Leaderboard

Over the years, the internet has clued me as to how significant a person's essence is. Time and time again in various venues, I have interacted with strangers identified solely by a screen name and represented only by an avatar. Such encounters verify that how individuals look in person has nothing to do with whether they are smart or dumb, boring or interesting, phony or genuine. It's all about the inner spirit that transcends the physical and comes across. Of course beauty is only skin deep, but it takes your eyes a while to acquire x-ray vision. In the process you might just become a better looking person; literally.

Waaaay back during my youthful excursion into the college scene, me and my small clique of high school girlfriends decided we would attend the U of Illinois. We were persuaded to pass up a chance to be among the first black coeds to integrate womens' housing on this campus and, instead, we accepted an invitation from another friend to take up residence at the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority house which was anxious to fill up its rooms in order to stay float. As an aside, during this time, this chapter(Gamma) was the only black one in the entire country to actually have a sorority house. The rest of the AKA chapters and other black sororities had to make-do with whatever living quarters and accomodations they could find for meetings and activities. In contrast to the large palatial mansions that were occupied by the white sororites, the home of the AKAs was a 3-story ramshackle old frame house, with just adequate facilities. If you weren't already an AKA member(soror), in order to live here, you had to join what was called the "Ivy Leaf" interest group. After being a member of this club for a year, and if your grades were passing, you could then be upgraded to the rank of "pledge", after which you would go through a intense interval that culminated in the hell week designed to degrade and break you down in order to make you over in the image of womanhood that this organization represented. Once you got through this ordeal, you were ready to be lifted up and initiated into the sorority. The year I spent in these Spartan circumstances was interesting, to say the least, mostly because "Ivies", as we were called, were expected to be humble and submissive, to perform menial chores, and to regard our "big sisters" as the role models we wanted to emulate. Unfortunately, I was not inspired to embrace this attitude and at the end of the year I was told that I would not be invited back and would undoubtedly fare better living elsewhere. Elsewhere turned out to be one of the large luxurious women's dormitories, that included maid service and being served by waiters and watresses in the spacious dining room. The encounters and adventures I experienced in the dorm's diverse setting during a transistional time in America's racial relations taught me lessons that benefited me throughout my life. Years, later I ran into one of my ex-big sisters and we recalled this incident. She chuckled and told me that a couple of the sorors had actually admired my spunk and rebellousness. But it was a unanimous decision to kick me out because I didn't fit the mold... The Kappas and Alphas and "Qs" also had chapters and houses on the U. of Illinois campus at this time. Then, there were those who skipped the frats and referred to themselves as "GDIs" - god damned independents. They were always the most interesting guys; edgy and free-spirited. But, yeah, the Kappas had the best parties!