When I went searching for something to write about for Kappa Alpha Theta’s Founders’ Day, I came across this ditty and it was too good not to share. It was also one of those works that made it around the Greek-letter world. It was published in a number of magazines and the sentiments are as real today as they were a century ago.
WHEN THIS NEW PIN GROWS OLD!
We’ve slipped the bandage from your eyes,
We’ve drawn aside the veil
That hides our sacred mysteries
From men beyond our pale;
And now upon your glad young breast
We pin a badge of gold—
You cannot know how richly blest
Till this new pin grows old.
This badge proclaims the newest part
Of our old endless line,
As hand to hand and heart to heart
We form th’ eternal sign:
Grip tight the links of this dear chain,
God grant they long may hold;
You cannot make such friends again
When this new pin grows old.
It was written by Charles Kellogg Field, a Zeta Psi. And who was Charles Kellogg Field? He was born in Vermont, but grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. Field graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University, in 1895, when it was a young institution. I suspect he was a charter member of the Zeta Psi chapter, since the chapter was founded in 1893. He wrote books, plays and poems all the while working in the insurance business for 13 years. He became Associate Editor of Sunset Magazine in 1908 and was named Editor in 1911. His pen names included Cheerio, Himself and Carolus Ager.
In the mid-1930s he began a career as a broadcaster on KGO-AM. He was known as Cheerio. In 1936, he authored The Story of Cheerio. Four years later, Cheerio’s Book of Days: Comfort, Cheer and Encouragement for Every Day of the Year. He died in 1948.
Some say he is best known for something he wrote in the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake.
If, as some say, God spanked the town
For being over frisky,
Why did He burn the Churches down
And save Hotaling’s Whisky?
© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2016. All Rights Reserved. If you enjoyed this post, please sign up for updates. Also follow me on twitter @GLOHistory and Pinterest www.pinterest.com/glohistory/
