PKT25: Blackout
The scheduled pledge party was executed pretty much exactly like any of the other official parties we had at the fraternity. The only difference was that the pledges would be heavily involved in running the party in question.
Before we go further, we need to define a party. In any given semester, the house usually had
- one official party running from about 10pm-2am on a Friday or Saturday, complete with alcohol, DJing and a dance floor. The Social chair would organize this.
- one official party for the pledge program, which would otherwise be just like the official party. The Social chair would organize this with help from the pledges.
- one rush party (dry). In the fall semester this was usually more of a BBQ like Detour. This was a joint effort between the rush chair and the social chair. I don't remember what we did in the spring semester when it was too cold for a BBQ, maybe we didn't do a party at all.
During the summer we also would have one summer house party, which would combine the BBQ/volleyball aspects of the rush party with the alcohol and DJing of the other parties. This was usually the weekend after Independence Day weekend. The Summer House Manager would run this, although he often delegated it to an adhoc summer social chair (and by usually, I mean I certainly did when I was Summer House Manager).
For the one or two official parties, this meant that we were had a scheduled event that complied with all of Greek Life's many rules about parties and that could therefore be advertised on campus. Let's talk about some of those rules.
1. You had to have a guest list, and only people on the guest list were allowed in the party. In a fabulous example of a "letter of the law" scenario, we simply pulled a list of all undergrads from the CWRU website and printed it out. Voila, instant guest list! This was made easier because in those gentle early days of the internet the entire student directory was on the website for any logged in user, including a lot of information that would never be made public nowadays.
2. Those under 21 would be Xed on the hands, and those over braceleted. We actually did this part religiously. We usually had CWRU security standing by at the door in case we had any problems, but we usually didn't.
3. No kegs. There wasn't a keg at any of our parties while I was an undergrad. So far as I'm aware, the last time a keg was in the house was before I joined when somebody somehow stuck a full sized fridge in the Abyss that had been modified to hold a keg, but even that is just a story to me as if it happened it was long gone by the time I joined. One our seventies era alumni swung by once and proposed putting some kegerators in the Steward's Closet and running lines to the Bar, and he was really disappointed when we turned him down.
4. No hard alcohol. I'd say we amended that to "no hard alcohol in the public areas of the house." Plenty of brothers, myself included, would go up to our rooms (possibly with an attractive female guest in tow) and have a few drinks. My personal poison was Jack Daniels, which I drank in quantity, but only upstairs!
5. Theoretically, people over 21 were required to bring their own beer, which would be checked in at the bar. They'd be given tickets in return to redeem that beer. Amazingly, a few people actually brought beer this way, but pragmatically, nobody checked that closely, so the house would fund the "cheese fund" and we'd use it to buy varying levels of cheap beer to stash behind the bar. People we knew, who might rush next semester, who were attractive women or who otherwise seemed cool (and if they came to our party, clearly they must be cool) would be slipped a few tickets to redeem. When your ticket was handed in you got a plastic cup of beer in return. Soda was unlimited. The longer the party went, the worse the beer got, and the less people noticed if they'd been there the whole time!
6. Beyond that, we needed to have some sober responsible people. That list included the Social Chair, the President, and the Risk Manager. The President and Risk Manager were available to deal with problems. The Social Chair made sure people showed up for their party shifts, which included:
- Set up. This was a prime gig for older brothers who wanted to drink later.
- DJing. Assigments were handled by the stereo chair, with inexperienced DJs taking the earliest shifts and experienced DJs kicking it into high gear. My big brother Phil closed out the party when he was there, with Patti Page's I Don't Care if the Sun Don't Shine the last song on the deck to finish the night.
- IDs. Checking the guest list and the IDs.
- Bar duty. Brothers who were over 21 served beer and usually got proficient at pouring two beers into plastic cups at once.
- Stairs duty. They would keep unauthorized individuals from going upstairs. All the other entry points to the rest of the house were locked.
- Clean up. The least popular duty, by far.
