Rick Neel: DTD at MC #2

Hello again fellow Delts,
Well it has been almost a week since I sent my first email, and I have had several responses, for those I thank you. And I have some new addresses that I have added, some because I forgot to put them in the list and a couple of people who contacted me with their addresses because my email had been forwarded to them. I apologize to the first group and say welcome to the 2nd. I have 83 names on my list of Delts, which I consider pretty good, and only 10 or so of the names I started with fell off due to being bad addresses, that's pretty good. I'm not sure if all of the addresses that I have are still active or not, but 83 is a good start. Not good enough though since there are 300 or more Marietta Delts. Please continue to pass this along to other Delts, or send me the addresses. I do know that at least 2 of the messages didn't get through to active mailboxes, and I'm not sure why that happened. I'm not enough of a computer person to understand those things. So I'm just going to keep trying.

My girlfriend, when I told her what I was doing asked me; "What do you hope to accomplish with this?" I replied that was an easy question, I wanted to....and I was stuck. I know what I want to accomplish, but I don't know how to say it. I don't intend this to be a newsletter, but I do want to get news from brothers and pass that news along to the rest.

I live in Tucson Arizona, so I really can't give news of the chapter and college. Besides, that is the job of the actives and the alumni committee. What I do want to do, is hopefully rekindle some friendships each of us had while in college. One thing that I do want to accomplish, and I already did, was make everyone think about DTD and Marietta College for a minute. And all of you who read this did just that. I hope that the memory was pleasant.

My first desire, I formulated in April when we had the golf outing and the honor Fergie weekend. We had a pretty good turnout of Alumni for that occasion, and I had a great time. Though it was freezing cold and raining while we were trying to play golf. My thought was that the 40th anniversary of DTD at Marietta College is coming up. 2008 is the year. That is a pretty special milestone for our chapter. And I would like to make it an anniversary to remember. I wish that there was some way that all 300+ of us could go back and have a GREAT reunion weekend.

My brother, Jim (class of '77?) has alway said, "I joined a group of guys that I liked and got along with, not a national fraternity" and I think that is true of all of us. A national fraternity is a concept that is pretty hard to grasp for a freshman, away from home for the first time. But I try to tell it to him in this way; the 2nd group liked the guys in the first, the 3rd liked those in the first 2, the 4th liked those before them. And on and on. Plus those that were already there weren't likely to attract those who they didn't like. So probably, those of us from the early years aren't all that different from those of us from the later years (except for hair!). I haven't gotten through to him completely yet, but I have told him that I will be dragging him back to Marietta in 2008.

Enough of that, I guess that I should include some news. So here is some:
1) Brownie's Bakery burned down and will not be rebuilt. Brownies was a landmark for a lot of us during the cramming that went on during midterms and finals. I remember many a night walking down there for a couple of donuts as a break from studying. I'm sure that place holds a special place in many a Delts heart.
2) It looks like the Delts will be moving to a new Shelter in the next few years. The foundation of the house on 4th street (by the way that house used to be the AST sorority house) is crumbling and it isn't cost effective to renovate it. Jon Hartshorn (President of the House Corp) tells me that the fraternity and college are in discussions on what kind of living arrangements the fraternity will have. 2008 may be the first year in our new shelter.
3) Homecoming> 2005 is October 21 thru 23. Hope to see you there.

I guess that is enough for this time. Hope I didn't bore anyone. Again, please check the addresses and contact that friend that you haven't heard from in years. Also pass this along to someone and ask that they send me a current email address.

Till next time, Rick Neel '73