Brothers in the Bond
I wear the pin.In the fall of 1996 I made the decision to pledge a fraternity. At the time, I was a student at Mississippi State University and had never thought about joining a fraternity until a couple of actives in Phi Delta Theta showed up unexpectedly at my dorm room. My life hasn’t been the same since.In my three years as a fraternity man, I forged many great friendships and developed a few acquaintanceships, too. I learned to get along with people who looked differently, thought differently, acted differently. Fraternity life squeezed a social confidence out of me that I did not previously have, and helped my personality to exhibit its full plumage. Regardless of the vigor of those friendships, we all had one thing in common: we were Brothers in the Bond.
I have thought less and less about fraternity life and Phi Delta Theta as the years have gone by, and sadly I’ve lost touch with many of my brothers. From time to time, I’ll get an email from the current chapter president about the goings-on with Phi Delta Theta—a big Rush party, a roll-call of the new initiates, a grades-bragging dossier, etc.—some I’d open, others I’d gloss over. But on January 27, a subject line of one of those emails-- CASINO ROYALE TO BENEFIT RALPH DOXEY (one of my own fraternity brothers when I was at Mississippi State)--caught my attention.Not knowing why Ralph would need a benefit in his honor, I nervously peeled open the email. It began, “Good evening brothers. We humbly ask for your prayers and support for one of our own and his family. Ralph Doxey (Bond# 195) was recently diagnosed with ALS (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.”My jaw nearly hit the floor.Since Ralph was a freshman when I was a senior, I did not know Ralph well, but I always liked him. I was nearly certain that he had to endure some of my light “hazing” that a cocksure active commanded. I remembered his raspy voice, his sheared head before sheared heads were cool, his sideburns, and his affinity for the outdoors.As I continued to get updates on this event, I continued to feel the need to reach out to Ralph. So one day I added him on Facebook and asked if I could do a story on him. Ralph was very accommodating and agreed to an interview at his home in Tupelo, Mississippi.As I was preparing for the interview, I wondered how far his disease had progressed, how he would look, and if he’d need to ask his wife to help him through the questions. The night before I left, I did some research on Lou Gehrig’s disease. The same disease that long ago took the humble Yankee slugger is characterized by muscle weakness and atrophy, and the median survival rate with people diagnosed with ALS is only 36 months. Principally, there are two types of ALS: Limbar onset (affecting the arms and legs) and Bulbar onset (affecting speech and swallowing). Either diagnosis eventually funnels to the inability to control voluntary movements, and most patients die of respiratory failure. Early symptoms include difficulty swallowing, twitching muscles, cramping, and garbled speech.What made this story even more ironic is that Lou Gehrig was once a member of Phi Delta Theta fraternity when he was a student-athlete at Columbia University. The oldest t-shirt I have in my possession (it’s so old it’s almost turned into wheat) is from Bid Day 1996; on the back is a picture of Gehrig giving his famous “Luckiest Man” speech and a quote: “Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.” I always thought it both odd that a man nicknamed the “Iron Horse” who wouldn’t dare miss a day of work would eventually succumb to an early death, and at the same time inspiring that the same man who had been given a proverbial death sentence would consider himself so lucky.Considering all this, I nosed my vehicle in the direction of Tupelo on a snowy morning to see Ralph Doxey. Coming into town, I exited and found the furniture showroom where Ralph had suggested we meet. He pulled up in his truck and when he spotted me, he leaned forward with an arm propped on the steering wheel, cracking a smile. I smiled back as I approached the car and closed the ten-year gap between us. When he spoke, I could tell a definite change had occurred in his speech; there was a laborious cadence that I will admit saddened me.I followed him through four miles of Mississippi thicket to his home in the country, amid bucolic hills and 17 acres of pasture. As we pulled into his drive, the sun glimmered across the pond like iridescent diamonds, and a little dog jogged up to meet us. We went inside, and just as I was sitting down in the kitchen, Ralph’s wife Megan introduced herself, kissed Ralph, and headed back to work. After Megan left, we sat and Ralph told me the story of his life.I found out Ralph has been a firefighter for 14 years, and that his wife is pregnant with their first child. They were married in July 2011 in a beachside ceremony in Hawaii, complete with leis, a native preacher inked with a forearm tattoo, and a plunge by the couple (wedding dress and all) into a waterfall-decorated tropical slough.Ralph first noticed symptoms right after the couple moved back to Tupelo from Asheville, North Carolina, where he worked to put out wildfires. “My left shoulder started twitching real bad,” he said. “I just thought it was stress.” He initially dismissed it, but then his left arm began to twitch unceasingly and his father-in-law soon noticed a change in his speech. “He said, ‘What’s wrong with you? You been drinkin’?’” Ralph said. “He thought I was drunk.” (As an aside, and with Ralph’s own Southern sense of humor, he grumbled, “I sound like I’m hammered all the time.”)Ralph’s brother-in-law suggested that he see a neurologist, so the couple scheduled an appointment with a local doctor in Tupelo. “They did a blood test and everything was fine. Then they stuck needles in me and did this thing where they shocked my hands,” Ralph says. It took several foreboding months for the diagnosis, but nonetheless it came in May 2013: Bulbar-onset ALS.Since then, Ralph has his quarterly appointment with the doctor and is taking a litany of meds and nutrients: Vitamin A, magnesium, potassium, salt. One such prescription he has to take 13 times a day, and he recently was prescribed a new medicine that will help him pronounce his K’s, G’s, P’s, and B’s. He describes the taste of one concoction in words that cannot be repeated in this essay, but says that if he doesn’t take it, he shakes nonstop.