This week we continue with my reminiscence of my college days at IUPUI studying computer science. We talk about the service fraternity that I joined in 1975.

Hi, this is Chris Young. Welcome to episode 71 of Contemplating Life.

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So, now we will go on with my regularly scheduled episode.

This week we continue my reminiscence of my college days at IUPUI studying computer science.

Chronologically we were about to tell the events of my eighth of nine semesters but there was a story from earlier in my college days that I neglected to tell. It’s going to be a short episode but I need to tie up a loose end.

Sometime in 1975, probably in the spring semester, I pledged to a fraternity at IUPUI. It wasn’t your ordinary social fraternity, complete with a frat house and toga parties. It was more of a service organization. I pledged to the Tau Omicron Chapter of Alpha Phi Omega. The organization was based on the principles of the Boy Scouts of America. Despite that origin, it was a coed fraternity. Technically the female members were a separate organization known as “Little Sisters,” but in our chapter, we made no such distinctions. The girls were members just like the guys.

My friend Kathy Logan who I’ve spoken about was a member. So was Frank Williams who I’ve mentioned a number of times. Neither Rich nor Mike were involved. I knew Frank before he pledged for the organization. Kathy says she didn’t meet me until she pledged but I thought I knew her independently of the frat. I guess not. She is the only lasting friend that came out of the organization and I think I would have met her even if I wasn’t involved.

The pledge process was nothing spectacular. They didn’t engage in any significant hazing. I was assigned a member to be my sponsor. It was a girl whose name I forget. The next year I sponsored a girl named Dorie Radke. Neither of those friendships was significant. I don’t know where they are at today.

I mentioned that we did not have a frat house. All we had was a tiny room off the back of the vending machine room in the library building on 38th St.

They engaged in a number of service projects with the one I spent most time working on was the used book exchange. Normally if you sell your used textbooks to the bookstore, you would be lucky to get a third of the cover price, and they would sell it to some other student with a significant markup.

For the first couple of weeks of each semester, we would set up tables underneath the stairway of the Highway Cafeteria at the downtown campus. People would bring us their used books and put whatever price they wanted on them. Others would come by and purchase the books, and we would give the full amount of money to the original owner. Occasionally out of gratitude, they would give us the tip, but we never took any money off the top. Only if you failed to collect your money by the end of the sale did we keep the money ourselves. If there were leftover books, we would box them up and donate them somewhere. I think it was generally to a prison library.

I was heavily involved in the event for several semesters scheduling our members to man the tables. I was always there every free minute that I was at the downtown campus and not in class. It was reasonably rewarding but nothing spectacular.

Somewhere along the way, we had an election of officers, and I ran for president. My pitch was I wasn’t going to be any good going out on service projects such as painting a house for an elderly person or clearing weeds out of a vacant lot to improve a neighborhood. Other than the book exchange, I don’t recall what other kinds of projects we engaged in. But I still felt my skills as an organizer administrator would be my best contribution to the group. I didn’t have any particular agenda about how to make the group better. I wasn’t anxious to be in control. I didn’t want to make a bunch of changes. It just seemed like a logical choice.

There is an old joke (I think it was from Rodney Dangerfield) about the guy who was so disrespected that a measure he voted against was unanimously approved. I was in nearly the same situation. I ran for president unopposed, and I lost.

Well, I was unopposed until five minutes before the election. Some of the members apparently huddled together with an attitude of, “We can’t let this guy run the show.” They talked a guy named Andy into running at the last minute. I lost. One of the members of the previous administration leaked to me that it was “an extremely close vote.” He almost implied that there was something fishy about the vote. They never did release the totals.

There was a regional convention of the fraternity held in Indianapolis in 1975 at a downtown hotel. I attended, and it was kind of fun meeting people from other chapters around the Midwest.

The big controversy at that meeting was that like my chapter, most of the other chapters did not have a house but were given use of space in university buildings. If those universities received federal dollars, and most of them do, then they were subject to federal antidiscrimination rules. There were no racial issues that I was aware of, but unlike my chapter, many of the chapters did not allow women. They were being given a choice either to accept women as full voting members indistinguishable from the men or lose the support of their host university. Even if you had a women’s auxiliary or “Little Sisters” chapter, that wasn’t good enough. Naturally, the excuse of “separate but equal” doesn’t hold up in federal court.

It didn’t affect us because, like I said, we didn’t make any distinction. The women were full members. But it was a major topic of discussion at the convention.

Even though it was primarily a service organization, we had some pretty good parties. There was always a party after the initiation ceremonies for new members, and I went to at least one New Year’s Eve party in which my dad and a bunch of the guys had to carry me up a flight of stairs to a rented community room in an apartment complex. Going up the stairs early in the evening wasn’t so scary. Going back down again at 1 AM when my dad was tired, and many of the guys had been drinking was another thing. There were a couple of other disabled students who pledged the frat one year, both women. I was friendly with them but never got close. They seemed more scared of being carried up and down stairs than I was. I had known these guys for a while, so I trusted them.

Someone decided we should put on a comedy sketch at one of the parties. I wrote some jokes, and so did some of the other guys. We did a version of the classic Abbott and Costello “Who’s on First? routine. It was well received. They asked us to do it again for the next pledge party and it didn’t go as well. A couple of the more Boy Scout-like members thought the comedy was too raunchy. I tried to explain to him we didn’t do anything you couldn’t see on Saturday Night Live any week. In fact, I stole the material from SNL. I also did a Johnny Carson-like “Carnak The Magnificent” routine. He replied, “Well, you can always change the channel if you don’t like something on TV.” I didn’t care. It wasn’t that dirty. Like I said, it was all TV-capable. I told the next year I wouldn’t do it and I wouldn’t recommend anyone doing it.

For me the funniest part was that when the prudish member called us aside to complain about the content he suggested “it was too blue”. One of the younger members who participated had never known what “blue comedy” meant. He thought being “blue” meant it was sad. He didn’t understand the complaint at all and I thought it was hilarious that he thought that blue comedy meant sad jokes.

The only other interesting thing that came out of the experience was at a meeting one evening, an older member of the frat called me aside. He was a big burly guy with a long, hard-to-pronounce Greek name. I think he was actually an alumnus and the older brother of one of our members. He handed me a business card with the words “Order of the Sons of Pericles” on it and said, “If anyone ever gives you any trouble or tries to mess with you or if you ever need anything, call us.”

I thanked him and put the card in my wallet.

I came away wondering, “Am I a made man now?”

I never saw the guy again. I still carry the card in my wallet. I never tried to use it. Years later, I did a Google search. It turns out they are a legitimate service organization. They are a junior auxiliary of a larger organization called the American Hellenistic Educational Progressive Association, which was formed in 1922 as a civil rights organization to counteract the Ku Klux Klan. See the linked Wikipedia article for details. Given that I never heard of them at the time, it sure was a creepy experience. This strange guy comes up to me and says, “If you need anything… we’ll take care of it.” It turns out they are a bunch of good guys.

I remember trying to encourage some of my other classmates. I don’t recall who, to pledge the frat. His reply was, “I want to choose who my friends are. I don’t want to have to be friends with a bunch of guys just because they joined the same organization I joined. What if they are all a bunch of assholes? I’m still expected to treat them like brothers? Count me out.” Maybe he was right. Except for Kathy, which I’m confident I would’ve met anyway, my experience in Alpha Phi Omega left no lasting impact on me, either positive or negative.

Many episodes ago when I was speculating about what I might do if I could live my life over again, the only major decision I would change would be to not waste my time pledging the frat. While I had some good times being part of the organization, overall, I never felt like I got as much out of it as I put into it. So, I could live without the experience.

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