Top 10 Signs You Are A Die Hard Omega

[FeeFee]

Originally posted by Wolfman
Now, I can't tell everything!

This past March,we had our nationally mandated Formal Memorial Service. We memorialized a brother that I want to tell a story about. (We held it at his church.) He was made in the '40s at a local HBCU and taught high school for many years;he also was actively involved in the community and his church.He was in his '80s, and he dated women in their '40s.

He had to be put in a nursing facility on several occasions. We would have a chapter visit at the facility to cheer him up and live out our brotherly duties. This brother loved a good party and was Que to the bone. He always attended our Mardi Gras Formal Dance--he loved it! When we went to see him at the nursing home, we laughed and joked; and, as his got into the spirit of moment, he tried to "set out a hop" in the meeting room where we were at! Before we prayed, sang our hymn and ended the visit, he asked us about the date of that year's Mardi Gras Dance. We told him. He promised he would be there. We were being nice to him and went along with him on this. We thought that this would be good for his morale--we didn't think he'd get out of the nursing facility, let alone be able to attend our Mardi Gras.Lo and behold, when the Mardi Gras Dance came around, the brother was there at the dance in his tux, buying drinks for women (with his young girlfriend), and on the dance floor with all the other bruhs! You can't keep a good Que down!

Aww, I caught a visual of this story and it made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

[DSTdimepiece]

See, that was touching!

[Wolfman]

I like to talk about elder brothers in these stories;for they are the shoulders we stand on. There are Omega men(and Greeks) who when they die, much of our past will have passed on with them if we don't remember them.

When I was in Southern California, an elder brother, who has gone on to his reward, liked to talk about "the old days" after Frat meetings. He just wanted someone to share these stories with. He told us about the time that Bishop Edgar Love, a Founder of Omega Psi Phi, stayed at his home when he visited the West Coast in the '50s. (We forget that once upon a time we could not stay at some of the finer hotels and thus we sometime lodged at each other's homes--this is not ancient history!) Anyway, the brother told us how impressed he was with Founder Love. He was a very gracious man.

This same brother told us about why he pledged Omega. Where he came from he said of the Alphas:if it rained, an Alpha would drown because he he held his nose up so high. Of the Kappas:"they were all alcoholics."(An aside: in the book "Black Haze," the author, a Nupe, says that the "Pretty Boy" stereotype is a recent phenomeon of Kappas, whereas before Kappas were known as heavy social drinkers. So this assessment from this brother may not have been just a off hand prejudiced remark.) Finally, this brother said that the Omegas were known as the "Do-gooders" for their social outreach efforts.

And a dear friend and brother who passed a few years ago was the quintessential Omega man. His name was Paul Woods.(Ques who have been around for a while would know of whom I speak.) After I recommitted my life to Christ I gave up the Frat. I began my journey back by hanging out as his house and relearning the beauty of Que fellowship. He treated evervone fairly and was open to any brother. He told stories also. About how one of Omega's founders chastised brothers for having "exotic dancers" at a function during a Conclave, telling them that this was "his fraternity." And how Jesse Jackson had brothers crying during one of the meetings with his down home homiletical eloquence. And how he lived at the Frat house in D.C. in the early '60s, and his roomate was the only caucasian to have pledged Omega at Alpha chapter in Howard--he was on the same line as H. Patrick Swygert, the present President of Howard.

Stories!!!!How a brother in Los Angeles knew about 100 ditties to go with the song "Come brothers and Join in the Chorus," a Que drinking song that most Ques don't even know these days. Outside of Atomic Dog, the hymn ("Omega Dear") and the Omega Sweeheart Song, and some common chants, most younger brothers aren't conversant with the rich Omega tradition in music and song. Gone are the days in which Ques didn't step and Omegas were known for singing. A elder brother told me that one time when he was an undergrad and they were serenading girls in a dorm at an HBCU, one girl was so overcome that she fell out of the window. And the '60s brothers who influenced my line, used to tell us stories about their step shows, to motivate us. They said that when they stepped, coeds used to tear off their panties. So, when we stepped when I was an undergrad, we dressed in our boots and diapers, a la Parliament/Funkadelic--pre-Atomic Dog.