“My soft palate stopped working. I can’t eat bread anymore, my voice is all screwed up, and it’s hard for me to swallow,” he says.He does not exercise for fear that his muscles will wear out, but continues to work 24-hour shifts as a firefighter, five times a month at the Toyota plant. He still likes to hunt and fish and do yard work, and you would get the sense that he’s not tremendously worried about anything. Instead he relies on faith.“I’ve got to turn it over to my faith. This is not my plan. This is God’s plan. Who am I to argue with that?” he says. Tacked on their refrigerator, amid a montage of photographic moments of Ralph and Megan’s time together, is a Bible verse written in pen--1 Thessalonians 5:15-18--which says “Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else. Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”Ralph and I talked about the moment he found out he had ALS.“Were you angry?” I asked him.“Naw,” he says. “Since it took a while to get diagnosed, I had already adjusted my mind to it. The only thing I regret is that people are going to have to take care of me nonstop.”Ralph admits since being diagnosed, he has done a lot more fun things with his wife and friends. “Megan and I go out to eat a lot more. We go to Oxford and Jackson and hang out with friends. We have friends over to the house, fry up some catfish and swim. We want to have as much fun as we can while we can,” he says.But it’s not all fun and games. Ralph and Megan understand they have a battle to fight. They have watched a few videos and are brushing up on their knowledge of the deadly disease. Ralph even bought a book on Lou Gehrig, entitled The Luckiest Man, but admits he’s had a hard time reading it since he’s a Red Sox fan. “Megan and I aren’t focusing on the problem, but how to treat it. Megan’s tougher than I am and we’ve had a lot of support from family and friends,” he says.One such friend is John Genin, an attorney in Jackson who was Doxey’s pledge brother at MSU. “When his pledge brothers found out about Ralph’s diagnosis, we wanted to do something to help. I reached out to Carter Lawyer, fraternity president, to see if the undergrads would be on board. Twenty seconds into the conversation, Carter said ‘absolutely we’ll help, it’s a no brainer’,” says Genin.The event, which will be held on March 21 at the Hotel Chester in Starkville, Mississippi, will be a “casino-themed” fundraiser, and all proceeds will go to benefit Ralph and Megan’s fight against ALS.Other weekend events include a MSU baseball game, a silent auction, and an active/alumni golf tournament.“We have been humbled by the response of our undergrads, alums, parents, and friends who have shown such strong support for Ralph and his family,” Genin says. “We have guys coming in from all over, as far away as California. Some haven’t been back to campus since they graduated. People sometimes ask, ‘What’s so great about fraternities?’ There are a lot of good answers, but this is the heart of it.”As Ralph and I are sitting in his kitchen recounting bygone stories of fraternity life and all of the knuckleheads we had the chance to meet, he says to me, “Do you remember when you made me, Wes, and Andrew run around sorority row in dresses and wigs?”I let out a rocket of laughter.“I did?”“Oh yeah. We had to go knock on doors and ask if they needed a houseboy,” he said with a smile.“Did they need one?”“None of ‘em did,” he said.“Did they laugh?”“Yes.”“Well, I just didn’t want you guys to take yourself too seriously,” I explained.Last night in preparation for writing this essay, I pulled out the old blue relic, everyone’s favorite “The Manual of Phi Delta Theta” for pledges (also known as Phikeias). I was actually taken aback at all of the great and deep things that that manual highlighted, things I somehow missed so many years ago. The manual begins:
This might seem quite odd to some of you, as the term “fraternity” is often associated with band parties, binge drinking, cavalier lifestyles, and long-haired, North-Face-wearing dandies that say “dude” all the time. But as I perused this manual, flipping page after page, I realized the kinds of things the fraternity was trying to build, instill in people like me. Our three cardinal principles at Phi Delta Theta are friendship, sound learning, and rectitude; although I’m not sure I succeeded admirably in any of those arenas as a pledge or active.Now, as a man, I see the importance of friendship. I see the bond that was built all those years ago between a group of guys who endured the mirth and travails of Greek life. Unlike regular friendship, a fraternity brother will always be a brother; we’ll always have a common bond, and as Genin says, “deep threads” of influence that rope us eternally together. The term “fraternity brother” is a close association, a lifelong effort, and an opportunity to share and grow through the imperfections and outstanding qualities of men. Boys who travel through these frontiers of friendship are in the process of shaping into men who will share and suffer together throughout life.
As I review my time as a fraternity man, I often have thought of the negative ways it affected me, of the man I became as a result of it. Now I see the many good things that have been borne of it, friendship remaining the pinnacle. I realize that it has benefited me more than it has taken from me, that the bonds of brotherhood still remain intact, and that the principles the founders of our fraternity wanted to instill in men who walked through their doors are not just lip-service to legitimize the booze-fest.Just ask Ralph Doxey how he feels about his fraternity brothers.I will say that I was not the best pledge, nor was I the best active, and in later life I have not been the best friend. Phi Delta Theta has given me more than I have given to it. I admit so ashamedly.But I’m proud to say that I wear the pin. From here on out, I will do my best until I’m buried to honor and support those men who shared a bond with me for three challenging years of my life.For perhaps the first time, I wear the pin with pride. I appreciate the azure and argent flag, the oaths, the sword and shield, the coat of arms, and the men who comprise it. And I’m happy to say that I have been blessed. I’m happy to say that I’m a Brother in the Bond. I wear the pin.I am a Phi. 78