I don't know about the rest of y'all in thim thar WGLOs, but I sure don't remember any line in my initiation about once initiated, only initiated until graduation. If that were the case, what would be the point of alumnus status? The problem is, everyone likes to think that their GLO is
sooo much better that everyone else's. Meanwhile ("almost") everyone does stupid things in public while wearing letters, hazes their pledges, and generally does everything in their power to make the rest of us look like the "Delta House" ala John Belushi. We all profess to be a part of a unified community, yet we also (at least some of us anyway) try to categorize ourselves above everyone else with claims of perpetual membership as compared to everyone else's collegiate-only membership, claims that we have such-and-so-many alumni chapters while everyone else only has random, scattered groups, and the most asinine of all claims, that some groups have a tighter, more defined sense of "brotherhood" than does everyone else.
Well after we've all finished blowing smoke up each others' arses about how friggin' cool we are and how lame everyone else is, can we please start acting according to our respective Rituals for
ONCE! The truth is, we're all EXACTLY the same. ... *GASP*
... The difference is not made by what particular combination of letters you wear, the difference is made ONLY by how you are known to treat others, especially when you think no one is looking. If we're going to be judgemental, let's start with ourselves first. Try this as your unit of measure...
The True Gentleman
The True Gentleman is the man whose conduct proceeds from good will and an acute sense of propriety, and whose self-control is equal to all emergencies; who does not make the poor man conscious of his poverty, the obscure man of his obscurity, or any man of his inferiority or deformity; who is himself humbled if necessity compels him to humble another; who does not flatter wealth, cringe before power, or boast of his own possessions or achievements; who speaks with frankness but always with sincerity and sympathy; whose deed follows his word; who thinks of the rights and feelings of others, rather than his own; and who appears well in any company, a man with whom honor is sacred and virtue safe.
- John Walter Wayland