[ladygreek]

^^^^ Did you do the "Tit Tit?" And I remember when Parliament/Funkadelic came to my campus and performed in diapers.

[mulattogyrl]

I like these stories, Wolfman.

[btb87]

Originally posted by mulattogyrl
I like these stories, Wolfman.

Me too!

[FeeFee]

I *heart* these stories too.

*feeling fuzzies*

[CrimsonTide4]

Me four.

[Wolfman]

Originally posted by ladygreek
^^^^ Did you do the "Tit Tit?" And I remember when Parliament/Funkadelic came to my campus and performed in diapers.

Tit tit, no;but we did the "Que bug," which is a step routine, known variously by other names, with chants involving simulated sexual intercourse on the ground.

A story to contextualize this. In the early '80s, in my district, undergrad chapters were being suspended for lewd and lascivious step shows. In a meeting, one brother commented how he took his young son to step show and was supremely embarassed. It was too much--of course stated from the perspective of a middle age man now.If there has been an improvement, in general, it's been that you don't see as much of this over-the-top stuff. To be frank, it just doesn't fit in with this age in which sexual harassment is defined as even oggling someone!And in which you or your org has to cough up some cash for "stupid stuff" becuase of a lawsuit. If men can't be moved by moral suasion, the loss of money, property, or prison time can make some think twice about some activities. Ask the Kappas why they are no longer the "Playboy fraternity." Trademark infringement issues and the prospect of getting the pants sued off them by Playboy Inc. made them "read the riot act" to the undergrads and they curtailed the use of the image,etc.

[jojapeach]

*sitting "crisscross applesauce" on the storytime rug*

I am LOVING this! I even get to learn while I'm having fun. LOL Thank you for the stories, Wolfman.

[Wolfman]

(Disclaimer:These are stories told to me or about me. I don't necessarily share these views!)

I think of myself as a student of human behaviour. One thing that interests me about BGLOs is the stereotypes that get played dwon in public but which people ascribe to nonetheless as a folk reality. A few stories.

I went to a Kappa smoker in college. The Province Polemarch of my area at the time was from my home town and he went to school with my mom. And the 2dn Vice Province Polemarch was a high school classmate. They were there. They gave presentations. I will never forget that the province Polemarch, a very affable and professional man, lost his "Kappa Kool" when he someone asked him about Omega. he said with an ever so slight hint of animosity that "he would not want his son to be an Omega." I knew no Ques, had no Greek relatives, only knew a high school friend who was an Alpha and his brother who would pledge Alpha that year. The only thing I had heard about Omega was negative. I thought that response was a bit mean-spirited and small-minded, given that he was representing his fraternity in an official capacity. I recently met his Kappa son and we hit it off.

A brother in a grad chapter I was a member of in Southern Cali once told the bruhs that he had to have a talk with his son once, who was in college at the time. His son's roomate was a Sigma, and the circle of friends he hung with were Sigmas. So, when the son came home for a vacation break he sat him down and had a man to man talk with him. He told his son: "If you pledge Sigma, don't come home!" He was serious as a heart attack! (He didn't think too much of Sigma! His son is still not Greek;he's was scared to pledge Omega on his campus. He respects Omega greatly though.

A younger Delta friend, whose mother is die-head DST and her father, a Nupe, told me that her father said that if she married an Omega, he would not walk her down the aisle. (The last boyfriend she had was a Que.

Back in the mid-'80s I met a bruh at a district meeting whom his undergrad chapter bruhs told me about. He was made in the '70s and it was a different day when the "light skinned male" was in vogue. Anyway, he fit this phenotype, the putative Kappa phenotype: tall, handsome, light skinned, curly hair. And the black women on the venerable white Southern campus were smitten with him. The bruhs told me that one time when was walking on the campus a car load of sisters driving by saw him and were so trying to get his attention that they wrecked the car. The bruhs jokingly told these girls that he is a Que, not a Kappa! This bruh is a surgeon now.