7. There were also some vaguely recalled requirements about getting a party permit from Greek Life. If your chapter was in trouble you wouldn't be allowed to get a party permit. I think they may have limited the number of parties on any one night to avoid people jumping parties over and over. Or maybe they just wanted to know where the parties were in order to send CWRU security by to check them out, although we usually invited security to be there. It didn't hurt there were a couple of guys in CWRU security who were taking classes with us who usually pulled that duty and were cool about it.
You might think that this seems like a lot of overhead for a party. It seems like a lot, but we never really had any problems, and having CWRU Security around helped mitigate them. You might ask why we bothered with a big party instead of inviting a few friends over and keeping it cool? Technically, in this scenario we were supposed to call Greek Life (or Security, I forget which) to call for a "Spontaneous Party Permit" and no, I'm not making that up. I only recall us doing that once ever for a cast party for the Footlighters Musical group. Otherwise, we'd have intimate gatherings on the third floor with people we knew and trusted. Since we had a pretty healthy culture around alcohol, this mostly worked pretty well.
The Fall 1996 Pledge Party was "Blackout." It was almost something a whole heck of a lot lamer, but Neal S. had done his junior year abroad in London and did a lot of clubbing while he was there. He heard whatever theme we were contemplating and was like "oh hell, no." As it happens, in early November of that semester the house lost power for three days on what might have been the single coldest and snowiest weekend of my college tenure. As Joe (of Joe & Laura) said:
Except one snowy day when I can back early to study on that cool desk…. An hour or so into studying, I realized it was damn cold and no one was around. No cell phones back then. Finally Ducar found me with the crisis that the boiler stopped working! We had to vacate the house. I believe as risk manager and house manager we worked out with Wes (the head of Greek Life) getting the common area of Leutner Commons or somewhere similar to be “Camp Phi Kap” for 3-4 days that November 1996. I believe that was how “Black Out” was born and a great rush tool for all those north side dorms.
I cannot confirm that Neal S. took his inspiration from that incident, but I can say that for our party two weeks later he basically planned the entire party theme, including posters, decorations and every other aspect. It went off so fantastically well that we had a Blackout party every fall semester for the rest of my time in college. Blackout thus joined a small cadre of CWRU fraternity parties that recurred every year (Sigma Nu's Maze where they build a cardboard labryinth, Theta Chi's party where you could pay to hit a beater car with a sledge hammer, and that's about it), and in my humble opinion it was the best of them. We used the same basic template for all the subsequent parties of my college years to good effect. I recall Neal S. being made Social Chair for the Spring 1997 semester by acclamation and throwing a "Ministry of Sound" party which riffed on a club he'd gone to. Subsequent years included "Inferno" and other similar one or two word themes.
Of course, I barely even made it to the first Blackout even though it was MY pledge class's event. That weekend, November 16, was my last college football game, and although I didn't know it, my last football game of all time. It was away at the University of Rochester, NY. We won to finish 5-5, and I was credited with two sacks (one of which I was not on the field for!) for statistically my best game in college. We watched Tyson/Holyfield #1 on the bus on the way home. By the time we got all the way back to Cleveland on that Saturday night, the party was well under way and I was exhausted. I got over to the house and passed out on a sofa in the East Wing without having had even one underage drink. This may have been the first time I slept at the house. I woke up and helped with clean up, but that was my sole contribution to the pledge party.
The Ohio Alpha Beta Chapter of Phi Kappa Theta
The House Tour Outside,
Main Floor Bedrooms,
Main Floor Public Rooms,
Basement Public Areas,
Basement Private Areas,
2nd Floor Big Bedrooms,
2nd Floor Small Bedrooms,
3rd Floor First Hallway,
3rd Floor Second Hallway,
Attic & Errata,
House Tour Commentary: Joe & Laura & Astrid,
House Tour Commentary: Jackal,
House Tour Commentary: Susan,
House Tour Commentary: Assorted
The Pledge Program Schedule, Curriculum & Black Books, Big Brothers & Pledge Pins, Paddling
Semesters Fall 1996
Events Detour, Blackout
Other Full Series, My Rush Experience, Chapter History, Family Trees
Commentary Black Books
Before we go further, we need to define a party. In any given semester, the house usually had
- one official party running from about 10pm-2am on a Friday or Saturday, complete with alcohol, DJing and a dance floor. The Social chair would organize this.
