Our Journal:
LUKE: Entry for 11/6 thru 11/7. This week was a short week so my teachers see this and decide “We need to give them enough work for a 5 day week isntead of 3.” So I’ve been very busy with not only schoolwork but also this is a fairly important time for my game. This is because on midnight Monday the “season” ends and you can no longer climb up the competitive ladder for that season. I want to get the highest rank of diamond but I’m fairly far away so I have been very busy with that and schoolwork.
RICK: We had a big crowd in Bowling Green for Homecoming at WKU. By that, I mean we had a gang of my PiKA fraternity brothers converging on campus. We came with our graying hair, growing waistlines and either our 1st, 2nd or 3rd wives, girlfriends or just our selves. And we hung out, calling each other by nicknames earned in college — “Otis, my man!” — and telling all of those not in on the jokes how crazy we were three decades ago.
We saw the new Pike house, a structure way cooler than the ramshackle place we remembered at 1366 College Street. Oddly, there was a composite photo from my freshman year on the wall, so we had to rush over and take pictures. As current students rushed by us in front of Diddle, we ate and drank at a tailgate party, stopping people we knew on the way in. We watched the Hilltoppers conquer UTEP in exciting fashion in a fancy, half-empty stadium. I can’t understand what it is people in Bowling Green do that they don’t fill this wonderful place up 6 times a year. And they sell beer at the games.
There were 35 of us at dinner in downtown Bowling Green. Conversations weren’t about what we’re doing with our lives, but what we did in our college lives. We talked about the dozens of brothers who didn’t make this trip, and what all those guys were doing. And we hugged each other, laughed and told stories on each other. We replayed embarrassing escapades I can’t imagine any of the current Pikes doing.
When I was pledging back in the fall of 1978, I remember being impressed by what some alumnus told me — enjoy your college years because it’s the only time in your life you can drink like an alcoholic and not be called one — and that the guys you’re living with in the fraternity will be in your life until you die. Truth.
