Theta Chi

That's Chris with the axe after this year's Big Game. We just had a little alumni gathering just now to watch the Big Game, and LV was there! I haven't seen LV in more than 3 years. 3 years seems like a really really long time ago! The last time we met, we were playing basketball with the Indonesions along with N, PP and YJ at the Albany Middle School along Brighton Ave. After shooting hoops we adjourned to the usual lunch at the mee pok place at Ranch 99 (where I usually just park my car illegally somewhere at the back). That particular day I had a long chat with LV and N after lunch, and after that, I never saw them again, and never really played basketball again for that matter.... I did, however, in my last days in the "Land of the Free (and home of the Bears!)", introduce my juniors to this wonderful basketball court, so that the tradition of Saturday basketball would carry on...

LV said that this Indonesian guy in his batch "revived" a frat along with some other smart guys he gathered. These smart guys would go on to win the frat "academic honors" and eventually steal the StanfUrd tree! I thought about it for a while, and I remembered that there was indeed one frat which had an Indonesian and a lot of smart guys, and that was Theta Chi on Frat Row just to the south of the Piedmont "circle". I used to hang out at Theta Chi with my floormates in freshman year. Theta Chi was an unusual frat. They didn't drink much (I think I enjoyed the free drinks more than the Brothers did), but they had real good BBQ ribs! There was this real tough guy called Art who was like one of the big Brothers. He was a personal trainer at the RSF and would be the bouncer at the door during parties. All you had to do was to befriend this guy and you'd have no problem getting in! I gained his respect by trashing him at pool one day after he had downed like 10 drinks (I don't really play pool haha). Towards the end of freshmen year Theta Chi bought a karaoke system, and they practically karaoked to "punk" all night long! I had absolutely no idea that "punk" was karaokeable....

Our sturdy Golden Bear
Is watching from the skies
Looks down upon our colors fair
And guards us from his lair!
Our banner gold and blue
The symbol on it too
Means fight for California
For California through and through!