Back in the day . . .

[honeychile]

RUSH WITH FRILLS!!!

Did anyone else play "Cardinal Puff"?

[33girl]

Originally Posted by honeychile

Did anyone else play "Cardinal Puff"?

Yes but I never got past the first verse. That game was hard.

Threeman was easier and more popular.

[honeychile]

Originally Posted by 33girl

Yes but I never got past the first verse. That game was hard.

Threeman was easier and more popular.

Surprisingly, I am a Pope!

I think that's why I very rarely drink anymore.

[DeltAlum]

Originally Posted by honeychile

Surprisingly, I am a Pope!

As am/was I.

Once a Cardinal, always a Cardinal.

During the late 60's we still Lavaliered (I never knew how to spell that) then pinned, etc.

Besides many of the other things mentioned in posts above, a couple of things specific to my chapter/campus.

Allegedly, "Greek Week" originated at Ohio University. I can't prove that, but it's what I've heard for years.

In addition, we had J-Prom every year which included pretty elaborate skits that fraternities and sororities or fraternities and women's dorms put together, cinluding big sets, etc. These were performed outside and judged.

"Teas" was a code word for beer blast. ie: "Hey, we're having a Tea with the Pi Phis Friday..."

Then there was the (world famous?) Delt Regata where we put together really disreputable "rafts" and floated down the Hocking River.

And, of course, pledge pranks which we won't go into here.
(Well, except the the time we all stole a pair of our big brothers briefs, put their names on them and strung them from the pillars on the front of the Chi-O house...)

We had formal dinners when nobody sat down at the table until the house mother was escorted in by either the chapter or pledge president. We were taught table etiquite by "mom." That's where I learned which fork to use. Afterwards, we sang some of our great Delt songs.
(My favorite: "Delta, Delta Tau, loved fraternity. Hearts to true, true to you, burn with loyalty. Brothers, we stand as one, in our mystic vow. When, in health, we sing to thee, Dear Old Delta Tau.")

Most of us dressed for football games in sports coats, sweaters and ties and our dates wore skirts, sweaters, etc.

If we were pinned to sorority woman, she wore our badge as well as hers.

Almost all of our cars had our letter decals on the rear window, and if we had a Greek pinmate, often both sets of letters were displayed on our cars.

There's more, but finally we almost always dressed for class and wore our badges most of the time in public. When we weren't dressed appropriately for badges, we generally wore our letters on sports wear.

You know, some of those traditions wouldn't be so bad today.

[nittanyalum]

Originally Posted by DeltAlum

You know, some of those traditions wouldn't be so bad today.

Co-sign. It sounds like a lot of what I think of as real 'greek-y' traditions didn't make it into the 21st century...

[DeltAlum]

Originally Posted by nittanyalum

Co-sign. It sounds like a lot of what I think of as real 'greek-y' traditions didn't make it into the 21st century...

Indeed.

I hadn't thought of serenading, but that was fun, too.

It was encouraging a few years ago (actually it was 9/10 -- yes, the day before) and I was a Division Vice President at the time and happened to be in Lincoln, NE on business.

I dropped by the Delt House and was invited to dinner, and sat at the head table with the House Mother, who was escorted in, etc. and we sat across from members of the pledge class throughout the meal. This is our most honored chapter, and I had the chance to say a few words of congratulations, etc. It stirred a lot of really nice memories.

Later that evening, I was invited to stay for initiation.

Very nice.

[AOII Angel]

Originally Posted by DeltAlum

We had formal dinners when nobody sat down at the table until the house mother was escorted in by either the chapter or pledge president. We were taught table etiquette by "mom." That's where I learned which fork to use. Afterwards, we sang some of our great Delt songs.
(My favorite: "Delta, Delta Tau, loved fraternity. Hearts to true, true to you, burn with loyalty. Brothers, we stand as one, in our mystic vow. When, in health, we sing to thee, Dear Old Delta Tau.")

I fixed it for you! I once took a 1hr etiquette class in college to get my Junior level of hours after the first semester of my 2nd year in school. (I know you don't get anything for being a junior, but it seemed important at the time!) One of my sisters took the class with me and could not understand why she made a "D" in "etiqwet" (her original pronunciation!) I swear she only made it to class once every couple weeks.

[DeltAlum]

Originally Posted by AOII Angel

I fixed it for you! I once took a 1hr etiquette class in college to get my Junior level of hours after the first semester of my 2nd year in school. (I know you don't get anything for being a junior, but it seemed important at the time!) One of my sisters took the class with me and could not understand why she made a "D" in "etiqwet" (her original pronunciation!) I swear she only made it to class once every couple weeks.

You just can't trust people who don't take the time to look up words they're not sure how to spell, can you?

[dekeguy]

Originally Posted by honeychile

RUSH WITH FRILLS!!!

Did anyone else play "Cardinal Puff"?

