booze trivia of yore
 

During my time on the road for TKE, 1957-59. only two Teke chapters were allowed to serve booze at parties, and this was in
writing from the college/university. Scorpion chapter at Cornell had a bar in the house and Nu chapter at Cal had a Friday keg on
the sidewalk on Channing Way. TKE had over 140 chapters then.
This is not to say there was no booze, but it was well hidden. The
Alpha Delta chapter, Idaho, had a pop machine in the basement,
and for a quarter you could buy a beer. Catch: once you bought a beer you could not leave the house for twelve hours. It was strictly enforced.
When the field rep came often several would adjourn to a favored
watering hole and have a few beers.. NEVER, EVER, in the house.
A $10 fine was assessed at Alpha Phi, Kansas, if booze was found
in the house. Enforced. I know, but was never caught . NEVER,
but I was never without booze...just discreet--and well-hidden.
SAE at Kansas State got social probation for a full semester when
they were caught with a keg in their basement, 1956.
TKE at Kansas had a river party one Saturday night, and guards
were posted as lookouts. Pre-parties and post-parties were held
often at someone's apartment prior to the big event on campus or at the TKE house. Sometimes booze was snuck in...I know this
for a fact...but was never caught. Never was a school official or a
housemother addressed while booze was on one's breath.
Animal House, if applied to the fifties, was pure fiction, bullshit....
I was in high school thru college, 1950-60, so I WAS THERE!

Well, at Indiana in the good ole days, Hell Week always ended (after the PQ of course) with the pledges being rounded up, told to dress warmly, blind folded, and taken out in the country (not really very far in Bloomington).

"Take off your blindfolds, and take off running back to town, when I say go" we were told.

When blindfolds were removed, the big brother blocked the way, and everybody started yelling "congratulations - you've made it." It always took place at "the lodge", an old wood cabin rented out only for keg parties.

The lodge was a great place for drinking, singing, pissing off the porch, and turtle drinking games (I was more a drinker, not a gamer). Usually we had two parties there each semester.

Altho it wasn't the first time I had alcohol, it was the first time I drank in excess - and as they led me up the front sidewalk late that night, I hurled a few chunks on the grass.

In my days, there was never booze at chapter parties, although there usually was a pre-party BYOB at someone's apartment. My future wife was a sucker for grape vodka mixed with 7-Up.

Our chapter was split about 50-50 over booze in the house, and there were rules and fines against it. My 50% often had a six-pak in rooms with a locked door, and a few of the others kept trying to fine people for booze. We favored putting beer in the Coke machine.

Other chapters at Indiana had kegs and liquor at house parties, I think.

After I graduated, one of the most aggressive anti-booze fraters told me, at an alumni chapter function at Melcherts house, that he really had been stupid to be so aggressive.

One of my memories was our pledge class "walk-out" to some guys' homes in Gary/Hammond, IN. At that time, you could buy quarts of beer in IL three for $1.

When I was visiting chapters, the Drexel chapter was one of the top ones, and they had built a bar in the basement, with a built-in system for cooling kegs from a Phily brewery which had cooling coils inside the kegs. Very neat.

When the Indiana Tech chapter was chartered, they had a bar in the basement, and a switch near the front door. If a cop/dean came to the door, you could trip the switch with your foot, ring a bell in the bar, and the bar could be hidden away.

Two summers ago, when I visited Rose-Hulman in Terre Haute, I saw a Coke machine converted to bottled beer in the Triangle house.

College: a fountain of knowledge where everyone goes to drink.

interesting how times change
 

today's kids seem to be poor drinkers, and we never binge drank, perhaps 'cause we did not have the money. It was greatly
looked down upon to entice your date to drink with nefarious intents. I am a little bit embarrassed at the poor performance of
the kids today and their handling of booze. Today I urge the drinking scholar. And one who does not make his grades is as good as a saddle on a sow to the chapter. This is my caving in
to the mores of today's collegian.
Yes, this is a lecture. Lots of wimps in college today, but the doors have opened wider and many allowed to matriculate who
would have not had a prayer in previous generations.

When I traveled for TKE in 1963 I'm quite sure that I remember a legal and open beer dispenser at Gamma-Chi Chapter (Valparaiso University).

My chapter as well as the campus was dry and if there was any alcohol at our functions, it was very well hidden. Since a number of our advisors and faculty members were at most all of our parties with their wives, things never got out of hand.

There were some creative ways of having booze in the house behind locked doors though. One room had bottles hanging upside down above the drop ceiling that were rigged with surgical tubing. You just had to pop up the corner of the ceiling tile, pull down the tube, uncap it and pour your drink.

