The Boys

Twenty years ago I was sitting on a bench in the quad at George Mason University trying to figure out if I was going to head to the library to study or head home for a nap.  I’d transferred to GMU after spending my freshman year at another school and I didn’t know anyone on campus, and quite honestly I was feeling a little down.  As fate would have it Kirt Bachman, an old high school friend and teammate on the basketball team walked by.  He stopped to talk and asked me if I’d be interested in helping him and a couple of other guys start a fraternity on campus.  That was one of the truly pivotal moments in my life.

That group of boys, or young men as we liked to think of ourselves, went on to become Alpha Sigma Chi, a local fraternity that was petitioning to become a chapter of the Sigma Chi international fraternity.  We spent four years working towards that goal and we managed to achieve it just a couple of weeks before I graduated. In the process that group of boys worked and partied hard together and grew to know each other in a unique way.

Looking back we were definitely boys.  We still thought of ourselves as bulletproof and while most of us took the fraternity’s doctrine of "brotherhood" to heart we were as interested in the social aspects of the fraternity as anything. Eventually we graduated, many of us got married, we started having kids and slowly and inexorably we became absorbed by our own lives and kept in touch mainly through the grapevine.

Then came word that one of our own had hit hard times and we would have the opportunity to reunite as men.

Woody

Steve "Woody" Carlson was always one of the most popular guys in our fraternity.  Witty, kind and supremely calm he never seemed to have a cross word for anyone.  He’s always been one of those guys that everyone likes the minute they meet him, one of those guys you could say, "He’s just a sweet guy" with a straight face and without an trace of embarassment.  That’s a rare commodity in the world of boys and young men.

A short while after graduating Woody was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), a chronic, degenerative and unpredictable disease that affects the central nervous system.  Two years ago Woody became wheelchair bound, and it has become increasingly difficult for him to do most day-to-day tasks. Continuing to work was not an option, no matter how much he wanted to, and doing even the most basic upkeep on his condo was next to impossible.  His sister and nephew moved in, but money was tight and times were difficult.

In other words Woody’s life had changed in ways that the boys from his fraternity could never have imagined, but true to his character he never complained.  Thus it was a rude awakening when word began to spread about his situation.

The Men

In the rush of our own lives the boys that knew each other so well twenty years ago had slowly drifted apart.  Some small groups stayed in touch with each other through the years, attended each other’s weddings and sent each other occasional emails, but as a whole the group had not come together in significant numbers for over a decade.

A couple of years ago a few of the guys starting getting together for a monthly happy hour in Northern Virginia, and as was his practice during the early years of the fraternity Shane Womack took on a leadership role.  Over the course of time he built up a good-sized email list in order to coordinate the happy hours, so in September when he heard about Woody’s situation he sent out an email to find out what the group would like to do.

Shane was flooded with emails offering all forms of help and support.  He talked to Woody and determined that the most immediate need the group could address would be fixing up Woody’s condo.  Shane polled the group to determine the best day for everyone to get together, recruited some of the guys to go by Woody’s place to do an assessment, put together a punch list and generally transformed himself into a general contractor. An impressive feat for a man who makes Tim Allen look good.

Last Saturday, October 22 was determined to be the best day for most of us to get together, so we met at Woody’s condo at 8:00 a.m.  Some guys brought along brushes, edgers, etc. and others chipped in for paint and other materials.  Jeff Linden, who could give Bob Villa a run for his money, showed up with enough tarps to cover West Virginia and Rocky Benedetto and Hwan Kim came by earlier in the week to do patch and prep work so that eveyone else could hit the ground running on the big day.

Over 17 guys showed up Saturday and we worked until about 7:00 that evening.  We painted, we did some minor renovations, hung some new bedroom doors and in general we brightened the place up.  We also talked, shared stories and got to know the men that all those boys had become.  It was great to see that the character we’d talked about so much as fraternity boys had manifested itself in the men that we had become.

Our next project is to get Woody a hospital bed and according to today’s email it is quickly becoming a reality.  After that we’ll see what needs to be done and do it.  Hopefully Woody knows that he can count on us anytime, and in any way.

One thing I know is that I’ve rediscovered how important those boys were to me twenty years ago, and how important it is that I stay in touch with all those men.  It’s the most impressive group of people I’ve ever met.