Friendship

From time to time I ask myself whether I should have dedicated myself to living a dorm life for four years, and I end up quietly laughing and shaking my head. As I begin this blog, I would like to apologize for the personal tone of some of the things that I will write. By their very nature, blogs are subjective, highly personal, and, at times, confessional. Many years ago, I was talking with a friend of mine who is a music professor at the Washington Conservatory of Music, and in the course of our conversation I asked him who his most important teacher was, and he told me that it was Leon Fleischer. I was stunned and probably said, “Wow, are you kidding me; I love Fleischer!” He nodded his head in the affirmative and then proceeded to outline the genealogical musical tree that he was part of, and it went straight back to musically inimitable person of Ludwig von Beethoven, and by extension to Beethoven’s celebrated teacher, Franz Joseph Haydn. Needless to say, I smiled at the thought of Michael being part of such a rich musical heritage, and every time I have heard him play since then I appreciate Michael’s piano playing even more, gratified to think that the musical spirit of Beethoven’s musically “startlingly and radical original ways” lives on, with no imminent end in sight, with Michael at the keyboard playing Haydn or Beethoven and truly hearing their musical communion through time.

The reason I thought about this conversation with Michael this morning was due to the fact that I was thinking about the indefinable fraternal beauty of our own fraternal genealogical tree of Big and Little brothers and how Mike McInnis spoke about Paul Stimpson, his Big Brother, at Pig Dinner, and how emotionally moved he was in talking about Paul’s good character and amiable disposition. His remarks were heartfelt and true and much appreciated because they were unembellished by anything insincere. Mike’s remarks hit home. They were deliberate in emotional honesty in how he cared for his big brother, Paul Stimpson. With each word, you could hear Mike’s undying gratitude, respect, and affection for Paul. In a meaningful way, I was moved by what Mike said. This, it may be said, is the deep-rooted quality of our Omega Mu life - throughout ones life. Our friendships are not barren and unfulfilling, and “they are not for college days alone.”

I know that I am of a Romantic sensibility in how I view life, history, my career-calling, people, friendship, and love. Romanticism is all about feeling and being, and these two principles have always guided me, personally, vocationally, and avocationally. I remain distant, even aloof, from most people because I am terribly shy, introverted, and I do not engage in blah, blah, blah chatter very often, and I do not say these things with any gnashing of teeth, arrogance, regret, or sense of shame. I have plenty of thorns, and an equal number of roses, that have knitted themselves into my soul and made me who I am, and one of the roses is being an Omega Mu Fiji.

I lived on my own pathway during my years in The Castle, and my greatest successes were being the best driver for most road trips, biking across the country my sophomore summer in two months, and going to the socially ecumenical first floor environ of Fogler Library every night, even Friday night, to read, take reams upon reams of legal pad notes, study, and write until the library closed, and I did so out of pure, grinding necessity because of my dyslexia, not precocity. I would walk back to The Castle and go to bed in the RAM. I never went to a single 11-2; I never even went downstairs to see what was happening. Pretty boring, right? Probably, yes! Candidly, in most ways, I am the least fraternal person in temperament, socially speaking, and certainly my impact on Omega Mu was thin to the point of non-existent invisible. I do not have a large charismatic come-hither personality in the least, and I instinctively shrink from large groups and parties. Metaphorically speaking, I was a non-note in the larger symphonic beauty of Omega Mu. That is the equivalent of being the musician who taps a single pinging note on the triangle during the entire symphony. That was I.  

That being said, I never felt any misgiving about pledging and becoming an Omega Mu Fiji. I never felt any sort of alienation from the Omega My brotherhood, and my personal-life-academic navigational choices were never questioned or criticized. That’s why I am proud to be a Fiji. In truth, the spirit of Oscar Wilde definitely prevailed in The Castle: “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” I do look back from whence I came with pride, and I am thankful for my Omega Mu brothers, even though my presence, for the most part, was fraternally asymmetrical. To play off of what Auden wrote, I was certainly free to be me, but I was totally committed and attentive to all the rituals, customs, and sacraments, if you will, within our brotherhood. I was responsible in fulfilling all of my obligations in taking care of The Castle, and I certainly admired, liked, and cared for each of my brothers. To honor many them I wrote a long poem, Omega Mu Suite: A Brotherhood on the Stillwater, to express my gratitude, affection, respect, and appreciation for them. The clear-eyed and objective answer as to whether being an Omega Mu brother is worth it is simple: “Yes!” It is an understanding and caring presence throughout life. That is genuine community, not an artificial life-support system.

“Fore and Aft”
Crosscurrent cords to
Find the right
Key

Of expression for
My Big and Little
Brothers’:

Greg Scott and
Doug Banks
Because it is a semi-

Mystical thing to
Consider the gentle
Crosshatching of

Brotherly threads in
The human gradient of
Time of our

Historic Omega Mu
Lineage that
Time’s ticking

Teeth cannot
Tear, for the
Timeless


Truth is there
Is never a
Fore or Aft,

Passing or
Ceasing, in
Our

Omega Mu
Brotherhood.
Because

Our fraternal
Brotherhood,
Like time,

Never resets,
Pauses, reboots,
Remixes or

Examines
Itself -
Never

It always
Is a quality
Of relationship,

A ground of
Being that
Has unself-

Consciously
Pulsed good-
Naturedly through

Years without
Social artifice,
Throwaway

Lines, mistaken
Phrases or false
Perceptions.

Only the lived
Fraternal
Friendship of

Nods, smiles,
Handshakes
Laughs and

Fraternal good
Will that is
Appreciative

Cheerful, relaxed
And kind.
And though

Thirty-eight years
Have slipped
Away, we still

Abide
Because it
Is a simple

Yet ineffable
Brotherly
Testament that

Penetrates
Down
Deep and

Across the
Arc of
Time

That is
A perfect
Cord

That
Requires no
Change in

Key.

(“Fore and Aft” specifically honors my Big and Little Brother, Greg Scott and Doug Banks, but it generally honors all my Omega Mu brothers)

In conclusion, and in appreciative awe, our fraternal trip together is more than worth the journey, and it runs deep, and the giving and receiving between all brothers circulate as one, and it has gone on since our Q.T.V. brothers established the providential key of fraternal stability that continues to this day. This unbroken, linked key of connection is unsurpassably impressive in our history. It is similar to the deep spirit of Beethoven in, that, he was always striving by the sheer force of his music to honestly speak to issues of life, love, human nature, human determination, the temporal world, and the eternal world, realistically and Romantically, in every musical composition.

Our fraternal line of Big and Little Brothers extends back over a hundred years, and it remains a fixed axial point that is emotionally penetrating and remains deep in our memory, still and poised. Without exception, I appreciate Scooter and Doug - all my brothers - and it is a unique feeling to be forever linked with them in our historic lineage: The power of our perseverance through 120 years of time.

Fraternally, 

Chip Chapman, ’82

Perge!