The following is a story about the true meaning of Brotherhood. Fifty years or fifty seconds, time doesn’t matter. What matters is keeping your word and honoring your pledge. The story begins with a Zoom meeting held on July 5th at 7:00 PM EDT.
Terry Stepanik: My turn to address the brotherhood. “Brothers and wives, it’s a pleasure to have this opportunity to get together and renew relationships from 50+ years ago. Thanks to Jim Martorelli, who’s health situation spurred us to think about what it means to be fraternity brothers, John Sciambi, who pulled this Zoom call together, and Mark Toniatti, who has had more contact with brothers than anyone else and was instrumental in finding so many of those on the call.”
“When John emailed me and told me Jim has cancer and asked me to give him a call, I hesitated. The excuses started piling up in my mind. What in the hell are we going to talk about? It’s been 50 years since we last talked. How can I possibly help him? I was confused and torn. I decided to sleep on it.”
“The rising sun brought clarity. Jim is my brother! Of course, I’m going to call him! I said the words a long time ago and they still hold true, they still have meaning. I called him and 3 minutes into the call we were both laughing and recalling stupid stuff we did together.”
“The more we talked, the more it became obvious to both of us that we should try to gather more of our brothers to re-bond. That started our efforts to bring so many of us together for this call. Oh, and by the way looking at all of you, it’s amazing to me that I’m the only one that hasn’t aged.”
“I must admit I was surprised at the responses we received. Brother Oakes….do you still have the oar? You were my biggest surprise and greatest joy.” I started to think about why so many agreed to participate. Then it became obvious. All y’all (that’s a Texas way of saying everyone of you) had the same epiphany as I did. You understand that we all raised our hands, said the words, and still hold on to the concept of brotherhood. I knew I said the words, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember what they were. I’ve slept and drank since then. So, I called Phi Kappa Tau national and talked them into sending me a copy. All I had to do to convince them that I am a brother was to recite the founding brothers as fast as I could.
“Taylor A Borradaile, Clinton D Boyd, Dwight I Douglas, William H Shideler, brother!”
“John sent you a copy of the pledge. So, tonight we’re going to take care of something that should have been done years ago. We have someone on the call that was never initiated into the brotherhood, John Kennedy. The fact that he wanted to join us tonight shows his strong desire to be included in the fraternity of Phi Kappa Tau Men of Distinction. I offer a motion. I do hereby present an applicant for admission as a brother in the Omicron Chapter of Phi Kappa Tau, John Kennedy. Do I have a second? All those that believe that John is a man worthy of joining our august group, say ‘Aye’. Those opposed ‘Nay’. The motion passes unanimously. Most of us don’t have a dagger and your hands shake too much to trust you with anything sharp anyway, so we’ll just pretend there is a knife pointed at our hearts. Whoever is willing, we’ll read it again as our new brother says the oath. Does everyone have a copy of the oath? If not, I’ll read it and you can repeat after me. Ready? I’ll start us off…all voices read the pledge.”
“I am honored to be in this brotherhood. And I can’t wait for the next Zoom call in 2072. