“It’s déjà vu all over again!” is the title of the previous post. It is a saying credited to Yogi Berra although some have said that he repeated the line and didn’t coin it. I give Lawrence Peter “Yogi” Berra the credit anyway because it fits his personality. Berra died yesterday at age 90 having lived a long and prosperous life. He was born in the Hill section of St. Louis, where the Italian immigrants settled. He wasn’t a fraternity man. In fact, he didn’t make it to high school, but his passion for baseball served him well.
Today the Pope is in Washington, D.C. on his tour of the United States. I have several friends who will get to see the Pope up close and personal. One of them is part of Pi Beta Phi’s National Panhellenic Conference delegation. Oriana Bertucci was initiated into the Pi Phi chapter at the University of Guelph. After graduation, she served as a Leadership Development Consultant, followed by a stint working in the organization’s headquarters in St. Louis. When a job opened up back in Canada near family, she became the Director of Ryerson University’s Catholic Campus Ministry. She’ll be seeing the Pope in Philadelphia although it is not the first time she has seen him. She could be called a Pope groupie, and I love hearing her stories about her sightings of the Pope.
Oriana Bertucci, Pi Beta Phi, courtesy of the Toronto Star (article at http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/09/21/papal-us-visit-spurs-gta-catholics-to-head-south.html)
I have a few fun historical posts in the works, but there are not enough hours in a day to complete them yet. Frankly, I’d forgotten how much time goes into running a one-hour Rotary Club meeting each week. Three months down, nine more to go! The mum sale (or that “damn mum sale” as I like to call it) has us at the breaking even point with 90 more mums to sell. Had every member sold 10 mums we would not be in this spot, we’d be closer to the $1,200 we are raising for a local organization. When hundreds of mum are delivered to my home next week, I hope that they will disappear quickly. Although it’s been decades since I was a sorority chapter president, the feeling is déjà vu all over again. I need to read T.J. Sullivan’s Motivating the Middle. I am grateful for the members who give 110% and truly believe in Service Above Self. The one member who sent me an email saying although she could sell the poinsettias we’ve sold each December, she could not imagine how she would sell mums. She gave it her best try and sold about 20!
Moreover, we are weeks away from a wedding. Our daughter had planned a rustic fall at an Old Feed Store; a very big snafu put an end to that. She scrambled to find an alternate venue which has the same rustic feel. You can bet that there will be many mums decorating the church and reception venue!
© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2015. 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/
