Back in the day . . .

SWTXBelle · #1 03-31-2008, 07:30 PM

Feel free to post pictures, y'all. I certainly will once I'm moved!

eta - hands up - how many of y'all had a pref song to "The Rose" or "The Theme from Ice Castles (Eyes of Love)"??

Love
is found in Gamma Phi
A love that never dies,
it keeps on something I've forgotten,
how we love our sisters,
how they help us grow,
in Gaaaaaammmmaaaa Phi, we know we have found a home.

ForeverRoses · #2 04-01-2008, 08:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SWTXBelle

Feel free to post pictures, y'all. I certainly will once I'm moved!

eta - hands up - how many of y'all had a pref song to "The Rose" or "The Theme from Ice Castles (Eyes of Love)"??

Love
is found in Gamma Phi
A love that never dies,
it keeps on something I've forgotten,
how we love our sisters,
how they help us grow,
in Gaaaaaammmmaaaa Phi, we know we have found a home.

We sang "The Rose"! And so did three other sororities on my campus...

Katmandu · #3 04-01-2008, 11:52 AM

Richard Nixon was president, Helen Reddy was on the radio, hair was long, skirts were short, collars were big, petroleum products were proudly worn. (Double knit, anyone?)

1973, large state university....

A couple of thoughts about sorority singing and dinner, 70's style.

Singing! Don't know if it was the times, or just our campus, but glos sang a lot! Song leaders were important officers. Rush (frilly) included lots of singing. Many campus events included singing/theatrical competitions

Serenades were big. We had song practice after dinner for days prior to a serenade (held before formals) Serenades gave glos important "face" time, as a great serenade could affect who invited you to do homecoming, Varsity Revue, etc.

We typically sang one current pop song (The Carpenter's, The Association), a couple of our sorority songs, Christmas carols prior to our winter formal, and learned a fraternity song for each house we serenaded. When a fraternity serenaded us, studyhall emptied, you dropped what you were doing, and everyone crowded the front door to listen. Fraternities serenaded when someone in your house got pinned to a brother or before formals.

Dinner (and more singing) We ate sit down family style dinners every night served by House Boys. Formal Dinners were held every Sunday at noon and Monday evening (chapter night). Formal dinner required pins, dresses, stockings. (no "pantsuits").

The door to the dining room opened at 5:30, and the house mother was escorted to her table by the head house boy. Her table was expected to fill up first, the President's and VP's tables were expected to fill up next. No one had assigned seats but them. If you didn't want to sit at one of the head tables, you hung back at the back of the crowd.

As we entered the room, we stood behind our chairs and the song leader led us in a sung prayer (with three part harmony) then we sat down after the house mother and president were seated.

Our dining room had tables for eight, and the head of table was responsible for passing food, seeing that each person had what they needed, using a little silver bell to summon a house boy for more water, tea, butter, etc. All of the sororities had house boys and it was a prized job on campus.

Dinner ended with at least one song. At formal dinners, we sang one of our more "serious" sorority songs. Rgular dinners ended with one or two "fun" sorority songs or a fraternity song. Once the singing was over, the house mother stood, was escorted from the dining room, then we were free to leave.

When my kids hear this, they scream with laughter, because it sounds positively medieval now. But dinner was fun. The dining room was beautiful, we had great food, lively conversation, lots of laughter, a sense of community and some practice in valuable social skills. It was the one time of day when everyone in the house was together in one place.

Great thread! Sorry to natter on so long.

gee_ess · #4 04-01-2008, 12:21 PM

KAtmandu says,
Dinner (and more singing) We ate sit down family style dinners every night served by House Boys. Formal Dinners were held every Sunday at noon and Monday evening (chapter night). Formal dinner required pins, dresses, stockings. (no "pantsuits").

The door to the dining room opened at 5:30, and the house mother was escorted to her table by the head house boy. Her table was expected to fill up first, the President's and VP's tables were expected to fill up next. No one had assigned seats but them. If you didn't want to sit at one of the head tables, you hung back at the back of the crowd.

