Eight Brothers Walk Into a Bar…

The other day, I had a flash from the past. My very first Little Brother came to see me, bringing a bunch of stuff she’d borrowed years before. We hadn’t seen one another in some time; in fact, since we last spoke, she’d gotten married. We caught up, and then she gave me one more thing – a tiny gold CofA.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Remember when we put through D’s class?” she responded. “I had forgotten my pin – the family pin – at home, so I borrowed one from someone without a Little so I’d have one to give to D. I ended up just paying for it. Well, I finally found my pin, the one you’d given me. Since I’m alumni, and I’m not really involved with anything anymore, I thought I’d give it back.”

I looked down at the little pin blankly. Then it hit me: this was my pin, the one that had been carefully affixed to my chest in front of scores of Brothers back when I finally became worthy of that name myself. This was the first pin of my Family Tree. This was the pin that had been intended to pass down through my Family line, a tangible symbol of that bond-within-a-bond and of our chapter’s past. It had gone AWOL so long before that I’d forgotten it had ever existed.

After my Little left, I twiddled the pin between my fingers, marveling at the way pins had changed over the past several years. My recently-purchased pin (because I lose them like a drunk freshman loses inhibitions) was easily twice as thick as my old pin, a little smaller in diameter, and yet not really any heavier. The markings on the new pin were much more distinct than those on the old pin, and the color was diff… wait. The $8 pins are made of fake-o metal and gold-plated, right? So why would they soften with age? Could my old CofA be one of the 10K pins?

Over the next few days I thought about what I should do with the pin. My Family Tree has forked; there are at least three of my descendents active in the chapter today. Who would receive the pin? If I followed Little #1’s line, I’d come to a dead end pretty quickly – all my descendents still existing come from Little #2’s line, but it has since branched in three directions. I still haven’t figured it out, so for now the pin is biding its time over my heart, a little reminder of where I came from in this fraternity.

Recently, a descendent of my family – and the chapter VP – came to me and asked about pins. Like me, she has always felt that this symbol was an important part of being a Brother, and that wearing them should be automatic for people in the chapter – a given. Instead, she saw that only a handful of people ever wore their pins outside of ritual, and that they usually only wore them to meetings. As the school year kicks off, she was wondering if there was any way she could “incentivize” people to wear their pins more regularly.

I asked if the chapter already did anything. Apparently, on their final MEP test, there’s a question – worth 10 points – that reads “Are you wearing your pin?” Actives and prospectives all take that test, and have to have a high score to pass. Other than that, there was no real program, motivation, or reminder to wear the pins and/or Letters with pride.

The chapter does have an attendance policy, and we discussed the (distasteful) possibility of tagging on a penalty for attending meetings without pins or Letters. We also talked about “random pin checks” at band rehearsals, where the VP would pick names out of a hat, see if they were wearing a pin, and, if so, give them some kind of a prize. (Hooray positive reinforcement!)

Do youse guys have any other ideas? Any words of motivation that she could pass along to the chapter that might light a fire of WEAR MY PIN inside her fellow Brothers?