Frat Life 101: Night Of The Dunking Pledges

It was made abundantly clear to the Fall 1983 pledge class of Sigma Tau Gamma that we were expected to show the membership that we had unity, teamwork and most of all some backbone. The members wanted to make sure we exhibited the characteristics that they were looking for in prospective members. To that end we came up with a simple plan that by the end of the night had grown and expanded into something completely unforeseen and dare I say legendary. The fraternity had long had a tradition of throwing members, pledges, etc. into the river, primarily on their birthdays but on other occasions as well. We determined that this would be one of those other occasions.

One of the pledges came forth with a pair of handcuffs (we really didn't want to get into too much detail as to why he had them) and we decided that we would follow this time honored tradition by throwing our pledge trainer into the river. The pledge trainer is just what the name implies. He is given responsibility for training the pledges in fraternity history, rules, alumni and what is expected as individual pledges as well as a the pledge class as a group. Our trainer was Mark and we decided that the best time to get him would be as we were leaving the campus library from our mandatory weekly study hall. It made perfect sense due to the fact that after leaving we normally all walked out of the library together and most if not all of us would then go to the house to hang out.


On this night that would live in infamy we had a problem though. Besides Mark there was another member attending the study hall with us whom I'll call Les mainly because my memory is a little suspect at the moment. While we plotted our strategy it was suggested that if we had another pair of handcuffs then we could have simply altered the plan by taking both of them to the river however we didn't have an extra pair so it was a moot point. We simply decided that half of us would tackle Mark and get him handcuffed and the other half would tackle Les and subdue him. Divide and conquer. After that the first half would put Mark in a truck and start towards the river and then after they had left the rest of us would get away from Les and make our way as best we could to our spot and then let the dunking commence.

However this part of the plan proved to be unnecessary. As we left the library we surrounded the two members and almost immediately they knew something was up. We did as planned and split our forces and took them to the ground. They resisted as best they could but we had a numbers advantage over them and quickly had them at our mercy. As soon as Les realized that the plan didn't include dunking him he stopped struggling and told us that he had done his duty to try and help his brother out and that now he just wanted to see us throw him in the river. He promised that he would not interfere and was a man of his word. With that we loaded up Mark in the back of a pickup truck and off we went to the river.

Part of this tradition requires that if you throw someone into the river you must give them three things whether they use them all or not. First is a blanket so that they can get warm or dry off after exiting the river. Second is a cigarette and third is a beer. There can be no changing of these requirements. We had planned ahead and had all three of them for Mark. Another part of the tradition is that the person being thrown into the river has two options. They can go voluntarily and as such are allowed to remove as much of their clothing as they choose or they can resist and go in as they are. Mark chose to remove some of his clothing but not all (thankfully) and in he went. Afterwards we were feeling pretty good about ourselves and it was brought up that we shouldn't stop now so we brainstormed to think about which other member or members we could get next.

Stay tuned for part 2 of Night Of The Dunking Pledges coming soon.

Published by Don Leach

Yearbook Day Was The Worst Time Of The Year

A few days ago as I had finished my shower and was drying off (I know it's a scary thought) and I started thinking about how one of the worst times for me back when I was in high school was at the end of the year when the yearbooks came out. Now I don't recall how I got to that unusual point because normally I'll just have a thought that reminds me of something and that leads to a similar thought and the next thing you know I'm miles away from where I started out and I'm thinking about something bizarre. Like on this day.

The day that Yearbooks (or rather Annuals in some places) were given out was quite stressful to me. Frankly put I was horrified about the thought of going around the school asking a load of people that didn't really know or like me to sign my book. Then there was the unlikely scenario that people would ask me to do likewise. I've mentioned on this blog before that I had absolutely zero self confidence in myself and really believed that there was nothing about me for people to like. I was too different, too far from "normal" for the vast majority of my classmates to understand. Plus, I had moved around and attended three different schools in a year and a half's time so that made it especially hard for me to have had a chance to make friends or even acquaintances.

