The night everything changed
More than six decades later, psychological trauma of fraternity hazing ritual remains fresh and vivid
No one died that last night of hell week 62 years ago, but it forever altered my life.
The week was bad enough. Sleep deprivation, long nightly walks back to campus, cleaning toilets, scrubbing sidewalks with toothbrushes, polishing shoes of the “actives,” whose continual browbeating, name-calling and condescending ground us down. People I respected turned nasty.
I dozed through my classes and skipped labs.
After Saturday morning work detail, the pledge master told us to report back that night at 6:30 p.m. “Wear sneakers and two pairs of pants.”
In the midst of Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination hearing, and in the broader context of the #MeToo era, people accused of sexual assault and their supporters routinely challenge the veracity of decades-long recollections by purported victims. How likely is one traumatized by an event able to recall sufficient details to portray what really happened?
Ask a woman battered by her husband, a child molested by a parent, or an altar boy assaulted by his priest. Many victims carry vivid images of their ordeal for a lifetime. They’d be glad to forget.
My story about that night some six decades ago pales by comparison to the tragedies so widespread today. I offer it in part to empathize with those less fortunate.
I began this account in October 2017 after listening to Rachel Martin’s National Public Radio interview of Caitlan Flanagan, then reading Flanagan’s and Meghan McCarthy’s hazing pieces in The Atlantic , the most recent of which chronicled the high-profile fraternity hazing death of Tim Piazza at Penn State in February that year.
Incidentally, there have been 40 campus hazing deaths in the past 10 years.
I started writing with Tim’s death still fresh in my mind, in part because in the late 1970s, at age 40, I spent a sabbatical year at Penn State, retraining as a petroleum engineer. Although I had nothing to do with fraternities, their reputation for alcoholicinfused antics was common knowledge.
But my interest in The Atlantic articles and the NPR interview was kindled by a previous, more personal experience during my freshman year at Marietta College, a small liberal arts school in Ohio.
In 1956, along with a dozen or so classmates, I had pledged Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity. We were in the final stage of hell week, the aptly named hazing period.
That evening, they blindfold us pledges for the drive to the “sacred site.” Twenty minutes later, we turn down a bumpy, windy road and stop: “Everybody out.”
Guided down a dirt path toward voices in the distance, I stumble on a rock but keep my balance. The voices turn to whispers. Must be actives. Someone shines a flashlight under my blindfold. “He’s OK.”
Birds chirp in the light October breeze. Two more groups shuffle in.
The pledge master speaks. “Listen up, pledges. You’ll walk to three performance stations. Leader one, take your group to the log. Leader two, the creek. Leader three, the hill.”
“Get moving, scumbags.”
“Now we’ll see who the weak sisters are.” That got some jeers.
I’m in a movie with a bad script, scared, afraid of stumbling, worried about what lies ahead. Voices from the other two groups trail off.
Finally, our leader speaks. “Halt. This is station two, the creek. Johnson, you’re first.” The upperclassmen hoot and holler. Then silence. Glad I’m not first.
“Johnson, come forward three steps. The actives have formed two lines. You crawl between them down a bank into a shallow creek, then turn around and crawl back. Any questions?”
“No, sir.”
“On your hands and knees. Crawl.”
Amid the actives shouting, I hear whacks. Johnson yells, “Ouch.” They tell him to shut up. They curse louder. Johnson moans, then splashes into the water. The yelling turns to laughter.
“OK, Johnson. Out of the water. Crawl up the hill.”
More shouts and whacking. Johnson’s moans get louder. “Oh, God, please stop!”
The pledge next to me moans, echoing Johnson. “Shut up, Franklin.” But he can’t. A quiet guy in my math class and chem lab who had a hard week. I don’t see him as a fraternity type. The moans get louder, from both Johnson and Franklin.
“Stop, Johnson. That’s enough for now.”
Franklin sniffles, trying to catch his breath.
The leader says, “Murtha, you’re next.”
My heart thumps. Someone pushes me forward. “On your hands and knees. You know the rules: down the bank, into the water, then back. Ready, crawl.”
I drop to my knees and edge forward. Shoes on each side kick at me. “You’re a wuss, Murtha. A quitter.” The ground is slippery. I concentrate on balance.
Whack. Someone whips my butt, hard. Feels like rope. (Later I learn it’s a length of garden hose.) Again. Stings like hell. I yelp. They holler louder. I scramble downward, bumping through knees and feet. My palms feel every rock and root. The whips come faster.
