“I pledged at Delta Chi during my first year at Michigan, 1970, with all the wide-eyed naiveté of any freshman. I was assigned West Quad that year with a random assortment of students who had varied backgrounds and interests. As we bonded and started to think about next year’s housing situation, we looked into fraternities as a possibility. None of us could know at the time that we would nearly all pledge Delta Chi and form bonds that would last many more years, transcending the simple need for shelter.
My years at Delta Chi were filled with both good and difficult times. We struggled through rough financial times at the house, dealing with low levels of brothers living within it, a difficult economy for many of us individually, and austere budgets. However, we also had the friendship and camaraderie that brotherhood provides.
A memoir of this sort has to originate with an individual, but it should focus on the collective memories of the times:
• Frank Morrey ’64’s periodic flights into town (along with the obligatory case of beer he would bring to the house)
• All-night bridge games in the card room when, clearly, our time would have been better spent studying
• Continual renovation of the house, including building the upper dorm to house a particularly large pledge class and the conversion of the back porch (where I personally lived)
• Wondering exactly how long “DML” would have the garage for his corvette
• Live exercises in physics when the snow was deep enough to tray off the roof from the upper dorm
• Whales tales, a verbal precursor (with beer) of beer pong, or the video games that hadn’t yet been invented
• Football road trips to Purdue and staying at the Delta Chi house there, or with the family of the late Brother Richard Crane ’73
• The morning contest to see who could get the Daily first, with the rights to do the crossword puzzle
• Sherba’s (Steve Cherba ’73, one of our brothers who played trumpet in the MMBand) late night returns from band practice, JT Levinson’73 dragging his Lacrosse gear up the stairs and John “AJ” Mardinly ’72’s lute to set “the mood” for lady visitors
• JR’s cooking and trying to be first in line for the chocolate chip cookies
• And, of course, as always, The Bond at organized meals.
I have other more personal memories of those years leading up to graduation in 1974. I met and married Bonnie Hewens, a Chi Delphia, and we had two children (David and Sarah) until we divorced in 1991. She and the children still live in the Fort Lauderdale area and we stay in close touch because we have two beautiful grandchildren, Alexa and Adriana.
I’ve worked in Hospitals and Healthcare 40 years since getting my MBA from Eastern Michigan University in 1977, and my spouse, Eleanor, and I plan our retirement within the year. I’ve been a CFO for a number of organizations across the country –some for profit publicly traded companies and some non-profit organizations. Everywhere we’ve been we’ve found Michigan Alumni in general and occasionally a Delta Chi Brother.
I am a runner and when we moved to Colorado Springs I went to a race downtown. Seeing someone with a Michigan sweatshirt on, I decided to approach him, and the closer I got the more I realized I knew that person—Frank Morrey! That was the first time I had seen he and his wife, Colleen, in probably 20 years. That next year Ken Brier ’72 and Patty moved to town with their horses. It’s a small world when you’re a Delta Chi!
These 40 career years have left a trail of friends and acquaintances with whom I check in regularly, but it doesn’t compare to the ability to ‘drop in’ on a brother as we did to Hassen Baghai ’73 when we went to Boston a few years ago. Or more remotely to find out that another local (Miami) CFO is a Delta Chi from Auburn University. The years we spend here create a bond that is more enduring than most.
We visited the house for the last time a couple years ago, just before the tear-down and the replacement fund began. The original house is no longer there, but its spirit still is. Many of us have come and gone, but the memories will always endure. The replacement house will be newer and better and the brothers who live there will sing “The Bond” with a different tenor and style (no rapping please!) but we all know their experiences will be both good and bad, as were ours, and that The Bond will endure.”
If any brothers would like to reach out to Gary, they can do so at [email protected] or at 505-301-1177.