I used to teach on a foreign language at seminary Alma Mater. I had husband and wife who were in one of my classes. They were 1.5 generation Korean Americans. When she found out that I was a Que she couldn't believe it. She said: "you're one of those bulldogs." The husband later told me of a conversation that they had had. He said that she told him that I "acted like an Alpha." We laughed about this!

[FeeFee]

Originally posted by jojapeach
*sitting "crisscross applesauce" on the storytime rug*

I am LOVING this! I even get to learn while I'm having fun. LOL Thank you for the stories, Wolfman.

I've got cookies and juice if anyone likes.

Wolfman, you're about to become our very own resident storyteller.

[FeeFee]

Originally posted by FeeFee
I've got cookies and juice if anyone likes.

Wolfman, you're about to become our very own resident storyteller.

Dear Wolfman,

We need our story fix. Thank you kindly.

[Wolfman]

A personal story that I've told to Frats and some others, which means a lot to me.

To this day I cannot explain why I pledged, like many other very important things in my life. I got involved with some guys who wanted to do this and I went for it. I cannot explain my particular motivation. Now, I say serendipity, or better, Divine Providence. Since the most important thing that has ever happened to me, my Christian conversion, happended at age 17, everything else has had to fir with in that grid of worldview and being, including the Fraternity.

Among the things we were required to do while "on line" was have a party. We organized one at an off-campus party spot. It was designed as basically a keg party. It was very aweel attended by African American students on my 98% caucasian campus and many football players, who were the teammates of many of my LBs. More importantly for us, there were visiting Ques there, to check us out and "mess with us" a bit. Some of this happened at the party in full view of the party goers. One one occasion, one visiting Que stopped and talked to me "off the record," not as "Lamp. He told me things that I would need to know as Que! I've never forgotten these things; for now I believe that God used him to speak to me. He told me two things: 1) you will meet brothers who you'll not like and 2) the Fraternity is "religious."

The first truth is something that everyone joining a Greek-Letter org, church, club,etc. should come to terms with;for we are in a fallen world and we are dealing with fallen humanity(myself included!). Sometimes we can be shattered by the revelation that there are crooks, immoral, unfriendly, and selfish people whom we call brother or sister. Any time you'll dealing with human beings, you'll have some "mess." Maturity and a knowledge of our comman humanity and the grace and love of God, means that we see beyond this and seek to live out the lives we've sworn by sacred oath to uphold. It's the ideals that matter, and our efforts in God to live them out that matter, and on this journey you'll meet people who do reflect these God-inspired ideals.

The second truth is that the Fraternity is not just about people partying, stepping, carousing, cahsing women, etc. The roots of the Fraternity are deeply and inextricably Christian. This is something that is lost or obscured on many young brothers and,moreover, is something pushed to the side in our materialistic and narcissistic age we live in. As it says in the Omega Psi Phi entry in Baird's Manual, the essential bonds and foundations of the Fraternity were (and are!) religion, culture and tradition. This is something that I experienced when I read the Ritual fully in the summer after my initiation, and what I've experienced amongst the men of Omega. That "word" has been a blessing on my Omega sojourn. I see this as a part of my journey in Christ, something that God used to grow and shape me a s a man and as a human being.

As in the words of the second stanza of the Lampados Hymn, written by the late Rev. Reginald Daniels, which will forver be indelibly etched in my soul:"God give unto us great courage, give us faith and make us strong; that we who are within the band may not fail as we go 'long. Keep the soldiers of this army moving, guided by Thy hand. May we march across the desert and enter Dear Omega's Land." My the LORD's name be praised and be glorified!

[blueGBI]

*sits crisscrossed*

I'm not a D9 greek but I love these stories and the nuggets of wisdom in them. It's so obvious how much you love Omega Psi Phi, Wolfman!