- one official party for the pledge program, which would otherwise be just like the official party. The Social chair would organize this with help from the pledges.
- one rush party (dry). In the fall semester this was usually more of a BBQ like Detour. This was a joint effort between the rush chair and the social chair. I don't remember what we did in the spring semester when it was too cold for a BBQ, maybe we didn't do a party at all.
During the summer we also would have one summer house party, which would combine the BBQ/volleyball aspects of the rush party with the alcohol and DJing of the other parties. This was usually the weekend after Independence Day weekend. The Summer House Manager would run this, although he often delegated it to an adhoc summer social chair (and by usually, I mean I certainly did when I was Summer House Manager).
For the one or two official parties, this meant that we were had a scheduled event that complied with all of Greek Life's many rules about parties and that could therefore be advertised on campus. Let's talk about some of those rules.
1. You had to have a guest list, and only people on the guest list were allowed in the party. In a fabulous example of a "letter of the law" scenario, we simply pulled a list of all undergrads from the CWRU website and printed it out. Voila, instant guest list! This was made easier because in those gentle early days of the internet the entire student directory was on the website for any logged in user, including a lot of information that would never be made public nowadays.
2. Those under 21 would be Xed on the hands, and those over braceleted. We actually did this part religiously. We usually had CWRU security standing by at the door in case we had any problems, but we usually didn't.
3. No kegs. There wasn't a keg at any of our parties while I was an undergrad. So far as I'm aware, the last time a keg was in the house was before I joined when somebody somehow stuck a full sized fridge in the Abyss that had been modified to hold a keg, but even that is just a story to me as if it happened it was long gone by the time I joined. One our seventies era alumni swung by once and proposed putting some kegerators in the Steward's Closet and running lines to the Bar, and he was really disappointed when we turned him down.
4. No hard alcohol. I'd say we amended that to "no hard alcohol in the public areas of the house." Plenty of brothers, myself included, would go up to our rooms (possibly with an attractive female guest in tow) and have a few drinks. My personal poison was Jack Daniels, which I drank in quantity, but only upstairs!
5. Theoretically, people over 21 were required to bring their own beer, which would be checked in at the bar. They'd be given tickets in return to redeem that beer. Amazingly, a few people actually brought beer this way, but pragmatically, nobody checked that closely, so the house would fund the "cheese fund" and we'd use it to buy varying levels of cheap beer to stash behind the bar. People we knew, who might rush next semester, who were attractive women or who otherwise seemed cool (and if they came to our party, clearly they must be cool) would be slipped a few tickets to redeem. When your ticket was handed in you got a plastic cup of beer in return. Soda was unlimited. The longer the party went, the worse the beer got, and the less people noticed if they'd been there the whole time!
6. Beyond that, we needed to have some sober responsible people. That list included the Social Chair, the President, and the Risk Manager. The President and Risk Manager were available to deal with problems. The Social Chair made sure people showed up for their party shifts, which included:
- Set up. This was a prime gig for older brothers who wanted to drink later.
- DJing. Assigments were handled by the stereo chair, with inexperienced DJs taking the earliest shifts and experienced DJs kicking it into high gear. My big brother Phil closed out the party when he was there, with Patti Page's I Don't Care if the Sun Don't Shine the last song on the deck to finish the night.
- IDs. Checking the guest list and the IDs.
- Bar duty. Brothers who were over 21 served beer and usually got proficient at pouring two beers into plastic cups at once.
- Stairs duty. They would keep unauthorized individuals from going upstairs. All the other entry points to the rest of the house were locked.
- Clean up. The least popular duty, by far.
