The Sewanee Purple

By Jacob Moore

What appear to be initiation rituals on campus have left the Chief amused and a little horrified. An esoteric ritual at Lambda Chi Alpha made enough noise last Tuesday night to spark a police investigation. When the officers arrived on the scene, they were initially assaulted by the sound of what one student described as “a munitions factory going off.” Upon opening the doors of the fraternity house, the first thing officers saw was a tall, gorgeous, shirtless, pants-less, bronze-haired lord of the war cry standing behind the pool table with a sawed-off pool noodle draped over each statuesque shoulder. Standing on a pile of what appeared to be the skulls of his enemies, he took a long drag off a massive, though not phallic, cigar, and nodded cordially to the officers, greeting them with a grizzled voice that would make Clint Eastwood quiver: “Howdy.”

Perhaps it was the skulls, but the police began to suspect possible hazing. Not wanting to let such activity go unchecked, they turned their lights from the reflective glow of this ginger god and moved to the back of the house. There they found a scene out of World War I, if the guns were replaced with pool noodles and the uniforms with strips of leather worn haphazardly about the loins.

It seemed all the members of Lambda Chi were engaged in a frat-wide noodle-beating. Suspicions of hazing seemed all but confirmed. Certainly the associate members were subject to a vicious bludgeoning by their initiated superiors, and the brave men of the Sewanee PD were there to offer reinforcement. Luckily, no nightsticks were necessary as the shimmering regalia of the police was enough to quiet the tumult. A wizened older fellow likewise engaged in the shenanigans was approached and asked his name. The oldest associate member was introduced as the Reverend Hugh Jones. To add sacrilege to insult, it now appeared that an Episcopal priest was being be-noodled by errant frat boys.

Upon closer inspection, it was revealed that this shirtless noodlefest was not at all a hazing ritual, but an aspect of initiation commonly referred to as “Mock Initiation,” where associate members prepare a fake ritual in which all members are invited to participate. “I guess it was a noodle fight, not so much a noodle beating,” the Chief admitted. Why so many bright young men and clergy would willingly prance about in their skivvies wailing on each other with aquatic apparati is anybody’s guess, but this journalist offers the sage advice of, “don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.”

But shirtless shenanigans wasn’t the only frat-related violation of the past week. Many officers spent Monday night in the pursuit of a goat that had gotten loose from the Deke house. The unidentified goat was finally captured and housed in the police bay, which the fraternity brothers were compelled to clean upon retrieving the animal. The fraternity was cited for failure attempt to register the “pet” and reminded that even if they had attempted, the school’s leash laws do now account for farm animals, and the goat must be taken elsewhere.

The Chief was concerned for the goat’s safety. “With all the dogs people drop off around here,” the Chief explained, “this is a bad place for a little goat that couldn’t defend itself.” Furthermore, the combination of the words goat and fraternity “troubled” Chief Parrott, who dared not extrapolate on the implications of such a pet. The only thing that seems to have disappointed Chief Parrott recently was that he didn’t see the Bacchus diaries in the latest issue of The Purple. “I just love that column,” he laughed, not noticing the single jealous tear welling up in the blottist’s eye.