Retro Recruitment: 1985
 

Hi everyone! Longtime poster here posting under a pseudonym. I guess you could say Alias85 is a benign sock puppet :)

I'd held off on writing a retro recruitment thread for a long time because the ones I've read have been so well written and full of detail and I didn't think I could manage that. Then I figured, what the hell, I'll give it a try.

So, here's my story...

WHO: Alias85
WHAT: Totally Awesome Retro Rush Story
WHEN: Fall of 1985
WHERE: A big school in the east
WHY: Why not?

DISCLAIMER: Since this took place 29 years ago, I am going by the following: pictures taken before and during the events, casual conversations with people who were there and the mostly illegible scribblings in the little rush notebooks we were allowed to carry.
My rush started on a humid Sunday afternoon in late August the day after I moved into my dorm. The yearly event called the Watermelon Picnic was the opportunity for the fraternities and sororities to set up booths and mingle with the potential rushees (there will be no usage of words like PNM and Rho Gamma in this story. I’m old school) and with each other and, well, eat watermelon.
Rush at Big School in the East isn’t like down South with the town by town voting blocks, outpouring of recs and Lily-clad young ladies groomed for sorority life from birth (not that there’s anything wrong with that). If it were, I assure you that I would not be writing this because I’d be a GDI.

Anyway, my roommate and I, along with a group of girls from our floor, all ventured down to the Watermelon Picnic. I don’t remember much about it, but photographic proof says that I was wearing what I can only describe as a pair of overalls in a pattern most often associated with train engineers and an oversized red t shirt. My feet are (thankfully?) not visible in this picture but if they were I fear that if they were you would see black Chuck Taylors with the tops jauntily folded down.

We ate watermelon, flirted with the cute fraternity boys and mingled with the sorority sisters. I remember being happy to see a few familiar faces in the crowd that I knew from the fraternity parties I’d been attending for the past couple of years (What? You weren’t running around fraternity house parties when you were 16? Well, okay, that’s understandable) and by the end of the day, I'd paid my $15.00 and was signed up to participate in Rush. We all got pink t shirts with a picture of the Pink Panther on them that said “Think Greek”, but it had sigmas where the E’s were supposed to be so I guess it was more like “Think Grssk”. I still don’t get why they did that.

So, back in those days at my school, there were twelve sororities. The easiest way to name them is, I think, to assign them each an astrological sign:
Aries
Taurus
Gemini
Cancer
Leo
Virgo
Libra
Scorpio
Sagittarius
Capricorn
Aquarius
Pisces

The schedule was as follows:
12 Parties
8 Parties
4 Parties
Preference Parties

...

I had to laugh out loud at this one. I already love this story!

Happy to see another RETRO story!

That is a pet peeve of mine...just throwing incorrect Greek letters. Drives me nuts!

And go Capricorn! :D

Sorry the hijack, but another person posted something about the Watermelon Picnic, albeit years later since they had re-named it by the time this person went through rush/recruitment. Your story is fun, can't wait to read the rest of it!


http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...72&postcount=5

Rooting for Leo ;)

All hail rush and the rushees!

Libra! libra! LIBRA! We're those chill, laid back girls that everyone can get along with. Why not join? ;)

Agreed, Angel! This story is hilarious already.

Yay! :)

I'm loving all of these retro threads to keep us busy until August. More, please!!

12 Parties

The first round of parties was a blur. That probably hasn’t changed much in 29 years! It was over two evenings; six parties each night. I do remember thinking it was weird how we’d be directed to a chair and then the sisters would sit on the floor around us. It felt awkward to me, but I guess it was more polite than making a rushee sit on the floor! The whole practice of the sisters lining the hallways and singing loudly while the rushes filed out the door kind of freaked me out a little. Everything seemed a lot more structured than I’d thought it would be (although not as structured as it actually was, as I’d find once I was on the other side of rush).

After the 12th party, we sat down with our Rho Chi group in the student union ballroom and filled out our cards. I really liked Aries, Cancer and Sagittarius and I really didn’t care for Aquarius and Pisces. The reason I didn’t like the latter two? Their houses were not on campus and I couldn’t imagine walking so far every time I wanted to stop by. As you can see, I had a highly scientific plan in place. Then I didn’t much care for Leo because they pretty much left me alone on a chair and ignored me! I felt like Mohammad, Clayton, Sidney and Jugdesh from the Omega rush party in Animal House! None of the other sororities really stood out one way or the other so I didn’t feel like I could decide on them without more information.

The next round, my schedule was as follows:
Aries
Cancer
Sagittarius
Gemini
Cancer
Leo
Taurus
Virgo

Oh! Did you want to hear about my wardrobe choices for the 12 round?

I don’t have pictures from Day 2, but on Day 1 I had on a bright yellow miniskirt and an oversized white t shirt with three buttons at the neck and multicolored drawings of the Eiffel Tower all over it. In addition, I belted the t shirt with a wide turquoise colored leather belt slung low around my hips. White sandals completed my snazzy ensemble. I don’t remember if this took place before or after Labor Day so I’m not sure if the white sandals were appropriate or not. Oh, and Lord help me, I had a leather turquoise headband holding my bangs back.

...

Hair crimps. Were there hair crimps?

Unfortunately (or fortunately?), my hair was not long enough to crimp at the time

You got it in the parentheses! Fun story!