Rush at Pitt Prior to NPC Crackdown!

[honeychile]

I was letting NBH have her moment in the sun!

Three Round Parties (as much as I can remember, anyhow!): I wore a red kilt (Sinclair clan, if you know it),
with a black turtleneck and a black blazer. I almost wore my pearls, but I was saving those for (please, oh please!) Pref. I had black hose and black shoes with just a little heel. I was already feeling a little too tall to bring out the 3" heels! These parties were an hour long:

Rubies: The singing as we entered was intense! In the background was circus type music, and we were given tickets of two different colors. We used the first ticket "to get into the Ruby Circus", and were seated with a sister on each side. The theme was that life is a circus, it takes all sorts to make up a circus, but the best circus was comprised of women like the Rubies. They served popcorn, peanuts, rootbeer floats, and Cracker Jack, with a clown tossing the peanuts & Cracker Jack. We also played games with the other tickets, and won small, Ruby-oriented prizes.

Garnets: More singing! At this point, I had one of their songs completely memorized, as it was so catchy. We were at a Parisian fashion show, "The Garnet Garment Show" - a runway was down the middle of the room, and sisters modeled outfits that college students "wear": the goth, the fraternity groupie, the too busy studying to have any fun person, and of course, the All-Around Wonderful Garnet Sister - who had her happy moments, her sad moments, liked to have fun, but still had a good GPA. All of the sisters wore their colors, a beret, and were scribbling notes like a reporter would. During the fashion show, a cheese board with crackers & olives was served, then afterwards they served quiche, and a really amazing fruit salad (not that icky sweet canned stuff!). How could I forget the Perrier, with a Garnet label and a slice of lemon?!

Emeralds: "Midnight at the Oasis" All four of my Rush Buddies were with me, all stuffed, and not very open to a desert theme. The sisters wore harem-type clothes (which looked a lot like sheets to me!), with the elaborate eye makeup and the veil over their mouths during the first part. We were each handed a dish with pita, hummus, olives and grapes, along with a goblet of grape juice. Laden down with this, we tried to sit gracefully on plump pillows, and for the life of me, I cannot remember a single thing about the skit. There was one sister for every two or three PNMs, or in our case, one sister for the four of us. The one sister made a comment that she had heard that the four of us came "as a package deal" and she could just wrap us up in a big bow - YIKES!!! We were the first four out of there.

We were encouraged to list three sororities for Pref. AGAIN, we didn't list Emeralds, and handed our invitation lists to our Rho Chi. Lisa wrote "declines Emeralds with regrets" on her list.

[petals]

What a fun thread to come back to after a GC hiatus Thank you, Miss Honey!

[Leslie Anne]

Hmm, I'm curious to see if Emeralds tries to get them again for Pref. (Pesky Emeralds! )

[honeychile]

We all had a good idea of which we wanted, but hadn't told each other at this point - we didn't want to influence each other too much (yeah, and we also discussed the pros and cons of each group over lunch practically every day!). Two memorable Chat Dates I had at this time:

a) The Saturday before Thanksgiving, while we were being hung out to dry to see which invitations we would be getting, a Garnets sister asked me to go on a double date with her & her fiance, and his friend to a football game. While I was at the game, I used the little fan's room, where three Rubies sisters corralled me. "We ARE going to see you at Pref, aren't we? We're really looking forward to it!" I asked them exactly what type of outfit to wear, and they told me good church clothes, then, "You don't have to wear your lucky pin - you don't need the extra luck!" YIPPEEEEE!!!!! It was hard to contain myself when I got back to my Garnets date!

b) On the Monday before Thanksgiving, the Garnets had a Fraternity party with one of the top fraternities on campus. Strangely, it was at this very fraternity house that the four of us from our RC group bonded. Five of the Garnet sisters had been semi-finalists for Homecoming Queen, and the one who was on the Court pulled me aside. "Are you going to pledge Garnets or not?" she asked me. I was shocked - not because of the rush violation, but because of KK asking lil ole me such a loaded question! Stunned, I said, "I guess that depends on whether or not I get a bid." KK said, "I"m going to make sure you get a bid - but I want to know if you're going to accept it." WOW!!!! I later found out that the other three were asked the same thing.

