Back in the day . . .

[NutBrnHair]

Sisters who smoked had to sit in the back of the room during Selection Session. (The only one smoking at the front table was our Rush Advisor!)

[Denise_DPhiE]

Originally Posted by AOIIalum

We didn't do that, but did anyone else "snap"?

Yes - celebrating our chapters 20th anniversary this year (and I was a charter member) and have instituted snapping at our Junior League meetings. Only about 1/4 of our members were sorority women but they got the hang of it! Love snapping!!!

[ISUKappa]

Originally Posted by Zillini

How could I forget phone duty and wake up duty? Each active living in the house had an assigned code, like morse code. When they got a call on the house phone or a visitor you had to buzz their code. Long, long, short, short or whatever.

We still used the buzz system in the late '90s. Mine was long long long short. I never minded being phone dog (doing phone duty) because then I got the inside scoop on things. We had a board in an alcove in the entryway with everyones names on hooks and a little round tag that was white on one side (which meant you were in) or blue on the other (which meant you were out). That way you could look up and see if if the member was in before buzzing (that is, if they remembered to flip their tag - most didn't). It was fun to come home and see a little message stuck on your hook. Then we had an "all-house" buzz (hold down the button for about 20 seconds) to call everyone for a meeting, announcement or serenade)

We still did a lot of singing and serenading in my chapter, too. We always sang Kappa Grace in the stairway before meals and the door to the dining room didn't open until our House Mother was standing there. She was very big on teaching us proper etiquitte and I know how to "correctly" pass a water pitcher and not to "divorce" the salt and pepper.

When they had "open" parties, Fraternities would stop by every sorority and give a stack of copied invites to whomever answered the door. The theory was you had to have an invite to get in the party, but if you waited long enough or knew someone in the fraternity, you could usually get in.

More fun were the fraternity date parties/formals where they came and personally serenaded each girl who was invited. Some chapters had "their" serenade song that would get requested whenever they came to visit. I remember Pi Kapps did "The Fishy Song" (all the little fishies do the hootchie kootchie dance). Nothing like seeing 30 semi-drunk fraternity men dancing around to a preschooler's song. We were always requested to sing "Legs" and a few other unmentionable songs. I hope they still do as much serenading now as they did when I was in school 10 years ago. It was always so much to hear "So-and-so is serenading!" yelled down the halls and run down to the formal liv or dining room for the songs.

[MaggieXi]

Is 11 years ago back in the day? If its not, oh well, I really like this thread!

- We had real candles, pledges were pledges or "New Girls", Rush was still Rush, Rho Chis were still Rho Chis.

-Rush was becoming less frilly, but we still had "skit night" and were known for the best skit! The fraternity guys would sit outside during rush rotations and yell things at the rushees, rank them, and harrass them. This was perfectly acceptable.

-Rushees made their own "memorable" nametags and tried to outdue each other.

- Dirty rushing was common. We actually didn't know it was "dirty" until 1998.

- Pledges had to be sober sisters for at least one weekend for the actives. This ment sitting in the house waiting for the house phone to ring with some drunk active wanting you to pick them up.

- All the sorority women wore "I Love XYZ" or "110% XYZ" Buttons either on them or on their book bag.

- Monday all day was pin attire for all Greeks, Wensday was "organization day" and all greeks would wear their letters.

- Grunge was on its way out. So we wore "grunge clothes" during the day ("simple" clogs, babydoll tees with a flannel, overalls, oversized wool sweaters and hemp necklaces) for class and Brittney Spears-esque clothes at night (low-rise jeans were all the rage = lots of butt crack!, camis, tiny tees, black highheeled boots, short shorts and old navy flip flops). Noone ever carried a purse or hand bag.

- Everyone knew the words to MMMMBop, Spice Girls, TLC Songs, Christina Aguilara and whatever rap song that was that you dipped to the right and then rolled and ... When Britney would come on at the bar or at a house party, all the guys instinctly knew to move off the dance floor while the girls tried to mimick Brittany dance moves.

- All Greek women paint-penned anything that didn't have a pulse. I loved my paint-pens!

Yea, we were cool.

[honeychile]

Remembering:

-"I'm A Greek" buttons. The first time I saw one was on a friend of mine, and I thought, "I thought for sure that Paulette was French?"

-The Kappa house was catty-corner from the Baptist Church, and sat down to dinner to their bells.

-We had the In & Out markers, and the Chapter phone, too.

-t-shirts worn ONLY during Greek events, and in your own colors!!

-Pledge periods being roughly 3 months long and included much, much more material (more in depth on NPC - like being able to identify each pin, visiting at least one other chapter, pledge books, pledge songs)

[33girl]

Originally Posted by MaggieXi

Noone ever carried a purse or hand bag.

This is the thing that strikes me the most when I'm back on campus. You absolutely, positively DID NOT carry a purse anywhere - if you saw someone carrying a purse, you knew they were a clueless freshman. It was the first thing people told you not to do once you got on campus. If you didn't have pockets, you carried everything in your key/ID holder. I remember literally not allowing one of the clueless new freshmen (when I was a sophomore) out of her dorm room until she promised not to carry her purse.

My cousin who went to school in like 1970 told me the same thing. I am guessing it's the cell phone that changed this. I still don't carry a purse to the bar if I can possibly help it.

[SWTXBelle]

In our pledge notebooks, we had to get information on all the NPC chapters at our campus. So I can still tell you all of the officers to every sorority in 1983.

No initiation till the following semester - you had to make your grades.

Buttons, buttons everywhere - or at least on your backpack. I had my 100% Gamma Phi, Sigma Chi is big in TEXAS (with a sigma for the "E") and getting bigger, My Guy's a Sigma Chi, College Republicans, and Boyington buttons.

A night time pre-initiation ceremony at San Marcos Hall - which back then was the original building for the San Marcos Baptist Academy. Imagine a big, Victorian-era building, with actives trying to make everything very spooooooooky.( Didn't work - pledges had to try very hard not to laugh) I'm sure it would be considered hazing now - but it doesn't matter, because they tore the building down to put in a parking lot.

[ISUKappa]

I don't think I started carrying a purse regularly until I started going to the bar, and even then it was a smaller purse. Everything got thrown into backpacks if we were on campus. If we were going to the bar, only ID, cash card, lip gloss, phone, money and cigarettes/lighter usually got put into the purse.

We were the last pledge class to have the last semester-long pledge program and to use real candles for ritual (though they were still used on the rare occasions we had a candle pass).

[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.

[RaggedyAnn]

Puffy paint was our best friend!

[FirstAndFinest]

Great thread!!

OH I forgot alll about phone duty!! We had 4 phones, one at each end of each floor in the dormitory-part of the house. Pledges had to hang around (and interview sisters) and answer the phones.

When I was living in the house, we had phone lines installed in each bedroom! However, the hall phones were not taken away - so sisters who had phones in-room would let the hall phones ring and ring... The worst was the sister(s) who would go away for the weekend (or the night ) and leave her ringer on (and of course, only a few girls had answering machines). I can remember some really bad chapter meetings where the topic of respect & telephones tested the bonds of sisterhood!!

I totally forgot about stiff stuff.... I'm gonna have to drag out some old photo albums this weekend....

[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?