========

We did "Salamanders". I understand this came from German university fraternities or "Student Corps". Apparently one had to do a perfect Salamander before one could go into the "Salle a manger" and have dinner.
Not sure why the German students used a French phrase for dining room except that it was a good play on words. Anyway, one could get well and truly lubricated before having anything to eat if you messed up your salamanders. Memory dims (brain cells shot by too many imperfect salamanders?) as to the exact sequence of the salamander but I think it was distantly related to Cardinal Puff.

[SWTXBelle]

Cardinal Puff was big on our campus - I never got into it, but I remember it!

[oldu]

I know this may be hard for some of you to imagine but I was in school during the late 1950s, and campus life was decidedly different then. I was at a major midwestern university but our codes were pretty typical to most institutions. First, we had to wear a coat and tie to dinner each night (Friday was casual) and, as a result, many wore coats and ties to afternoon classes. Women still had to maintain "hours:" 10:30 weeknights and 1:00 on weekends, although there was some scurrying up the fire escape sometimes by the braver ones. Singing was a big deal for both fraternities and sororities, and servenading another group was popular after Monday night chapter meetings. In fact, there seemed to be much more musical talent then because we, and several other fraternities, had in-house combos that were actually very good. Greek sings and talent shows were big, so huge at Northwestern that theirs ran for several nights and tickets were scalped like at athletic events. The opposite sex was never allowed above the main floor of any chapter house, and all but the tiniest groups had house mothers. Ah, for the good old days!

[barbino]

Originally Posted by oldu

I know this may be hard for some of you to imagine but I was in school during the late 1950s, and campus life was decidedly different then. I was at a major midwestern university but our codes were pretty typical to most institutions. First, we had to wear a coat and tie to dinner each night (Friday was casual) and, as a result, many wore coats and ties to afternoon classes. Women still had to maintain "hours:" 10:30 weeknights and 1:00 on weekends, although there was some scurrying up the fire escape sometimes by the braver ones. Singing was a big deal for both fraternities and sororities, and servenading another group was popular after Monday night chapter meetings. In fact, there seemed to be much more musical talent then because we, and several other fraternities, had in-house combos that were actually very good. Greek sings and talent shows were big, so huge at Northwestern that theirs ran for several nights and tickets were scalped like at athletic events. The opposite sex was never allowed above the main floor of any chapter house, and all but the tiniest groups had house mothers. Ah, for the good old days!

NORTHWESTERN! I knew it! I love to visit this campus - to check out the Pi Phi house there though it's been years since I helped with rush, Northwestern was "redistricted." One of my brothers was an Evans Scholar there. The quads are still absolutely beautiful (although I hate to admit that admit I prefer U of Chicago for its "total intellectualism"). Northwestern still maintains an "old' feeling -there is too much ivy around there for it to ever feel new. The art library is tucked away in a little corner and still feels like you never left the 1930's or 40's. The older buildings are still there and being used. They have not been torn down & rebuilt like some college campuses.There are still Greek sings and talent shows there. Don't all the sorority houses still have housemothers???? Some things never really change, they just get better with age. Northwestern University is just one of those things.

[AGDee]

1983-87

Frilly rush, themes, favors at every party, food that fit the theme, "costumes" (like 50's for Grease night), decorations, hand made name tags for everybody.

The song on our whole campus was "We Are Family". When the DJ started playing it, all the sorority women bunched together with their sisters on the dance floor and tried to outsing eachother "We are AGD", "We are Alpha Xi", "We are Sigma Three" and "We are Sigma K"(they never figured out how to make it rhyme). The men would just stand there watching and shaking their heads.

Shout reminds me of the TKE house.

TKEs had happy hour every Friday afternoon at their house. THE place to be.

LXAs had a dance floor in their walkout basement, perfect for parties.

Real candles were nice.

Domino's large pizzas for $5, delivered within 30 minutes or they were free... we banked on that A LOT. They also came with a free quart of pop (soda for you people from other parts of the country) in a cardboard carton.

Matching baseball jackets.. each fraternity and sorority had "their" jackets, all totally matching except for the embroidered name. Ours were yellow with red writing, highly visible all over campus!

Other songs we HAD to dance to.. any Michael Jackson, Madonna, Prince and...

Superfreak, superfreak the girl's a superfreak!

[honeychile]

I can remember a PNM going through COR and asking what the difference between three sororities was, and one sister said, "Most sororities tend to go to concerts together. Just last weekend, the ABCs went to see Neil Diamond, the XYZs went to see Billy Joel, and we went Bruce Springsteen."

One sister had this weird thing for "Smoke From a Distant Fire" and that became all of our song. I have pictures (somewhere) of three different weddings with a bunch of us doing our little dance to it - each including the bride with her skirt hiked up, well, pretty high!

And yes, Cutie_Hootie, every Monday was pin attire - ALL day, classes, meals, everywhere. The only ones who got out of that were the nursing students.