7. There were also some vaguely recalled requirements about getting a party permit from Greek Life. If your chapter was in trouble you wouldn't be allowed to get a party permit. I think they may have limited the number of parties on any one night to avoid people jumping parties over and over. Or maybe they just wanted to know where the parties were in order to send CWRU security by to check them out, although we usually invited security to be there. It didn't hurt there were a couple of guys in CWRU security who were taking classes with us who usually pulled that duty and were cool about it.
You might think that this seems like a lot of overhead for a party. It seems like a lot, but we never really had any problems, and having CWRU Security around helped mitigate them. You might ask why we bothered with a big party instead of inviting a few friends over and keeping it cool? Technically, in this scenario we were supposed to call Greek Life (or Security, I forget which) to call for a "Spontaneous Party Permit" and no, I'm not making that up. I only recall us doing that once ever for a cast party for the Footlighters Musical group. Otherwise, we'd have intimate gatherings on the third floor with people we knew and trusted. Since we had a pretty healthy culture around alcohol, this mostly worked pretty well.
The Fall 1996 Pledge Party was "Blackout." It was almost something a whole heck of a lot lamer, but Neal S. had done his junior year abroad in London and did a lot of clubbing while he was there. He heard whatever theme we were contemplating and was like "oh hell, no." As it happens, in early November of that semester the house lost power for three days on what might have been the single coldest and snowiest weekend of my college tenure. As Joe (of Joe & Laura) said:
Except one snowy day when I can back early to study on that cool desk…. An hour or so into studying, I realized it was damn cold and no one was around. No cell phones back then. Finally Ducar found me with the crisis that the boiler stopped working! We had to vacate the house. I believe as risk manager and house manager we worked out with Wes (the head of Greek Life) getting the common area of Leutner Commons or somewhere similar to be “Camp Phi Kap” for 3-4 days that November 1996. I believe that was how “Black Out” was born and a great rush tool for all those north side dorms.
I cannot confirm that Neal S. took his inspiration from that incident, but I can say that for our party two weeks later he basically planned the entire party theme, including posters, decorations and every other aspect. It went off so fantastically well that we had a Blackout party every fall semester for the rest of my time in college. Blackout thus joined a small cadre of CWRU fraternity parties that recurred every year (Sigma Nu's Maze where they build a cardboard labryinth, Theta Chi's party where you could pay to hit a beater car with a sledge hammer, and that's about it), and in my humble opinion it was the best of them. We used the same basic template for all the subsequent parties of my college years to good effect. I recall Neal S. being made Social Chair for the Spring 1997 semester by acclamation and throwing a "Ministry of Sound" party which riffed on a club he'd gone to. Subsequent years included "Inferno" and other similar one or two word themes.
Of course, I barely even made it to the first Blackout even though it was MY pledge class's event. That weekend, November 16, was my last college football game, and although I didn't know it, my last football game of all time. It was away at the University of Rochester, NY. We won to finish 5-5, and I was credited with two sacks (one of which I was not on the field for!) for statistically my best game in college. We watched Tyson/Holyfield #1 on the bus on the way home. By the time we got all the way back to Cleveland on that Saturday night, the party was well under way and I was exhausted. I got over to the house and passed out on a sofa in the East Wing without having had even one underage drink. This may have been the first time I slept at the house. I woke up and helped with clean up, but that was my sole contribution to the pledge party.
The Ohio Alpha Beta Chapter of Phi Kappa Theta
The House Tour Outside,
Main Floor Bedrooms,
Main Floor Public Rooms,
Basement Public Areas,
Basement Private Areas,
2nd Floor Big Bedrooms,
2nd Floor Small Bedrooms,
3rd Floor First Hallway,
3rd Floor Second Hallway,
Attic & Errata,
House Tour Commentary: Joe & Laura & Astrid,
House Tour Commentary: Jackal,
House Tour Commentary: Susan,
House Tour Commentary: Assorted
The Pledge Program Schedule, Curriculum & Black Books, Big Brothers & Pledge Pins, Paddling
Semesters Fall 1996
Events Detour, Blackout
Other Full Series, My Rush Experience, Chapter History, Family Trees
Commentary Black Books