the sorority newsletter all the time, soliciting funds and talking about women I had never met. I recently found one of my old roommates online, though.  And I kept that pledge paddle all these years. I guess sorority life did mean something to me after all.

 

Stuck in Our 60s

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“Keep it down, Gramps! Some of us are trying to study! What is it with the Grateful Dead anyway?

That’s how I imagine our interactions with the new neighbors would begin. My husband and I are looking for a short-term rental over the summer and thought it would be easy to find something while students were away. We thought that, for three months, we could put up with any kind of neighbors.

The better question might be, could student neighbors put up with us?

In these days of ubiquitous headphones and earbuds, I doubt that the neighbors’ music would bother us all that much. But occasionally, my husband likes to let his freak flag fly and blast his favorite 60s tunes. And his hearing isn’t what it used to be, so I do mean blast. It’s hard for me to remember that the 60s were 50 years ago. It would be like us listening to someone blasting tunes from the 1920s, an unnerving thought. The 30s, maybe, but not the 20s! I don’t care how they roared.

Of course, the noise issue cuts both ways. Needless to say, it’s been a while since either one of us was in college, but I do seem to remember the dorms ringing with loud parties, loud emotional breakdowns, loud sex, and loud everything else that could be measured in decibels. True, Dan works at night, when most of the loudness might occur. But we could easily make complaints about the noise the new “Keep off my lawn!”

Tie-dye has made a comeback, so we might not look too out of place with our t-shirts and jeans (still our standard uniform). And my habit of working at home in my pajamas might be seen as “cool” (whatever the new equivalent of that is). But everything else about us would evoke grandparents, from our gray hair to my cane. We look our age and make few attempts to hide it.

Worse still, the students might see us not as useless fuddie-duddies or hopeless old relics, but as wise ancients. I remember the traumas that my college roommates and I went through as we experienced love, heartbreak, despair, confusion, ennui, and test anxiety. And there was many a time when we, shall I say, effervesced to excess. All we’d need would be some young persons showing up on our doorstep, seeking advice, a couch to sleep on, a car to borrow, or a hangover cure.

Nor would we be much help in the academic area, should they turn to us for tutoring. I know that in the field of English (my major), the pendulum has swung back and forth between examining only the text itself, examining the author’s life, and examining the reader’s reaction. I can’t even guess where the pendulum is now, but it almost certainly hasn’t remained stationary. Dan’s degree in counseling might be more up-to-date and relevant, but I don’t think a side gig as an unpaid, unlicensed therapist is what he had in mind for retirement.

And let’s consider the thinness of the walls in student apartments. Our cats are very quiet and Dan and I don’t have loud arguments. But youngsters might get squicked out at the sound – or even the thought – of two seniors having sex.

Come to think of it, a good way to keep them away from our door would be to hang a tie on it. If Dan owned a tie, that is.

The Educated Palate

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What are the foods and beverages most associated with college students? Ramen and kegs of beer, of course! And those are fine for today’s impoverished denizens of undergraduate academia.

But back in the day, we had certain foods and beverages (well, mostly beverages) reserved for special occasions.

Indulgent cookies. You know that commercial about the mother who has let the children take over the bathroom, but hides there to eat her cookies? Now, aside from the aesthetics of eating in a bathroom, that ad sparked a fond memory. I suppose when we were poor college students, we could have indulged in less expensive, more expansive bags of Oreos or Fig Newtons. But when we wanted to splurge on a real indulgence, it was Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies all the way. We’d buy them at the tiny on-campus convenience store that cleverly stocked them. Then we’d try to make them last. They never did.

The Make-Out Drink. Never mind booty calls. Back in the day, we knew that a guy had certain intentions when he showed up with a bottle of Amaretto di Saronno. Instead of “chill and Netflix,” the invitation was expressed as, “Do you want to go up to the roof?” (It was a notorious and private place around the dorms.) Only di Saronno would do. Anything else was considered déclassé.

The Show-Off Drink. Nowadays I understand there is a drink called a Blow Job, involving whipped cream and a hands-off method of ingesting it. We had the General Sherman. This was a shot of Southern Comfort, lit on fire, and swiftly chugged. Despite what you might think, the drink caused no harm to the imbiber – unless it was a man with a mustache. Then it was inadvisable, to say the least. (For those confused by the name of the drink, consider the name of the alcohol and just go look up General Sherman, okay? But I digress.)

The Birthday Drink. When anyone in my circle of friends reached legal drinking age, we initiated her with a tradition: retiring to the pub in the Student Union (that’s a thing that existed back then) and ordering a pitcher of Sloe Gin Fizz. There is no more candy-ass girlie drink on the planet and a pitcher of the practically glowing pink liquid is quite a sight. Sloe Gin Fizz is also a drink that sneaks up on you. The birthday girl (or, less often, boy) would slosh down a fair amount, then try to stand up while we all laughed.

Another birthday tradition, reserved for those of our acquaintance who had effervesced to excess, was the tie-dye cake, which was not yet a thing like it is today. Again, there was ritual. It was baked in a sheet pan, covered in white icing, and adorned with M&Ms spelling out Happy Birthday. (I like to think that the candy gave a hint at the multi-colored wonders awaiting the recipient.) Once sliced open, it usually had the desired effect, which left the rest of us to eat the cake.

The Poetry Drink. I studied poetry in college, and one of my creative writing classes would occasionally meet at a dive bar just off campus. (It was called the Royal Palm Tavern but was invariably referred to as the “Hairy Palms.” But I digress. Again.)

This place was a shot-and-a-beer sort of place frequented by townies, not students. No Sloe Gin Fizz there. So my fellow poets and I got into the swing of things, ordering the obligatory combination. But we had to be different, so our shots were not whiskey, but peppermint schnapps. This may sound appalling, but I encourage you to try it sometime. Knock back the schnapps, then sip the beer. After the sweet, sticky burn of the schnapps, the beer tastes especially cold, crisp, and clean. I’m not sure what it did for our poetry, though.

I’m not advocating binge drinking among college students – or anybody, really – and I know that campuses now have rules about over-imbibing and promotional campaigns to discourage it. We can well do without students staggering around campus.

But I do hope that college students have their own drinking (and eating) traditions to reminisce about when they’re old and gray and much less inclined to indulge in silly libations. Or that they at least smile when I still order a peppermint schnapps and beer, as I do occasionally, just for old times sake.