Back in the day . . .

[AOIIalum]

Flashback, early to mid 80s:

We gave flowers at Pref, and our greeters would take and put them in vases at the door. Those of us Preffing didn't have to look at them all night AND it made it easy to see who our competition was based on the flowers!

Pledges either wore their bid day tee/letters tee, sorority button pin (remember those?), or pledge pin on campus.

Say it with me, Aqua Net and hot rollers! My mom said they should have bought stock in the Aqua Net company.

In addition to the other style memories, on my campus the first Liz Claiborne bags were it. So were topsiders, penny loafers, Tretorns and the first Reebok aerobic shoes.

"I Heart" ringer tees and jerseys in your own colors. None of this ADPi wearing Pink and Navy jerseys or KKG wearing white and red bid day tee shirts (note: examples used were not on my campus). For that matter, bid day tee shirts were either in the "I Heart" style, were iron-on letters only (if the sorority allowed pledges to wear letters before initiation), or the spelled out sorority name.

Ditto on candlelights with real candles and a baby candlelight only for advisers.

Ditto on little sisters and sweethearts. Fraternities were known to serenade based on which chapters their little sisters were in and would serenade after the girl's candlelight. Who still has their little sister pin?

[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.

[carnation]

I have my little sister pin!

SEC Rush= Extremely frilly rush. You got pricey gifts from the sororities you preffed and like someone mentioned earlier...what on earth did we do with the gifts from the groups we didn't pledge?

Auburn's pledges were horribly hazed by being asked to wear their pledge ribbons the whole week after rush. Eek! I'll never get over it. Likewise, no sorority let their pledges wear letters or crests until after initiation.

We didn't do hairspray in the seventies--why would long, straight hair need it?--but long hair was its own hazard with the real candles and we did have a sister's hair flame up on one side at a ceremony.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by nittanyalum

But MC, reading your post reminded me of the movie "Shag" -- have you ever seen it? I love that movie.

Believe it or not, I never did see it. I remember when it was made/released. Seems like we had kind of a "maybe we should see it, but it would probably make us barf to see Hollywood's take on Myrtle Beach" so we never did. So it's worth a look?

[nittanyalum]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

Believe it or not, I never did see it. I remember when it was made/released. Seems like we had kind of a "maybe we should see it, but it would probably make us barf to see Hollywood's take on Myrtle Beach" so we never did. So it's worth a look?

Well, I'd say it's a good weekend "fluff" pic, it's very cute (IMO) with a very high "cheese" factor, so I can't say you'll be bowled over by it, but I think you'll be entertained. And I loved the cast in it and there was a good bit of shagging, which I always enjoyed watching (especially when people pull off that really smooth footwork like you mentioned, I love it!).

[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.

[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!

[LaneSig]

Originally Posted by honeychile

We gave gifties at Pref, and the Phi Delta Thetas did "Kiss and Carnation" on Bid Night. They gave each pledge a carnation (their flower) and a kiss to welcome them into the Greek System.

I had to read this twice to realize that the Phi Delt's were giving the carnation and kiss to female pledges and not Phi Delt pledges. ("Wait, the Phi Delt's did what????")

[Leslie Anne]

Wow….thoughts of back in the day.

Yes, honey, Rush with frills! I get a little sad that Maryland no longer has Formal Rush in the fall….all the sisters lined up outside the chapter houses wearing their matching outfits trying to out-yell each other. (We wore black, straight skirts, white blouses and black bow ties. We probably looked like flight attendants, lol, but I loved it.) The Rushees had to endure rankings from the frat boys who brought their couches out onto their lawns. They’d zero in on a particular girl and hold up big cards, 1 through 10. Rushees took flowers and inspirational hand-written letters with them after Preference. And, yes, real candles.

The main hang out for Greeks was the ‘Vous which was pretty disgusting but had been around forever. It always had at least an inch of gunk on the floor and they only served beer on tap. Very bad, watery beer. I think of the ‘Vous every time I hear “How Soon Is Now?” by The Smiths (often requested by the sillier sorority girls who thought it was a great “party” song – did they ever listen to the lyrics?) Around 1986 or so, they built Sante Fe Café and that became the nicer hang out with food and mixed drinks. The front patio was the place to be seen…in your letters…drinking. The ‘Vous is now gone. Not sure about SFC.

Campus traditions: Monday night serenades by the fraternity men in their coats and ties, stealing composites and plastering them with suggestive phrases cut out of magazines, massive scavenger hunts during Greek Week. Greek Week was just the best. The talent competition was a big highlight. I remember one year the Alpha Phis and whoever they were teamed up with did a Flashdance kinda thing and everyone freaked when they had water splashing down onto all the electrical equipment. That same year I pranced around the stage dressed as Snow White with my sisters as the dwarfs. It’s a hazy memory since I needed a whole lot of alcohol beforehand to get the nerve to dance in front of a few thousand people. We came in second though.

I must have missed the add-a-bead thing. I only remember pearls; lots and lots of pearls that dangled out over turtlenecks…never got the hang of that. Dressing for going out at night was big slouchy belts, big bows in the hair, and lots of bangles. Very Madonna-esqe.

Songs that will always remind me of certain fraternities:

“Blister in the Sun” = Delta Tau Delta
“Margaritaville” = Fiji
“The Wall” = Pike
“Shout!” and “Destination Unknown” = Phi Delt

Did any other campuses do Destination Unknown parties? No one but the presidents and social chairs knew where we were going. We’d just pile into busses and end up in some bizarre place. The first song of the night would, of course, be “Destination Unknown.”

Aww. The memories.

[Elephant Walk]

Originally Posted by Leslie Anne

Did any other campuses do Destination Unknown parties? No one but the presidents and social chairs knew where we were going. We’d just pile into busses and end up in some bizarre place. The first song of the night would, of course, be “Destination Unknown.”

Aww. The memories.

Phi Delt does it here..

[33girl]

Originally Posted by Leslie Anne

Songs that will always remind me of certain fraternities

Oh geez, if I get started on that one I'll take up all the bandwidth.

Although I'm pretty sure no one else has a memory connected with "Holding Out For A Hero."

[SWTXBelle]

"Our" song was "Uptown Girl" - my favorite formal pics are of all the Gamma Phis in a giant kick line, dates looking on from the sidelines.

[AOIIalum]

Originally Posted by 33girl

Oh geez, if I get started on that one I'll take up all the bandwidth.

Although I'm pretty sure no one else has a memory connected with "Holding Out For A Hero."

I'll meet your "Holding out for a Hero" and raise it with a "Never Surrender". Spill it 33. Come on, you know you want to.

My memories involve early B-52s and Violent Femmes. The place would explode any time a song from either band was played. Needless to say that night we brought the band to campus tickets were sold out from just the Greek system! I think the tickets were like $5 for students. Those were the days.

Oh, and Leslie Anne, there were pearls too. Sometimes just on their own, sometimes in combination with a shorter add-a-bead, sometimes even pearl add-a-bead necklaces!