We finally got our invitations, and we accepted to:

Me:
Rubies
Garnets

Ann:
Garnets
Opals

Meg:
Diamonds
Garnets

Lisa:
Garnets
Emeralds

Lisa had been cut by the Rubies! And she had declined Emeralds! We were all beside ourselves, because we had all gone to Emeralds just as a kindness to our Rho Chi, and were seriously kicking ourselves. Surely the Greek Advisor knew what was happening! Lisa ran back to her dorm, crying.

Pref was on the Monday night after Thanksgiving, and were to be an hour and a half long. I wore a midnight blue princess-cut velvet dress that I considered my lucky dress (boy, I sound superstitious, don't I?). When my mother & I were planning my Rush Wardrobe the summer before, she selected this dress as "perfect for Pref". I had my pearl necklace & earrings on, my grandmother's wedding ring, and had navy shoes & bag - complete with a linen handkerchief, also from my grandmother's estate. Can we say that my mother was seriously priming me?

I went to Rubies first. I was the only one of our group going there now, and that depressed me. The sisters all wore long black formals, and hummed as they held lit candles, tied with ribbons in their colors. We were announced, and a wrist corsage with their flowers were put on our left wrist by a sister who then escorted us to their formal living room. A pianist played, with sterling candlebra lit, and we sat, making small talk about the value of sisterhood, until a sister brought a silver tray with the then exotic cheesecake to each of us, on exquisite china. Their china had their letters on it! Yes, I was right at home - even though this was still very much the "rich girl's sorority". Oh, our mongrams (how did they find out my middle initial?!) were in hardened chocolate, propped up against the cheesecake! At a signal, the sisters left, one by one - very smoothly, you couldn't tell until the sister who was next to you left, encouraging us to talk among ourselves. Hmmm... I knew a few of the other PNMs, but none well. We were then escorted by a sister to a darkened room, and placed into a semi-circle. The President spoke, then a sister standing behind each of us handed us her pin, which was on a stuffed mascot. I immediately had tears in my eyes - I recognized the symbolism of even holding their pin! Several others talked about the open meanings of Rubies, and we were handed a candle (tied with the colors). The candles were lit one by one, then the President announced that the light glowed onto our faces and the pins we were holding, reflecting a century of sisterhood that could be ours. We blew out our candles, handed the pins back to the sisters, who then formed two rows for us to walk through. They sang beautiful songs, and several broke ranks long enough to hug us and whisper encouragements - tears flowed freely!

Clinging to my mascot, candle, and corsage, I stumbled teary eyed to where I was meeting with my friends. Could the Garnets even begin to match that?

[AnatraAmore]

That sounds like an absolutely wonderful first Pref party... I can't wait to find out how the 2nd one went!

[Leslie Anne]

That's a very impressive Pref. I'm dying to know if the Garnets actually could match or beat it.

[AlwaysSAI]

Amazing!! Sounds beautiful!

Go Garnets! Go!

[LOVEinZTA]

Originally Posted by honeychile

I The one sister made a comment that she had heard that the four of us came "as a package deal" and she could just wrap us up in a big bow - YIKES!!! We were the first four out of there.

Oh dear.

[NutBrnHair]

Originally Posted by honeychile

Emeralds: "Midnight at the Oasis"

::::::humming::::::::


Midnight at the oasis
Send your camel to bed
Shadows painting our faces
Traces of romance in our heads...

[honeychile]

Originally Posted by NutBrnHair

::::::humming::::::::


Midnight at the oasis
Send your camel to bed
Shadows painting our faces
Traces of romance in our heads...

Seriously, they had other words to that song. I've hated it ever since!

[NutBrnHair]

honeychile, keep the details coming -- Your memory is excellent!

[carnation]

[QUOTE=honeychile;1473767] The singing as we entered was intense! In the background was circus type music, and we were given tickets of two different colors. We used the first ticket "to get into the Ruby Circus", and were seated with a sister on each side. The theme was that life is a circus, it takes all sorts to make up a circus, but the best circus was comprised of women like the Rubies. They served popcorn, peanuts, rootbeer floats, and Cracker Jack, with a clown tossing the peanuts & Cracker Jack. [QUOTE]

This reminds me of an article on UTexas recruitment that was in Texas Monthly. I believe the author was at Theme Party at some house and the actresses in the circus skit were tossing bags of popcorn to favored rushees. One overshot her target and remedied it by going over and grabbing the bag from the unintended recipient and giving it to the intended one.Now this was in the sixties, y'all!

Honey, I'm ready to hear about prefs!