The KA Handshake
Guys who go to Ole Miss sometimes become more active in their fraternity as an alum than they were as an undergraduate. At Millsaps, especially at the Alpha Mu chapter of Kappa Alpha Order, it’s just the opposite. For the most part, most of us just say, “hey, I’m outta the nest, it’s your turn to run things, bud.”
I honestly don’t remember seeing Bill Goodman or Wayne Ferrall at the KA house, ever. Bill was at Millsaps almost as much as my dad, but neither of them stopped by the KA house, even though they were brothers. As a child, he broke his arm riding a mule at Millsaps. His mom taught English there. Students who live in the Goodman House dorm never really know just how deep that well goes, but I do. It was part of my childhood, and his.
My father and grandfather came to the KA house one single time, to see me initiated. Daddy was chairman of the board most of my life, and at Millsaps several times a week, but his attitude, like Bill Goodman, Cecil Jenkins, and Weir Conner, was that the active chapter should look after its own business. Part of the value in fraternities is that you learn to handle things. Things like paying the bills, repairing the broken windows, and keeping the bathrooms clean. Basic stuff, but people just moving out of mom’s house might not have done it before.
To be fair, we learned things we oughtn’t too, like “how to fire a cannon”, “What’s the best way to hit people with bottle rockets”, “how to steal a coffin” and “how many empty beer kegs can we keep on the porch till Pat starts demanding we return them so he can get the deposit back.”
I tell people how we used to play human-sized Donkey Kong, rolling the empty beer kegs we collected down the hill, and getting drunks to jump over them, but it’s a pretty hard story to believe—unless you were there. Sadly, the king of human-sized Donkey Kong, and the inventor of the game, died a few years ago. Wherever you are, Ken, we love you.
If I’m honest, the stolen coffin thing has more to do with Chi Omega than KA, as Paige and Madolyn talked me into it because Janie talked them into it, and we stole the coffins from the KA house. Explaining all this to Stuart Good, so we don’t all go on social probation or get expelled, was complicated, but as neither KA nor Chi Omega was all that offended, and the coffins were returned, I think he figured “no harm, no foul.” As to why there was a small collection of coffins hidden under the KA house, your guess is as good as mine. As many weird things as I know, I have no idea where they come from. I’ve read all the versions of the KA Customs going back to the 19th century, and there’s no mention of coffins.
The KA ritual takes place over two nights, and can take almost all night. I had no idea they invited my father and grandfather. I had no idea they were there. If you’re a KA, you know why I couldn’t tell they were there. (No, it has nothing to do with a goat.)
At the end of the ritual, the new Initiate turns around and greets his brothers. It’s that moment when I realized my father and grandfather were there. My grandfather already had one heart attack. Shaking my hand, his hand wearing the KA ring he bought in 1924, he cried, kissed my cheek, and whispered in my ear, “Now I’m your grandfather, and your brother.”
They invited my favorite cousin, Robert Wingate, to come down from Greenwood. One of the reasons Robert is my favorite is that he wouldn’t hesitate a moment to say I’m full of shit. He also talked to me like I was a man my entire life.
When asked, Robert said, “damn, Jim, that could be nine o’clock!” Robert didn’t like to stay up late. The following Monday, I got a FedEx package from Greenwood at the Mississippi School Supply Office. Inside was Robert’s jeweled KA Pin. The note said, “Y’all stay up too damn late. I couldn’t send this before you were initiated because you couldn’t wear it. Welcome to KA—RW.”
When I was a junior, the Pikes got Dale Danks to visit the Pike House. They took a bunch of pictures, but he never came back. Dale loved Millsaps, and he loved Pi Kappa Alpha, but he had zero interest in being an active alum. He came because he’s a genuinely sweet guy.
The next year, somebody told the Sigs that George Harmon was a Sig when he was in college, but not at Millsaps, so they invited him to their homecoming reception. When he saw they had a keg of beer inside the house for the alumni, he put them on probation for three months. They had just changed the legal drinking age from eighteen to twenty-one, and beer was recently forbidden at frat houses. They may have been testing the new rules. The test failed.
The fence around Millsaps went up about six months before the drinking age changed. We couldn’t blindly walk from the back door of the KA house to the front door of CS’s anymore, but most KAs couldn’t legally drink beer anyway.
One night, Doug, Janie, Al Val Party Pal, Aunt Buss, Baird, and I were drinking (heavily) on the CSs patio. Suddenly, we heard Stephanie Pella scream. Stephanie screamed quite a lot; she was a very loud child, as is befitting coast trash. She screamed again, and it was clear she was in actual peril. You’d be surprised how fast a two hundred and seventy-five pound man can run. You’d be surprised how fast he can leap over the cross-tie wall that surrounded the CSs patio. Had there been cars trying to pass on West Street, I just would have to hit them.
Seeing a figure run away from Stephanie, I knew Doug was behind me to tend to Steph. I was on the shadowy figure running away from her. I could hear the entire contents of the KA house empty out to tend to Steph. I was in hot pursuit of a smaller figure, racing through the Kappa Sigma lawn, headed toward the Jewish cemetery and the Baptist Hospital parking lot.
I lost sight of him, darting between the cars in the parking lot like a rabbit. Over a distance, a little guy can always outrun a big guy. I think he had an idea what would happen if he hadn’t outrun me.
Panting, I returned to the KA house. Steph. crying, but she was surrounded by angry KA’s in their boxer shorts and pajamas wanting blood. There might have been guns. Cosby, in charge of the Campus Police after dark, took my statement. Two Jackson Police cops showed up and took my statement again. The fence around Millsaps was a controversial subject, but Stephanie Pella and her dad thought it was a great idea.
In truth, raising the drinking age noticeably lowered the number of highway deaths among people between eighteen and twenty-one. Having lost six friends, under twenty-one to drinking-related accidents, I understood, but it was still a huge, huge change. In my heart, it’s hard to justify sending eighteen-year-olds into battle if they can’t have a fucking beer, but life is complicated, baby. I do not have any answers.
While the change in drinking age and the fence annoyed people who questioned their necessity, there were actual reasons for both.
I watch the kids at Millsaps now. They’re so mature! I’m sure they have their moments when I’m not around though, that’s one of the reasons I’m so liberal about writing of my own missdeeeds. I know that some of them read me. I’d like to be at least as much of an inspiration as I am a bad influence, but I’ll take what I can get.
In the photo below, I’m actually a few inches taller than Cheek or Boswell, but I’m leaning against the cannon, trying to look as cool as Boswell and Hamrick in their shades. I don’t think it worked. As you can tell, Cake Daddy is just happy to be there. As to why Cheek’s not smiling, it may have to do with the cans of white paint that were thrown on the Kappa Alpha Mansion the night before. Evidence of which is clearly behind him.
