[24323] in APO-L
Re: [APO-L] Toast Song
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Robert Dean)
Tue May 25 23:24:22 2004
Date: Tue, 25 May 2004 23:24:18 -0400
Reply-To: Robert Dean <rdean71@comcast.net>
From: Robert Dean <rdean71@comcast.net>
To: APO-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
In-Reply-To: <5B526011BAC3D511BFBA00B0D020615A05616B16@excsrv-acd1.pomona.edu>
Christopher Stromberg wrote:
> I have been a part of 13 pledge semesters at two different schools (one in
> the Mid-West, one on the West Coast). I can tell you FOR A FACT that we
> have lost potential members to this issue. Some of them would have been
> loyal and true Brothers, if we had only not turned them away with the
> language that we use. They believed in the same principles that we did, but
> they could not get past the language, which they saw as disrespectful to
> them.
>
> Yes, we tried explaining the history to them. Yes, we used our own version
> of the Toast Song. No, we were NOT willing to give up singing the Toast
> Song, as it is a crucial part of our Brotherhood. And so we lost them.
Be careful when blaming all such lost opportunities on the Toast Song.
I've found in my experience that people I thought would be loyal & true
Brothers sometimes miss the mark, and people who I thought would be
skaters, or active-but-not-outstanding Brothers, rise to the highest
levels of APO enlightenment. There is no guarantee that the people who
dropped would be loyal & true Brothers (it's easy to brainstorm reasons
why they wouldn't)...however, it is fair to say that we won't ever know.
In the end, I would suggest that one of the most important things for a
member to grasp on the path to being a loyal & true Brother is that
there is a difference between what APO is and the individual things it
does. The Toast Song, for example, is something we do as part of our
heritage...it is not who we are.
LFS,
Robert Dean
Omega Epsilon / Theta Epsilon Alumnus