I considered myself extremely lucky to have one good friend, one or two somewhat friends and then perhaps a few other people who knew me by name. That was a best case scenario. So there I would be, sweating over who I would ask to sign my yearbook. It was easier to know who I wouldn't ask. Anybody popular or a high level athlete or a cheerleader was out. They weren't even in consideration because the thought of one of them deigning to sign my yearbook was ludicrous. Then there were the students who weren't quite at that level, who hung around the popular kids in the hopes that they might be thought of as cool by association. Out. The students who thought I was in a different grade? Out. Foreign exchange students? Maybe, if they didn't have a full grasp on the English language although usually they did.

For the most part that left the usual suspects of the losers, geeks, nerds and other forgotten loners that just didn't fit in. Unfortunately it didn't include the sluts although years later you normally found out that they really were more chaste than any other girl in school. Damn those high schools boys and their rumors! Well, from that group I would choose the the ones that didn't terrify or frighten me too much and chance a request for their autographs. I was happy if I got signatures on the front and back pages. I thought that at least that way it would look better years later to anyone going through my yearbooks. They might actually think that I was somewhat well known and popular.

Now those yearbooks sit in a box at the bottom of a closet and are rarely brought out and looked at and I could care less who did or did not sign them. They're just a reminder of days long gone past that time has shown weren't really all that important at all. My "permanent record" didn't follow me nor did 99% of those that purported to like or dislike me. That's the way it is for almost everyone I'm sure, we were just too young and stupid to realize it.

Published by Don Leach

Grass Fires In Oklahoma

While at work last night my sister Teresa left me voicemail on my work phone as well as my cell phone due to the fact that my niece Megan was worried about us. It seems that Oklahoma had been declared in a state of emergency due to grass fires mainly in the Oklahoma City area. This was news to me since I work in the dungeon and we don't get cellphone reception and generally don't see many people down there. I tried reaching my sister but, par for the course, she didn't answer her phone, so I left a voicemail letting her know that we were okay. Afterwards I broke out my laptop and posted pretty much the same message on Facebook just to let anyone who was interested know that we were okay.

The strange thing is that when I left work and stepped into the parking garage the smell of smoke was extremely strong. Oklahoma is known for it's strong winds and even though most of these fires are about an hour and a half's drive away the odor still is very pungent and would almost make me think that a fire was close by if I didn't know any better. That's the thing about living in Oklahoma, the weather shifts constantly and often has major changes all in one day and the wind gets stronger than any other place I've ever lived before. I guess it keeps things interesting, though I'm not so sure if that's a good thing or not.

Published by Don Leach

The Sad State Of Youth Today

I've recently seen an article on Yahoo about a mother being upset how her son's grade school teacher had sent a note home to her. It seems that the teacher in question had stapled a note to the boys shirt informing his parents of his actions. When questioned she stated that she had done so because she had previously sent homes notes and believed that he wasn't giving them to his parents. The mother said that she had received the notes but was upset because her son had been publicly embarrassed by this treatment and that it was unfair.

Now when I was young it was common for teachers to pin a note to your shirt so that it wouldn't be forgotten or overlooked and yes it was normally because you had done something wrong in their eyes. Since I'm not part of this situation and don't have all of the details the only thing that I can comfortably comment on is to speculate that if the parents say they had received previous notes and that the teacher was unsure if they were being given to them then it seems to be that perhaps there was no communication between the two parties. That would explain this disconnect between them.

Thinking a little deeper though this makes me think about how we are raising our children. Currently I feel we are raising generations of children where they don't seem to be able to take criticism at all nor do they understand why they are suddenly not special anymore. Case in point, athletic leagues. Nowadays every child on every team gets a trophy because sometime in the past some parents thought that it wasn't fair that only the top three finishing teams got trophies and that it made their children feel left out and that they weren't good enough. Instead of teaching them lessons that have real life implications such as you can't always be first and that sometimes your team may not be that good and it holds you back but doesn't diminish who and what type of person you are, they chose to try and make every child feel that they were all equal.

That's the problem right there. No matter how much we try to make it so, everybody is not equal. Some are faster, some are smarter, some more athletic, some bigger and some smaller. Some catch on quickly and others have to have things explained to them point by point. None of this means that one person is better or worse than any other, it only means that we are all different and can't be judged by the same standards. I may not be as good looking as others but I have things about me that stand out and make me who I am. So what if I'm not the best athlete or video game player? None of this matters in reality. Just find out what it is that you like and makes you unique, if only even to yourself.

