Your Stories

Personal Stories or Experiences from your college days.
Comments may be Emailed to the Site Administrator on the CONTACT US page. Submissions are screened before inclusion on this page.
Send more stuff!

Mike Clark #22

My Pledge Brother

September 1961 at Chapel Hill attending the State-Carolina game, my date from WC was biased for Carolina. She dated frequently at the frat's in Chapel Hill. This was her first experience with a "State" man. Sitting in the stands with the Sig Ep group, I was afraid she might embarrass me, God forbid, and root for Carolina. Waiting for the kickoff, I told her one of my pledge brothers played for the Wolfpack, and he usually returns the kickoff. "His number is 22" I said. "Wasn't that Charlie Justice's number?" she replied. (I'm thinking that's probably all she knew about football). State won the toss and elected to receive. Carolina kicked off with a deep kick, and non other than Mike Clark proceeded down field 83 yards for a touchdown! The State fans went wild, jumping up and down, spilling our drinks. Miss Priss from WC didn't seem too happy; not sure she ever stood up. That was her last visit to the Sig Ep house.  Gray Steifel

Submitted by Jim Buie

     I was the house manager, but it really meant I was a plumbing contractor. I unstopped toilets, fixed the showers, and other unpleasantries associated with the job. I was rewarded with a free room...so I couldn't complain.
     Life was so beautiful back then..we wore shirts and ties to all ballgames, sang songs to girls at Meredith under their dorm windows, danced with the red pole in the basement with the juke box playing sea cruise or one of the other 50 or so songs. My bedroom first floor was just over the juke box..it was a multipurpose room. I was not in the bed much, as I spent countless nights at the design school working on projects. That room doubled as a coat room during parties.
     In the basement I remember the "ledge" where as pledges, we would be stretched out and our mouths filled with mayonaisse...yuk. ...Or standing with another pledge face to face with a mouth full of water and an alka seltzer tablet..with the imminent explosion.
     Speaking of explosions, I managed to decimate the chemistry lab in Withers Hall one day. It sent me and five others to the hospital..blew out the windows, knocked lights off of the ceiling, and destroyed the lab. I mixed potassium chlorate and red phosphorus separated by a small amount of sulphur. When I shook it up..BLAM!!!  That is also where I met Jim Hooks..he was walking in as I was being dragged out into the hallway bleeding like a stuck pig. The explosion knocked me about 10 feet. To this day, every once in a while I feel a bump on my chest and pull out a piece of glass from the test tube.
     I also got bit by a black widow spider behind the "Hut"...wasn't pretty at all. The finger it bit swelled up so big I thought it would explode. Another trip to the hospital. Does anyone remember Mary and Martha Kelly? I won't elaborate. Did Sunshine ever graduate? I can see him now...khaky pants, white shirt and london fog jacket. With a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, with not a worry in the world. I remember ordering something like 50 pizzas from the Profile before a football game. They were to be ready after the game. It blew Bernie's mind.. but he delivered. Unfortunately they were cold.
     Remember Siewart's Rocket 88 Olds.. I thought he would end up driving in stock car races, but he ended up in nuclear physics. Remember the Embers. They were cheap back then. I believe they are still playing.

I remember....
***Sigma Pi's launching wet newspapers at our house from across the street with a giant slingshot made from a few bicycle innertubes attached to the columns on their front porch. They would pull it back thru the living room window and launch the wet paper across the street. I'm not sure they ever got one all the way to the house, but very close.

***awakening one night in the upper bunk of the bedroom above the juke box. Someone was making mad passionate love on the lower bunk beneath me. They didn't see me because I was covered up with coats people tossed up there. It was the coat room everybody used when we had a party in the winter. I was out from design school fatigue. Won’t mention names.

***the old 46 chevy, I think, that Johnny DuPlessis left at the rear parking lot? We got it running somehow, and had timed races around the block. I think Faust won, but he almost tore the car up coming up the back driveway at about 30mph.

***Bill Thornton was the ultimate pole dancer in the house. He also needed money one night and brought a white shirt in my room. He said he was broke and needed money. I gave him $2 for it, only to find out later that it was MY shirt.
 
***For dating money, we used to go regularly to Rex Hospital on Friday afternoons and give blood. They paid us $25 for a pint. Enough for a nice date and dinner.

***I think one of the most disheartning sights I ever witnessed was going in the house on Frat Row in the early 70's and noticing that almost all the composites had been destroyed, stolen, or mutilated beyond recognition. There was absolutely no "pride of place" exhibited in the whole house. Brother's rooms looked like a hog pen. Couches in the living room were torn, broken and mostly unusable, and the place was a total disaster. And this was on a weekday, not just after a party. They had a male grad student as housemother??? What on earth happened to the spirit of Sigma Phi Epsilon in that ten year span?
End Jim Buie

Unforgettable Wake-Up Call

Playing basketball in the back yard on Clark Ave., Billy Boles, wearing hard boots, kicked my big toe so hard it turned blue and swelled up like a balloon. My roomy Joe-I Middleton slept on a lower bunk under me. I could never wake up in the morning so when Joe's alarm clock went off, the first thing he did was to reach up and grab my big toe and twist it till I woke up.

I felt so bad with my throbbing big toe that I went to bed early that night and forgot to leave him a note about my toe. The ever faithful Joe-I didn't forget to wake me up the next morning. As he twisted my swollen toe, my head damn near went through the bunk above me, and then I thought I had a concussion to go along with my swollen toe. I will never forget that experience.
Jim Hooks

The Wagner to Hooks Fumble

We were playing Sigma Nu for the football championship. Receiving the kick off, the plan was for Mike Wagoner to receive the ball and hand off to me on a reverse. We bobbled the ball on the hand off and it barely grazed the grass but nobody saw it including the referee and I went untouched for the touchdown which would have given us the championship. We were all celebrating. Art Houk (a coach in charge of the intramural program) who was watching from the sidelines, came over and spoke to the referee. He informed the referee to call the play back even though the referee didn't see the fumble nor anybody from Sigma Nu. His meddling cost us the football championship that year and Wagoner and I still tease each other about who screwed up the hand off.    Jim Hooks

Meet My Mom and Dad

Long ago when there was a Sig Ep "hut" behind 2512 Clark Avenue, there once lived a guy from High Point the brothers called "Charlie Brown". One Saturday, he was blessed with the first visit from his parents, who strolling down the driveway with "CB" encountered Billie Joe Boles. CB said "BJ", I'd like you to meet my parents and BJ said in polite King NC fashion, "it's good to meet you , Mr. & Mrs. Brown.". That assured the nickname for the rest of my stay at NCS !! My SPE fraternity intramural bowling shirt was appropriately embroidered on the front pocket with "CB" to tell the other fraternity opposition that BJ Boles had it right ! And this same Billy Boles became a General in the Air Force!  George "CB" Setzer-'63