My Brothers

Tidbit of the day: President Dwight D. Einsenhower, Dr. Jonas Salk and Larry David are my brothers.

If you know me, you may (or may not) be surprised to learn that I was in a fraternity when I was in college. Before I headed north I never thought that I would be a "frat guy." However, when everyone I was friends with started to go to all these rush events, I quickly realized that I would have to make new friends (because they all would be away for the semester pledging) or I could be a follower and join them.

So, to see if it made sense to cave on my convictions, I made the rounds to a bunch of frats and at one of them I found myself sitting on a table in a corner, tired of the inane bullshit and wondering why I ever decided to even think about joining a fraternity. I wound up talking to a guy in a Dead shirt sitting next to me who was smoking a cigarette (which was illegal since we were inside the University Union) and flicking the ashes onto the carpet. "This is so dumb, I hate this shit," he said. "Me too. Why are you here?" I asked. "Because I have to be - I'm in this frat," he responded. Then we began to talk...

That simple exchange opened my eyes and made me realize not every frat guy was a loutish rah-rah frat guy - some could be considered "cool" in my book. As rush went on, Tau Epsilon Phi (TEP) became the only one I was interested in. Luckily for me, out of the 5 guys that I was most friendly with, 3 of them liked it as much as I did and we all decided to pledge TEP. They saw the same stuff I did - it existed as a duality - a traditional frat and a non-frat frat at the same time. Years later, I count joining TEP as one of the better decisions I've made in my life. I won't get into the reasons now but one thing that it's given me is a list of some pretty interesting people to call brothers.

Here is a brief rundown of people should be able to respond to a secret handshake I know (if alive that is):

• Dwight Eisenhower: Former U.S. President and Famous WWII General
• Larry David: co-creater of Seinfeld and star of Curb Your Enthusiasm
• Dr. Jonas Salk: scientist who discoverer of the polio vaccine.
• General Omar Bradley: 5 star general. Former chairman joint chief of staff, WWII hero
• William O. Douglas: United States Supreme Court Justice 1939-1975. One of the longest serving US Supreme Court Justices. Champion of First Amendment Rights and Civil Liberties.
• Benny Goodman: Musician
• Red Auerbach: 4th winningest coach in NBA history
• Adam Sandler: Comedian/Actor
• Samuel Lefrak: Internationally renown architect and builder of sky scrappers in New York.
• Mike Nichols: Director of the "Graduate" and many other well known movies
• George Stephanopoulos: Former advisor to Pres. Clinton
• Judge Wapner: Former Judge on People's Court
• Jerry Springer: Talk Show Host, former mayor of Cincinnati
• David Duchovny: Actor

Okay, Skull and Bones isn't not but still, not a bad list...