Years ago, (actually, many years ago), I was a couple of years off the farm and fully immersed in the chaos of navigating a full time job, part time college, and fraternity social functions every chance I could get.
It certainly wasn’t planned that way. Especially the fraternity part. That came in what was most definitely a “non-traditional” path into collegiate Greek life.
The summer between Senior year of high school and Freshman year of college was spent between field work, running my hay hauling business, and when possible, meeting up with my buddy and taking off on our motorcycles for some back road exploring and trail riding.
One July evening with the last bale stacked and rain predicted the next couple of days I was sitting on the back steps dumping the hay out of my boots looking forward to a weekend trip to Kansas City. Then the phone rang and mom popped her head out the screen door to tell me it was the guy who’d been calling for the past couple of weeks to talk to me about joining his fraternity.
I asked her to just tell him I wasn’t there but instead got “no, he just keeps calling so you’re going to talk to him”. So, there I was in dad’s office chair picking up the phone “hello, appreciate you calling but I’m not joining any fraternity”. But he was persistent and by the time I hung up I’d agreed to attend their party. The morning after, I’m driving to Kansas City a “pledge” and wondering what in the H.E. double L I’d just committed to.
There was also the nagging question that wouldn’t go away: why me? Why the persistence in recruiting a farm kid from Podunk USA?
Turns out I wasn’t the only “non-traditional” recruit that year. Turns out that what the local chapter thought was an adequate GPA didn’t match what the national organization deemed adequate.
Turns out that a computer printout of incoming freshman (complete with their high school GPA’s) magically appeared in the house library. The phone calls began, the pledge cards got signed, and by May the house cumulative GPA was heading back up.
Why the “how I wound up in a fraternity” lead in?
Because with that one single event my path changed. And without that change, I would have never met the most extraordinary man I’d ever know.
Enter Ed, alumni advisor from national sent to help the local chapter get back on its feet. While his politics were definitely of the liberal college professor brand, he was never condescending or arrogant about them. And as time went on when he came into town for a consultation there would be at least one evening at the local hangout spent going back and forth on politics and policies.
To outsiders it must have looked like we hated each other. To us, it was pure joy.
He from the left, me from the right. Each fully convinced that our position was the correct position. The entire evening was peppered with “yes, but”, “ok, I’ll cede you that, but…”, “oh for Christ’s sake, really? You’re using that?”.
That Ronald Reagan was the current occupant of the Oval Office just added to the intensity. (If you think Donald Trump is the first President to be viscerally hated, you weren’t around for Reagan.)
When last call came around it was always the same. Neither had been forced into unconditional surrender, neither was able to claim total victory. And the kicker? We couldn’t wait for the next bout.
Sadly, cancer came and Ed never got to see that “B actor impersonating a President” give his farewell speech.
Why 600 words re-telling a 40 year old story?
Because this country is in dire need of more lanky farm kids and stocky college professors landing blow after blow on a Saturday night and never once leaving as enemies.
One last thing about Ed: He may have been left on his politics, but he loved his country. He argued not out of hate towards my side, but from belief in his own. He didn’t like Reagan, but never did he express the “if only Hinckley had been a better shot” mentality that so many hold today.
We may have been on opposite sides of the political aisle, but when it came to history and what those founding debates and arguments created, there was not one word of dissent between us.
We’ve forgotten how to debate without hate. To argue without arrogance.
In his 1838 Lyceum address Abraham Lincoln warned: “If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”
So whaddya say? Do we live or die? Bar’s open. And the first round’s on me.
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