ALPHA DELTA EPSILON (#54): My last three semesters at St. Petersburg Junior College (SPJC) were some of the most fun times of my life. No worries, no stress, no need to study, great friends, and always a party! Nothing compared until life in San Miguel de Allende with the Cast Of Characters before the Pandemic.
With no national fraternities or sororities, the students had made up their own. There were three fraternities and only two sororities so when we made up a fourth fraternity, ADE, we were unpopular with all the “In crowd”. I had made it through an unbelievably brutal hazing period during my first semester and was an officer of an existing fraternity. Most of our new pledges were friends of mine from high school.
When very aptly named “Hell Week” started, I didn’t want to beat my friends with paddles until their butts bled, or make them exercise until they puked. Once the puking started, things got worse. Eat that Crisco sandwich, drink that bottle of cod liver oil, fill that falsie up with Tabasco sauce and rub it on your balls.
After the first night of Hell Week, Bill Bozeman knocked on my bedroom window and I went out to talk. “Scott, this is bullshit. We should start our own fraternity with no hazing!” He was right, so I took the pledge class and we started ADE.
I never actually got beat up as I had expected, but my old frat sent the two biggest guys guys to our house to get back my jersey. They waited by their car while I went to get it. Things were really tense. To their credit, no punches were thrown, only curses. When I went back inside, my Dad was standing by the front door with his .357 magnum in his hand. “Thanks for having my back Dad!”
We went to see an attorney and registered ADE as a nonprofit corporation. We picked our colors, even ordered ties. We wrote and signed a pledge. Then we partied. A party for the Apollo 11 landing, a Toga party, a Roaring 20’s party, a party at the roller skating rink where we all skated against the crowd until we were asked to behave. An Easter weekend beach party in 1969 where twenty of us, including our dates, were arrested for possession of a case of beer.
My Dad was an antique gun collector and always kept cash on hand. He had enough cash to bail out most of us, then we rounded up the cash to get the rest out. Just before the cops came my date told me her parents were out of town and suggested we go back to her house. I wanted to stay a little longer. She had just turned 21, I was still 18. She was arrested for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Even though the charges against all of us were eventually dropped, that was our last date. Thereafter, I had to contribute to my own delinquency.
Our first party was a Hairy Buffalo at an older house on Emerson Avenue that was rented by the girl friend of one of the original brothers. If you aren’t familiar with a Hairy Buffalo, it is a delicious fruit punch consisting of Hawaiian punch, grain alcohol, vodka, and lots of lemon and orange slices. After we took our dates home we all came back and finished off the 5 gallon water cooler full of punch. When we got to the bottom, someone started throwing the fruit slices. Fruit fight! We’d clean up in the morning, and went to sleep on the couches or the floor.
We were still asleep when there was a knock on the door at 7:00 am. Uh-oh, the landlord. Double Uh-oh, the landlord was a Sergeant with the St. Petersburg Police Department! Luckily, Sergeant Hartley was a great guy. He asked to see Liz and her roommate, and made it clear he wanted the mess cleaned up and he didn’t want a mess like this again. He also did not want the neighbors to call the police again!
For as long as I can remember, someone in ADE always rented that house on Emerson Avenue.
Sergeant Hartley played on our softball team for part of the first season. In his last game, he was on first base when the next batter hit into a double play. The short stop caught the ball, tossed it to the second baseman. Sergeant Hartley was a big man and perhaps a little too old to slide into second. As the second baseman made his pivot to throw to first base for the next out, he released the ball right into the Sergeant’s forehead. This was softball, but Sergeant Hartley was still knocked out briefly and into permanent retirement from softball.
When we had our first pledge class, there was no hazing, but we did scare the hell out of our pledges. I don’t know how he did it, but Bill Bozeman really came through. ROAD TRIP. We took the pledges to St. Petersburg International Airport and out on the tarmac to a regional airliner.
We took the pledges’ money and wallets and they boarded the plane, where they were greeted by the pilot, co-pilot, and a flight attendant. The Fasten Seat Belt sign lit up. The pilot came over the intercom asking them to buckle up and announced that they would be leaving shortly for a one way flight to Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, where they would deplane. Bill told the pledges not to worry, since it was Friday night they would have plenty of time to hitchhike back to St. Petersburg in time for Monday classes.
We got off the plane, the door closed, and the engines started. When the door opened 15 minutes later, the pledges were still wide-eyed as they came down the boarding stairs, “We really thought you were going to leave us in Atlanta with no walls and no money.”
Tomorrow we’ll get into the Topless Car Wash and the No-hitter. Here are photos from the Initiation Banquet for our first Pledge Class, and a group photo from Friday night of our 15 year Reunion Banquet. Also a photo from our Toga party at Civilian Hall and from the Saturday night Toga Party at our house for the 15 year Reunion. And a photo of another get together at the beach. What a great group of friends, a band of brothers!