38 Years

That’s how long it’s been since I saw my fraternity brothers who attended what was billed as the 35th reunion of the Delta-Delta-Tau (DDT). I won’t bother to explain why they picked 35, it’s not important. What is important is that this group of guys from a local, not a national fraternity, developed such a strong bond of fellowship and brotherhood that after all these years they had to get together again. The first reunion was 5 years ago—I missed that one because I couldn’t travel due to my back problems. That first reunion developed out of the realization that we were all aging and the get togethers that would likely start occurring would be for sad reasons. So a few of the brothers decided to get as many of the brothers together as they could. They enjoyed that first reunion so much they decided to have one this year—to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Florida Institute of Technology (FIT) or Florida Tech.

The primary movers and attendees at the reunion were mostly from the pledge class that joined the fraternity in my senior year at the school or later, so I didn’t know everyone. The reunion provided an opportunity to meet those and reacquaint myself with the others.

Penny and I were welcomed from the moment we arrived at the hotel. I hadn’t even reached the check-in counter before we were shaking hands and trying to recognize who we were talking to. It was difficult to recognize some, easy for others. I liken it to a baby. When Sophie, for example, was born her basic Sophie face was there but hard to recognize. In the case of a baby the face forms over the first year or so and all the recognizable features remain for many years to come. If you are around someone frequently as they age you still see them in that face. If not, as with the case of all these people, it is like the newborn baby thing in reverse. The basic face is there but on many it takes some discerning to see it. Add to that the fact that I didn’t sit down with a yearbook and prime myself with everyone’s name. It was a fun experience.

The first thing I found was I had forgotten that we had a fraternity handshake. Since this was a group of people in their late 50s and early 60s there wasn’t much in the way of ego issues or trying to show one was doing better than the other. We are all too old to concern ourselves with those trivial matters. We have a better understanding now about what is important and what a unique gift each of us is.

A number of the brothers had sick or aging parents they are caring for. One brother has early onset Alzheimer’s. There were 8 to 10 couples that met in school and were still married. There were also those working on 2nd, 3rd or 4th wives.

I was happiest to se my big brother at the reunion. He was the smart, easy-going type and married while still in school. We all doubted the marriage would work but it did. Like me he had a low draft number and like me he signed up to join the Air Force. Unlike me he passed his draft physical and actually served a full Air Force career. It turned out that we both were happy to see one another and ended up sitting together at both the banquets we attended. This was the guy who loaned me a guitar when I was a pledge and tried to teach me to play “With a Little Help From My Friends”. He assigned me the task of serenading a neighborhood high school girl with that song. She had a crush on me. She would play tennis at the college tennis courts which was also where the motorcycle parking area was. She saw me when I parked my motorcycle. I never did the serenade. Nobody clued the girl in and there was no set schedule to her appearance—so I got away without having to do it.

When I left school I gave my motorcycle to one of my brothers who needed transportation. I wondered if he ever got good use out of it. I found out that he did. He didn't remember who gave it to him but when I asked him if he used it his eyes went wide and he said "It was you!" He had just been talking about it with another brother at the banquet. He said he used it his whole senior year and then gave it to someone else when he left.

There is a lot more I could write about the weekend but this is already too long. Maybe I’ll add some tomorrow. The bottom line is that it was an amazing weekend. When It came time to say good-bye I found myself getting misty eyed and even shedding a few tears. I’m never good at good-byes especially when I know I may never see these folks again. They were only in my life for a couple of years but my life was changed because of this group of guys. This group was also responsible for bringing Penny and I together—but that’s another story.