Geoffrey H Wood

One of the goals on my "list of things to do at some point in my life" is to write and publish a book. I've been an avid reader, and writer, for most of my life and I've always thought that a natural extension of that would be write my own book.

I haven't written about my trip back to Ames for Homecoming yet (which was lots of fun and expensive). It was a long day, filled with lots of randomness, but the bulk of the pre-game afternoon was spent at the Phi Delt house and tailgating with other Phi Delts. I wrote a quick article for the fraternity's magazine about the events and submitted to some friends as Iowa State Alumni Association, in case they were interested, too. Enjoy:

I was googling this afternoon and came across the information below on googlebooks. It was written in 1913 in the fraternity newsletter, The Scroll. Googlebooks had imaged a copy of the entire volume from 1912-1913 that they found in a library in New York.

The text is written by Charles F. Lamkin, then a past president of the General Council of Phi Delta Theta, who was part of the installation ceremony for our chapter:

The men at Ames are older. They have a deliberate purpose. Ames is wrongfully called a "cow college" by some who do not know. Grant that it is-the men who are there in the departments of animal husbandry and dairying are men who are preparing their life work. One of our men there is the son of a man who imports Perceron and Norman horses by the ship load. Every voyage brings him a fortune in great stallions and brood mares. Is it not as high purposed to study the conservation and management of livestock as of bonds or machinery? The men at Ames are not flashy. They do not wear the latest agony in the way of clothes. They dress simply, live quietly, work hard. They are men who represent the best in the middle western-north middle western would he the better word-states. They are the men who are building the great commonwealths in the Mississippi valley. They are the captains of hundreds and of thousands who will guide the great agricultural army in this granary of the nations. Among their alumni are engineers, editors of agricultural papers, bankers, stock men, electricians. There are all sorts of men in the Iowa Gamma at Ames except failures. They do not make that sort into Phis there.

It is unwise ever to essay the role of a prophet. But if the future can be judged by the past, if the boy is the father of the man, the men of Colorado Beta and of Iowa Gamma will always be worthy of the trust committed to them by the Chicago convention(1). Lawyers, physicians, college professors and presidents, ambassadors of the King of Kings, may be expected to come from about the altar we have set up under the snow capped Rockies (2); bankers, business men, experts in electricity and agriculture, architects and editors and engineers, from the great college on the Iowa plains. But though one may be mistaken in his guess into the future, while the authority on forestry may come from the mountains and the St Francis Xavier from the plains, yet one thing is sure and that is that the men at Iowa State and at Colorado are filled with love for the Fraternity and with devotion to the Bond, and that they have determined without swerving or hesitation, to follow that path marked at once by honor and by duty that is the surest way to prosperity and happiness.

The Fraternity, not the new chapters, is to be congratulated. Buildings, equipment, endowment, faculties, we have in the two new colleges but better than all that we have men.

1. The Convention where the charter was approved for both chapters. 2. Random information is about the installation at Colorado College, which was around the same time.

I just turned off the Vikings game as the seconds ticked down to another loss. That makes my teams a fat 0-2 for the weekend. Sweet.

Actually, the two games were fairly similar. My teams, the Cyclones and the Vikings, both only had one win going into the weekend(1) and were playing on the road against teams with no wins. Both of my squads had the home teams on the ropes late into the second half only to lose close (ISU by 1, MN by 3).

The Vikings loss was mostly due to poor execution. The Cyclones was about freak plays.

Have you ever heard of another game were a team lead by 11 with 5 minutes to go then successfully stopped a fake punt and two 2 point conversions to lose by 1?

Following their last score the 'Clones gave up a kick return for a touchdown, stopped the two point conversion, were stopped by the opposting defense, had the punter fumble the punt and try to recover it rather than kicking it through the end zone for a safety thereby allowing the other team to recover it in the endzone for a touchdown, stopped another 2 point conversion, drove the ball down to set up the field goal only to have it blocked as time expired.

What's the worst part is we were at the latter game. The University of Toledo, our opponents in said game, is about 4 hours from Indy so it only made sense that we go considering that it's half the distance of driving to Ames for a home game. We hooked up with some Iowa State Phis living in Ohio and other Iowa Staters who made it up to the game for some tailgating. The lots supposedly opened 3 hours before game time but we made it in about 30 minutes before that and many Cyclones were already setup (and a Rocket fan or two).

Tailgating was a lot of fun as there were a fair share of Cyclone fans around. The day was beautiful and it was great to be outside. I had nice conversation with Ben Lamaak's grandparents telling them that I was also a graduate of Cedar Rapids Kennedy.

The game itself was frustrating, obviously, and it really felt like we should have won it. The stadium is considered "historic" as it was original built by one of Roosevelt's New Deal employment programs. It has weird stone/concrete walls on all sides that made it look like it was built to defend an attack from neighboring Sandusky (as long as those Sanduskan attackers had dark ages era weaponry). They had no security screening people as they came in which is very different than Ames. They may have been because there really wasn't anyone there. I read somewhere their highest attendance ever was about 36k fans, so assuming that's capacity there couldn't have been more than 15k people in attendence. They tried to make up for their lack of fan support by utilizing thos artificial noise makers were people bang two baloon things together. I typically associate those with Japanese baseball or Minor League Hockey, but it must be a MAC conference feature, too. NIU had the same several years ago when we went to the Cyclone game in Dekalb(2).

If anyone can explain why 1/4 of the Toledo fans were wearing Ohio State jerseys, I'd appreciate it.

One other thing, as we were walking back to the car after the game the Toledo "fans" behind us were having a discussion we just couldn't help but overhear. They decided that should probably come an hour or two early the next week and have a few beers before the game. After all, they would do that whenever they went to Michigan or Ohio State games and for Toledo they always hope to just get there by the end of the first quarter. Great fan base, I hope you enjoy your "hour or two" of tailgating in the future.

1. And one win coming out. 2. I'm 0-2 in away games against MAC teams and neither should've been a loss.