I smell beer on his breath when someone leans close to taunt me. I can’t help whining. One lash wraps around and catches my stomach. I scream, “Ouch, damn it!”
My hands find the water’s edge. I lunge forward, hoping to stop the whipping, but they keep it up until the leader says, “OK, Murtha, turn around.”
I want to jump up. Rip off the blindfold. Punch. Kick. Grab their whip. Beat them. I slip on the creek bottom. My face plunges into cold, muddy water, gagging me. I stand and wade toward the voices at the shoreline. I scramble up the slippery bank. Legs kick me. I want to grab one and twist. Make the scum fall. I crawl faster. Whips rain down.
Back on level ground, I scamper forward. “You’re done, Murtha.”
I stand, soaked, dripping. My butt burns. I feel a welt beneath my rib cage. I shake. Not cold. Pissed. I recognize two voices. One, a guy I admired, surprises me with his viciousness. They’re all sadists. Silently, I call them every cuss word I know.
Near me, Franklin whimpers.
Did these guys look forward to beating us? Who invented this crap? Why do they propagate it? Do I want to call this scum “brothers”?
I barely hear the next two pledges struggle through the ritual. The last one is Franklin. He freaks out, crying, screaming, splashing into the water, begging them to stop. They drag him up the bank and drop him next to me. He can’t stop sobbing and moaning. They call him names. I stifle a yell and mutter under my breath.
The guide speaks. “Franklin, you remain here. The rest of you follow me to the next station.”
Someone pushes me along. I hate leaving Franklin. The hill is next. We scramble up a slippery, muddy slope while they whip us. Some blows hit my thighs and calves. I grunt and fight back tears.
We come to the final station. “Murtha, you’re first. In front of you is a big log named Gracie. You mount her and screw her hard.”
I straddle the log, lean forward. The blows begin. I yell “Gracie” as loud as I can to disregard the pain. My butt throbs. Shifting positions chafes my inner thighs. Fortunately, I’m wearing jeans outside cotton pants, and the denim doesn’t tear. I count the blows. “Gracie one, Gracie two.” But I can’t keep up.
“Screw her like you mean it, Murtha.”
The bark scrapes my face. I will always hate these dirtbags.
They stop. I roll off. It’s hard to stand. I shake. My palms are raw. My neck aches. I identify two more guys’ voices. I’ll sucker punch them one day. I hope Franklin is OK. Finally, we trudge to the cars.
Back in the meeting room, they remove our blindfolds. The dim lights burn my eyes. The room reeks of cigar smoke and beer. The dirtbags are celebrating behind us while we stand — bruised, muddy, soaked — listening to the pledge master declare hell week over. A few actives applaud and cheer. We stare at each other, grim-faced.
“Pledges, report back at 10 in the morning for the initiation ceremony. Suits and ties. Do not talk about tonight. Any questions?”
I have to ask. “Where’s Franklin?”
“In the dorm. He has to wait until next semester.”
“Surely, you won’t make him go through this again.”
Someone behind me shouts, “He failed. He don’t deserve to be a Sig.”
The pledge master says, “Knock it off, both of you. OK, pledges, back to your dorms.”
As much as I hated that night, I hated the aftermath more.
I told other pledges I wasn’t going to activate and be part of such a vicious group. They convinced me otherwise, saying we’ll force them to change hell night, that a lot of actives probably hate the ritual also.
For two weeks, I skipped gym class to avoid exposing my bruises and welts in the locker room and common shower.
A month later, after two raucous meetings, we brought our resolution to a vote. It failed. The upperclassmen argued that hell night was bonding. Some in our class decided now that they had gone through it, they wanted to preserve the tradition.
I submitted a letter of deactivation, saying I did not want to be associated with a group that encouraged despicable behavior. Only two of my closest friends empathized. Most “brothers” chose to ignore me.
A year later, I heard that the hell night ceremony had been outlawed. Within a few years, it was all but forgotten.
Not by me.
Not after 62 years. Postscript. I graduated then got a doctorate in mathematics at Wisconsin. After three years teaching at Rutgers, I returned to my alma mater to spend 25 years as a member of the faculty and administration, during which time I volunteered to serve as adviser to two fraternities.
I am not anti-Greek — I am anti-hazing.