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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.
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