Everybody cannot finish first in everything. It's impossible. There have to be people who finish last the same as there has to be doctors as well as ditch diggers. Simply put, we should be addressing ways to make the children understand that where you finish isn't always the most important thing, it's how you finish. It's the work that you put into it. We need to stop worrying if they get their feelings hurt so much because that's going to happen when they hit the real world. Right now most of them are unprepared for when they hit problems. They don't understand when their boss tells them that their work isn't up to standard or that they need to put forth more effort. They don't understand why they cannot immediately make the kind of money that their parents make. They just feel that everyone is being unfair and hurting their feelings.

So basically they are going to go through everything cruel and unkind in the world that all before them have gone through to some degree or another but they will have no idea how they should and can react. Instead it will be like a gate closing to them. Solid, unmoving and impenetrable. What do they do then? We need to be more understanding of what skills they are going to need to learn so that when this happens, and it will, they will be prepared and be able to solve problems on their own instead of coming running home because life isn't fair. It isn't and never has been so let's try to teach them something about this because it really is so important.

Published by Don Leach

They Say That Love Is Pain....

While on my way to church today I was listening to a song by The Slackers called "You Don't Know I" and part of a lyric got me thinking. The song says "they say that love is pain" and as I sat in church I started to think about it. It's true that love can be painful when it is not returned or when it was there but no longer is. It can even be painful when one is with the wrong person. But perhaps we need to also look at how we define love. Instead of merely seeing it as between two people we should realize that we love our families, our friends and those that are in our church, albeit in different ways.

When viewed that way the lyric can take upon itself a different point of view. Within a family love can be painful when a member of the family falls away because they have found something else to occupy their life and it consumes them. My younger sister has had a battle for most of her adult life with drugs even though she would only admit it on rare occasions. She ended up with drugs being more important to her than her own daughters whom she was not there for and let others raise. There is much pain there. My nieces love their mother on one level however they also know on another level that she cannot be trusted to tell the truth about anything or even show up clean for important events in their lives. They have suffered with the idea that their mother was not there for them no matter what they did to try and let her know that they needed her, no matter how much they loved her.

I won't even pretend to act like I know why my sister is this way because I have no idea. The three of us (there is also an older sister) went through the same things however they impacted us all in different ways. For myself I became very introverted and had no belief or faith in myself, no self confidence and thought that I wasn't good enough for other people to even like. Whatever she has felt she chose to try and fill what was empty with drugs and that never will work for very long. It's a short term solution to a long term problem. Amazingly she has never hit rock bottom, never sunken low enough to try and make something of her life or to be a part of her children's life. Perhaps she never will.

She has her own pain to deal with and this is the manner she has chosen. I think we all do this in different ways. If you are unhappy because you work a horrible job that is intentionally putting out products that you know will harm people in the long run or you are stealing money from clients then no matter how much you act like it doesn't bother you it does, somewhere deep down below and that knowledge manifests itself in varied ways. Addiction is the usual path but people can be addicted to so many things. We often think of addiction as only to drugs, alcohol (okay it is a drug too), porn, sex and things like that but there is also addiction to eating, to living life on the edge or to religion. You can be addicted to anything, even so called good things.


Anything can be taken to an extreme when you are unfulfilled, living a life that you don't want to live, being a person that you don't want to be. Kurt Cobain blew out his brains when his band Nirvana got too big too fast when he simply could have backed off, stopped all of the interviews to people he couldn't respect or didn't want to know. He could have stopped all of the massive touring and the major label nonsense and just made music for himself. Sure he would have made a lot less money but somehow I think that money wasn't all that important to him given how he chose to end it all. I don't know if it would have made him any happier but he couldn't do that.

Love can be wonderful, full of happiness and good times but unfortunately it can also be pain and that can change from one person to another in how it is felt and dealt with. The trick is learning how to accept the pain and grow from it and understand that it is a natural and normal part of life. Just try not to let it happen too much. Other than that try the advice of Joe Rogan and surround yourself with cool people and get all of the fake losers out of your life. You'll be amazed at how much stress and garbage leave your life. It's worth a try.