Another frater stored his sour mash bourbon in a compartment in the headboard that he build for his bed. The "key" to opening the compartment was an old coin that always sat on the headboard and servd as a key when inserted into a hidden spring loaded slot. It was quite ingenious.

Scott McCulloch

What about the Huge Roman Soldier over the doorway at the House in Lawrence for The Toga Partys? Walked between His legs to get in! Just up the street from the LXA House in the flats. Envy for that party!!!!

Unkie E, as You said, the devious minds back in the good old days!:cool:

Ah, the good old days, Not Binging, but Socializing!:cool:

Are you the guy who was editor, and didn't have a driver's license?

If so, Hello.

More boozy memories
 

My junior or senior year, the Prytanis flunked out. He was a real guy, loved by everyone, and by far the best leader in the house. Unfortunately, the Epi was just the opposite, a transfer from U Colorado, resented by some since he hadn't 'endured' our Hell Week but was one of the meanest to our pledges.

The flunked-out Prytanis didn't leave campus, and everyone was content to have him continue as a not-in-school Prytanis - and he probably had more time to play TKE.

I guess money became a problem, with his parents cutting him off, so he started a before-dinner private cocktail hour in the President's room. He knew who the drinkers were, gave each of us a membership card, and opened for business. You got in by slipping your card under the door, and enjoyed a couple drinks before dinner. He even offered credit.

This lasted a few weeks, and was enjoyed by many, and I don't remember what brought it to an end.

When he left, the unloved Epi sensibly didn't try to move up to Prytanis, and a new election was held.

Hoosier said:
Are you the guy who was editor, and didn't have a driver's license?

If so, Hello.

--------------------------------------

Yes, thats me. I was supposed to help Ed Georgeff edit The Teke. Problem was, no one had told Ed he needed help and he didn't want any. I did work on other internal publications though and got to spend more time on the road.

Got the driver's license, had my car stolen in Morgantown WV and a number of other adventures. It was a good time.

Do I know who you are?

Scott McCulloch

You visited the Indiana chapter while I was an undergrad (as did Bill Muse).

During the fall of my senior year, Tex Flint visited our chapter and attended a chapter meeting (we all thought he was going to stroke out when he spoke - and screamed). I told him I was a journalism major, and would llike to be editor of The Teke. His next stop was the office in Indy, and he told them about me.

They arranged for me to come to the upcoming NIC meeting in Cincinnatti, for an interview with Melchert and Kolintzas (who by then had replaced Georgeff as Grand Histor).

They gave me the job, starting in June '65, got married in Aug. '65, and spent my honeymoon at the Conclave in Toronto. The salary was the best of any IU journalism major that year - $500/mo. I edited eight or nine issues, produced a Bill Muse-written Teke Guide, a George Woolery-written PR manual, and lots of other manuals, and helped with the script Ronald Reagan read in the first Teke movie.

After hiring, they sent me to Portland to meet Jack Ostergren, who was the part-time editor. I think Jack called Georgeff while I was there, but we never met.

Left in the summer of '67 and have been basicly self-employed ever since. Have been in the Atlanta area since 1969, heavily involved in soccer since kids began playing in the '80s.

hoosier and tales
 

we certainly have crossed paths; served on Kollintzas first extension survey in '56, spent hundreds of hours with the odd
Ed Georgeff (kind and fun, tho, and a real detail filbert). Dear
readers, hope you get to know guys like 'Hoosier" as they are
quickly thinning, the ranks of us old story tellers...
Almost drank myself to death in CA with Woolery...
Funny...funny...at an initiation, somewhere, ole Tex was up and
giving the "Ode". Pete Leland was in the meeting and wanting to
get to the bar, got up, took the item from Tex's hands. gave it to
the chapter president and Tex cut it short, from memory, thus the
meeting ended and resumed, hail fellows well-met, at the bar.

Indiana was one of my early chapter visits. Strong chapter, very hospitable, a breeze for a field guy to visit. Although I was only there one time Indiana still sticks in my mind all of these years later as the most beautiful campus I've been on.

Flew to Chicago from the University of Michigan once for a meeting with George Kollintzas who was then the Grand Hegemon and Dean of Men at Loyola University.

George lived with his mother in a beautiful, luxurious, Greek themed high rise on Chicago's Gold Coast and put me up there. He was a marvelous host and squired me around the local night life in his white Avanti with the gull wing doors. Don't have any idea now what our business was about, but the trip was fun and a welcome respite after my ordeal in Ann Arbor.

My Teke staff time was cut short when I received a draff notice on November 22, 1963, the day JFK was assissinated.

Scott McCulloch