Around 1985, I left the small town that I grew up in to attend college at Ball State University. I was a small town boy with small time attitudes. Having attended a high school that was 99.5% white, I was Wonder Bread white. Not exactly worldly in my views, I knew like twelve black people and the three Vietnamese kids who were adopted after the war. The thought of having a friend who was gay never crossed my mind. I mean what would people think?
I, like many others decided to go through Greek Rush and see if I had what it took to be a “Fraternity Man”. At that time the way you looked at the organizations was to go on a round robin walk where you visited every fraternity on campus. This gave you the chance to decide which house that you wanted to pursue.
As I visited the houses I took mental notes on each one; Lamba Chi’s were stuck up and rich, Phi Delts were jocks, etc. Then I walked into the Phi Sig House. Phi Sigma Epsilon was a house full of mutts and the house was…..um, less than stellar. The green farmhouse stood out against the backdrop of brick mansions. The weird thing was that it just felt right, comfortable as an old shoe. So this was the place that I wanted to be.
Over the next few years I learned how truly different this group was. We would always profess to not be like the other fraternities. I have joked afterwards that we were the “Statue of Liberty of fraternities; give us your weak, your poor and your huddled masses.” Our similarities made us friends and our differences made us brothers.
We were accepting of nearly everyone and we had guys of all shapes and sizes. There were very wealthy brothers rooming with guys that were living on Ramen noodles. We had ROTC students and guys who followed the Dead. Our parking lot was littered with what looked like a used car lot. But somehow this socio-economic soup worked, with one small exception. We didn’t discuss that some of our brothers might be gay.
As I said, this was 1985 and some things were still a bit taboo. We accepted these guys as brothers, but we really didn’t want to question things too much. Our “Don’t ask-Don’t tell” policy seemed to work and there was peace and tranquility except for the unspoken fact that several of our brothers were living secret lives. These brothers were afraid to tell us who they really were and probably rightfully so. Who knows what the group think would have been if we would have truly “known”. I’d like to think that once again, we would have been stepped up and been different but who knows how a twenty year old me would have reacted?
Now over twenty years later, several of our brothers have come out; some in grand fashion and some in very private ways. Has it been easy? No. Have there been moments of angst? Sure. Have they gotten their fair share of barbs thrown their way? Of course, but their Phi Sigs and that’s what we do. But I’m very proud to say that they were not embraced because of being gay. They were embraced, as they always were for being one of us. Friends are friends and brothers are brothers and what makes us different makes us great.
Both time and life’s lessons have taught me that life is too short to sweat the little things. In some ways age does bring wisdom. Take time to learn and grow and change. Embrace the differences in people and learn the lessons that they bring. Your life will be much richer for it.
“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish as fools.”
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
