PROLOGUE: As a cocky, 19 year old freshman I was attempting to learn and grow. Still, that first year at Muhlenberg was as traumatic for me as any I have known. I was filled with angst, confusion, and inner rebellion.
Pledging a frat played against my notion that strong willed independent individuals and fraternal organizations are not a good fit. To this day I am a fierce libertarian, adamantly opposed to group mentality. In the long run, joining TKE helped a cynical, distraught loner take the first step in understanding that a crowd maybe unattractive, but it doesn’t mean that the individuals are. Thanks Jon, Rick, and my fellow TKE brothers.
Gideon P. Egnar Chapel was perfectly cast as a fitting setting to stage the opening scene of a fraternity initiation ceremony. The quiet. The darkness. The reverence. All of this foreshadowed the mysterious hocus pocus that goes along with fraternal rites of passage. In 1979, Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE) was one of five fraternities that had a house on the campus of Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa. Roughly half of the male students at Muhlenberg participated in Greek life and on this April night, 29 TKE pledges gathered at the college church with the hope of soon being inducted into a secretive and alluring brotherhood. The Sergeant at Arms (Pylortes) was a Yankee from Connecticut named John Crow. As the star of the lacrosse team he was perfect for the part of a true “hard ass” who enjoyed the reputation he had of intimidating the pledges.
“You losers sit in the pews and wait for the car to come take you to the house for the initiation ceremony,” Crow squawked. “You’ll be taken one at a time in the order you rank in the pledge class…best to worst.”
I shook my head and looked at my partner in crime, Rick Greenberg. “Well pal, it’s going to be a long night.” “Greenie” and I may not have known the precise order but we knew for sure that one of us was 28th in the class and one of us was 29th .
As a freshman in college I had reached an apex in terms of being an angry young man. I was aloof, judgmental, cynical, and at times mean spirited. This wasn’t exactly the type of personality that attracts fraternities attention when recruiting pledges. When I returned to Muhlenberg after winter break in January of 1979, the official fraternity “rush” process began. Rush was approximately two weeks at the beginning of the second semester when each of the five fraternities had an opportunity to entertain applicants in their respective houses. During these recruiting sessions the freshman get poked and prodded like cattle by suitors to see if they have the proper stock to be a member of their brotherhood. Of course each fraternity has the whole first semester to unofficially evaluate incoming freshman, but rushing gave the frat boys an opportunity to extend an official bid. I spent rush playing beer pong, watching varying forms of bestiality porn and observing a variety of loosely clad co-eds trying to present evidence that the frat attracted the best looking babes. Fortunately, my basketball teammate and future “big brother”, Jon Lucas, saw something in me beyond the jerk off exterior that was Rich Siegel. My buddy “Greenie” got bids to three of the five houses. He was starting on the Varsity basketball team as a freshman and was sponsored by the captain of the basketball team, Greg Campisi. The brothers of Phi Kappa Tau wanted him to be a PKT brother badly. Rick’s decision turned out to be easy. His buddy, yours truly, had only received one bid and it was from TKE. The moment Rick decided to pledge TKE, I knew I had at least one true ally in Allentown.
As if perched on a king’s throne, Mitch Seidman sat on top of a washing machine in Prosser Dorm. The newly elected Class of 82 TKE pledge President was attempting to begin the bonding process of future TKE brothers. Mitch was certainly intense and gung-ho on being the most dedicated TKE brother that ever walked the planet.
“O.K. fellas, we’re responsible for pulling off one raid of the house. For the raid to count, all 29 of us need to participate; so let’s agree on a date we’re all available.”
I remained silent during the discussion and neither objected nor accepted any proposed dates. I said nothing until April 15th was agreed upon. From the back of the laundry room, my rarely heard voice rose over the tumbling washers.
“I have a test the next morning and I’m not going on that day.”
A unison of groans bellowed from my 28 future brothers.
“Siegel why did you even pledge? All you do is disrupt everything I try to accomplish,” said the frustrated pledge leader as his face turned the color of his flaming hair.
I went to bed early the night of April 15th, 1979. From what I understand, 28 TKE pledges successfully raided their future fraternity house. They were given credit for completing one of the tasks on a very long list. Rich Siegel was sleeping. I gathered no one noticed, or cared.
The pledging and hazing process brought the best personality traits out in some of the brothers and the worst in others. All around there was no shortage of hard asses. John Crow took pride in intimidating the underclassmen with his Clint Eastwood persona. Al Nicolosi never resisted a chance to question me on campus about his birthday or girlfriend’s pet name. I made it a point to never have the right answer and refused to do my public punishment of push-ups . I preferred to do double the required push- ups in private to avoid the sophomoric humiliation. Bill Hosier went out of his way to bust the balls of the pledges as if we were some dumb ass commoners not worthy of being bonded with his stellar personality. February through April made up the hazing season. Each individual fraternity on the Muhlenberg campus had a perception attached to it. ATO was the bad boys, ZBT consisted of many soon to be Jewish doctors, PKT was loaded with pretty boy prepsters who could have portrayed the cool frat in “Revenge of the Nerds”, SPE was made up of the guys who didn’t fit into the other three and TKE was simply recognized as the “nice guys”. The nice guys’ hazing ranged from over consumption of alcoholic beverages to bobbing for M and M’s in a brother’s darkest abyss.
It became apparent to me that no matter the house, Greek life was, for the most part, universal. There were nuances and idiosyncrasies between the frats but mostly the same themes: strength in numbers, group mentality, and castrating individuality in favor of a strong bonded brotherhood. I observed plenty of fraters develop new found courage and boldness with a fraternal organization backing their mostly nefarious tendencies (Paul Accod, PKT). I saw an equal amount preserve their individuality at the expense of being portrayed as poor team players. (Rich Kronewitter, TKE). Then there were the mature and grounded fraters who were able to find that delicate balance of loyal soldiers to their house and understanding it was okay to have friends who displayed different letters on their shirts. Paul Alplanab (SPE), Mark Bisbing (PKT), Chris Kahn (ZBT), Bobby Doidge (ATO), and Rich Romeo, along with pledge classmate Ken Rubin, were guys who carried themselves with that understanding.
Finally as daylight crept into Egnar Chapel, I was literally alone. The angry young man and maverick in me smelled victory. The competitive and sensitive boy in me tasted defeat. I was the last remaining pledge sitting in the fading darkness on that long ago April night. In the house of the Lord, I have always struggled to find faith. Like most of that freshman year, I wore the misty eyes of abandonment. I knew I hadn’t been a committed pledge and was already trying to convince myself that being ranked dead last out of 29 pledges was some type of badge of honor. My thoughts of wallow were interrupted when three TKE brothers arrived in the foyer.
“Will pledge number 29 of the class of 1982 please step into the triangle.” The three sided, equilateral triangle represented mind, body and heart within the TKE fraternal order. The ride to the initiation ceremony was silent. A raucous house of tired and drunk fraters awaited me. As I was escorted inside of the house, I could hear screaming.
“Blackball him! We don’t want him! He’s the shittiest pledge in the history of TKE!”
Facing the counsel, with a mob that was the brotherhood at my back, I awaited my test for rite of passage. Al Nicolosi and I locked hateful eyeballs as three questions were posed to me. I remember that I correctly answered two of the three required for initiation. More yelling for my ouster ensued. Just as I had become resigned that it was all for the better, that this fraternity life was not for me, a piling of my new brothers charged in to give welcoming, congratulatory hugs. Whether any of them (or I) liked it, we were now brothers…in the bond-forever.