Published by Don Leach

Please Don't Add Me To Your Group, Jerky

On Friday night while at work I decided to check my email from my work computer, something I am still able to do since they haven't blocked it yet. They've managed to block many things so far like Facebook, personal blogs and so forth so I don't doubt that it will happen soon. I noticed that I had seven new emails and my first thought was that perhaps one of my friends had read my message on Facebook about my series of blog posts that I am making concerning my college fraternity days and were giving me some asked for feedback. When I went into my inbox however I found that I wasn't even close. They were notifications about posts from a group on Facebook I didn't know and were from people that I do not know.

I started deleting them and the last one was from a friend of mine letting me know that he had signed me up for a group called Friday Night Video Fight. Now I had heard many months ago that Facebook was going to allow this but this was the first time that it had happened to me. Personally I hate that this egregious attack on common sense has been cleared by the powers that be at Facebook. To me it is arrogant for a person to decide that they know better than I do what groups I should be in. It smacks of the highest level of douchebaggery. It's one thing if a friend thinks I'll like a group or band or something like that and wants to recommend it to me but to take it upon themselves to add me without my prior knowledge is quite a different thing. It's just wrong.

Now before you start saying it's not that big of a deal and that I can easily unsubscribe from the group I feel that I must let you know when I checked my email about 2 hours later I had 159 of the same emails notifying me that people had posted to this group and that is just ridiculous. It's far too much. Why should I have to unsubscribe from a group that I NEVER subscribed to in the first place? Why should I have to deal with the problem of my inbox getting swamped with garbage emails from people I don't know, about music videos of bands that I don't care about? Just so you can do what you want?

Screw all that. How about holding people accountable for their actions and making them think about what they are doing to other people who are supposedly their friend? How about Facebook not allowing this kind of stupidity to go on? How about people using their brains and thinking of others instead of only themselves? How about I finish this rant and get over it?



Published by Don Leach

The Return of Beavis and Butthead?

I found out some of the best news I could get the other day. Beavis and Butthead are returning to MTV and no, I do not mean in reruns. Series creator Mike Judge has agreed to start creating and voicing new episodes of the dynamic duo. They'll still be the same age yet this time around not only will they watch music videos but also Youtube viral videos and other events like the Ultimate Fighting Championship as well as using modern technology. This is a no brainer unless the powers that be want to take the teeth out of them and actually have them liking people like Lady Ga-Ga instead of reviling her. I have so many fond memories of watching this show and honestly I think that most everybody knew somebody like this at some point in their lives. I'll even admit to owning a Burgerworld t-shirt at one point. I'll go even further, my roommates and I would imitate their voices for our answering machine.

This information came to me from a most unlikely source, Rolling Stone magazine. Somehow I have been receiving a subscription even though I never ordered it. This has happened to me several times in the past with different magazines. My wife thinks that I must be receiving it as a gift yet nobody has come forward to tell me that it was from them so I tend to disagree and instead believe that my name must be on some marketing list where they send you a free subscription and hope that you'll enjoy the magazine so much that you will want to renew your subscription when the time comes and that way they'll have you hooked and get your money. At least that's my working theory.

At any rate, I do not like Rolling Stone magazine very much. It just doesn't have the kind of content that I enjoy so when I received the most recent issue I left it untouched for a few days and then decided to throw it away. As I picked it up however three headlines caught my eye on the cover. First was a story about The Clash whose music I still enjoy. Second was Beavis and Butthead and the third was a story about The Cars and their album that will be coming out in May. That was enough for me to be enticed into opening it up and to read the stories and honestly I liked all of them.



However another thing that I hold against Rolling Stone is that publisher Jann Wenner is the bigshot in charge of bands that get inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame or should I say Shame? He has let personal biases interfere with many bands that more than meet the requirements for enshrinement and they end up being left out in the cold. Bands like Rush, Journey, The Cars, Devo, Kiss, Los Lobos, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Foreigner, Iron maiden and Judas Priest are so deserving yet still cannot make the cut. It's a sad reflection on Jann Wenner and his ilk who believe that they are smarter and cooler and hipper than anyone else when truthfully, they're just pale wannabes.

Ah, enough of this drudgery. I'm not here to endorse or condemn Rolling Stone (well, maybe condemn a little). Back to what's really important. Reading about The Clash = cool. Reading about The Cars new album coming out = great. Reading about Beavis and Butthead making their valiant return = fantastic. Maybe there's some hope for fun and happiness after all.