Jim Higley recounts in a HuffPo piece “New Friends, Lost Friends, Found Friends, Old Friends” how more than thirty years after pledging his fraternity helped him gain a deeper understanding of human relationships, and explain friendship to his children:

For me, I found that bucket of friends a few weeks ago when a group of 50-year-old men had a joint birthday party at a little VFW Hall near the wooded shores of Lake Washington in Seattle. I was one of those men. And collectively — about 30 years ago — we were a bunch of young fraternity brothers sharing a few, quick years along the journey called life.

I never intended to be a fraternity guy. I was a naive kid from the Midwest heading out West to a big school and content to live in the dorms. But, a funny thing happened on the way to dorm move-in day. I stopped by the Sigma Chi house as a courtesy to a family friend. I was only going to stay 30 minutes. That was the deal I made with my dad who waited patiently in a parking lot for me. But I never left. Ever. I never moved into the dorm. I stayed at the fraternity and I was happy to let them squeeze me into a closet they swore was a legitimate room.

Many Rho Dekes tell of similar experiences of our times in the DKE House at Lafayette College.

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