Glass, Roses and Steel

During rehearsal for one of Sam's plays, I told the young actors how Tommy Meriwether and I spent our summers mowing the lawn at the Chi Omega House. "The school does it now", they explained, and I was a little sad.

Mowing the lawn for the Chi Omegas usually meant mowing the lawn for all four houses since they were so close together, their lawns were small, and besides, a boy never knew where his next sweetheart might come from. It's not that I didn't date Chi Omegas girls, I did, but I was so close to all of them that it had to be on the down low, and kissing a Chi O was something of a risk because it was immediately telegraphed to the entire chapter, regardless of how well or how poorly it was received.

Since they were the ones to ask me, the Chi Os generally got credit for the whole mowed lawn thing, although I did know a phi Mu who considered their lack of lawn maintenance something of a mystery.

Deciding how much to ask Tommy Meriwether and me to do for them was sometimes a controversy among the Greek women at Millsaps. One camp believed they were there to learn to do things themselves without anyone watching over or helping them. Another camp believed that yard work was just so gross. Tommy and I were willing to do whatever needed doing. Sometimes we brought beer. Beer wasn't allowed inside the sorority cottages, but neither were sweaty boys, so it worked out.

A lot of people believed that Tommy's sister was the most cheerful person on campus, and she could be, but there was another side. I spent a great deal of time driving Susan around, trying to get her to feel better before anybody found out she didn't. Both Susan and Tommy died far too young and far too sad. I don't consider that fair.

The main job of the Chi Omega Owl Man, as far as I could tell, was listening to the things that kept a girl from being happy that they didn't want anybody else to hear. If anybody ever saw me sitting alone in the bowl with somebody, we were generally left alone because everybody knew it was her turn to be heard, and everybody needs to be heard sometimes.

Except for the ones who decided they preferred the company of other ladies, they're almost all moms now, sometimes happily, sometimes tragically. Not long ago, I learned that one of the ones I loved the most suffered in ways I never imagined when we were young. And then again later. I learned it by reading what her daughter wrote. It made me cry, if only I'd known.

Some of my stories I can only hint at because a lady deserves her privacy. I can tell you how Madolyn and Paige talked me into stealing a coffin, which nearly got us all kicked out of school. I can tell you that, but I can't tell you how one of my best friends broke Paige's heart so badly it changed her life.

One day, I told her I'd do anything to make her feel better. "You can't," she said.

A young woman's heart is made of glass, roses, and steel. I was fortunate they shared that with me in this sun dappled days before they became citizens and moms.