Stan was the president of the Chi fraternity at Albion.
He and my Grandpa became chummy. My Grandpa was from inner city Toledo and felt strongly about civil rights. The Chi fraternity was unique--even in Michigan--for allowing black and Jewish pledges. My Grandpa, a dorm monitor, overlooked the alcohol related infractions of Chi members under his supervision. "Well, I guess I wouldn't turn them in or something," he says. Stan appreciated the gesture and the two became close.
The photo is as typical of the 1950s as I can imagine a photo being. Stan looks small and shifty next to my grandpa's confident gaze. They looked like mobsters, white jackets and baggy black pants, Stan being the clumsier Sonny, and my grandpa the dapper, simmering Michael Corleone. Or something like that.
"I thought the friendship was more than it was," My Grandpa explains. Promptly, he falls asleep.
Two pillars have defined My Grandpa as I have known him. He has always been a fanatic supporter of racial equality. He has been an equally raging opponent of alcohol; until he began to soften in old age beer was banned from family gatherings, the only exceptions coming in the presence of my uncle who is Black and thus eligible for a type of immunity--as race and alcohol are the pillars, my Grandpa seems willing to ignore infractions against the latter if he feels he is fighting for the former.
What happened? Did Stan lower himself to depravity on a liquor soaked summer night on frat row? Did he insult my Grandpa? Was it an angry confrontation based around stron personality and principle? But in 1952 my Grandpa was nearly done with Seminary. Stan and he would soon be parted. Was Stan too cool? Was it simply that he slighted my grandpa with some form of social exclusion? It's hard to imagine, looking at my steely grandfather. He looks like someone who would piss you off, but not require your sympathy. The mystery lives on. I'll ask him when he wakes up.
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