As we entered the room, we stood behind our chairs and the song leader led us in a sung prayer (with three part harmony) then we sat down after the house mother and president were seated.

Our dining room had tables for eight, and the head of table was responsible for passing food, seeing that each person had what they needed, using a little silver bell to summon a house boy for more water, tea, butter, etc. All of the sororities had house boys and it was a prized job on campus.

Every word of this is still very much in practice at Monday night formal dinners on one campus I know of...

SWTXBelle · #5 04-01-2008, 01:58 PM

I'd love to have some of you reminisce here!

breathesgelatin · #6 04-01-2008, 07:06 PM

Well, it took some chapters a LONG time to get rid of candles. My chapter was using them really up until my presidency or maybe the one before me (can't remember). I don't mind using them for certain things, but honestly, and this is just my opinion, using them for things in pref ceremony is super-super lame. We used to do a candle-lighting thing and it wasn't as cool with electric candles. Plus many of the PNMs don't realize why you'd be using electric candles and it seems weird to them too. I think we ended up changing our preference night ceremony when our alumnae got more involved and we had to quit using real candles.

I understand no candles in situations where there are a LOT of candles and maybe fabric around, or even when the candles are 'background items,' but I honestly think that if you're just using one candle, and the candle itself is the focus of the ceremony (as in candle passes or our old preference ceremony) it's pretty stupid to ban it. I just think it's taking risk management too far. I mean with one candle you can pretty quickly respond to any issue that arises. I did my best to obey the rule when I was leading my chapter, and I would in the future if I were in a Pi Phi leadership position, but I just think a lot of the beauty of the ceremony is taken away by using electric candles.

AOII Angel · #7 04-01-2008, 05:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SWTXBelle

Feel free to post pictures, y'all. I certainly will once I'm moved!

eta - hands up - how many of y'all had a pref song to "The Rose" or "The Theme from Ice Castles (Eyes of Love)"??

Love
is found in Gamma Phi
A love that never dies,
it keeps on something I've forgotten,
how we love our sisters,
how they help us grow,
in Gaaaaaammmmaaaa Phi, we know we have found a home.

We definitely had a pref song to "The Rose" that sisters fought to sing as a solo. My pledge class song (each class had to write one) was to "The Theme from Ice Castles (Eyes of Love)" and was used there after as a pref song. We thought we were sooooo clever! I guess everyone else did too!

OldAOPi · #8 04-01-2008, 06:07 PM

Well, it was towards the end of Disco, thank goodness. I hated dancing to disco music, made all my curl go flat.

The song "We Are Family" was our pledge class theme. It was the only disco song I knew the words to - but I did like Meatloaf and STILL know all the words to "Paradise by the Dashboard Lights".

I can related back to colors - our pledge class sweatshirts where white with red writing. Fraternity Sportswear would send a rep with promo pieces and you would order your navy blue sweatshirt with embroidered letters. It was a big deal when in about 1980 they had a light blue hoodie. Woo Hoo!

Quarters was fun...fraternities would steal composites, and serenades were a big deal. We would take our pledge classes around to sing to the fraternities after we got our pledge classes and had a dinner.

Animal House came out around then - so then we all had......TOGA PARTIES!!!

Rush had lots of skits and song. We thought we were all that when we revised our Theme Day skit to a Grease Theme and wore 50's style costumes. And the slide show was made from pictures turned into slides! Took a lot of work!

SWTXBelle · #9 04-01-2008, 06:08 PM

AOII Angel - Let me guess - replace "Gamma Phi" with AO II, and you've got your pref song!

AOII Angel · #10 04-01-2008, 06:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SWTXBelle

AOII Angel - Let me guess - replace "Gamma Phi" with AO II, and you've got your pref song!

No, but that would be a nice song too!

Instead of "Love" we sang A-O-Pi really drawn out. One line I do remember is:
A-O-II
It is for always
and not just college years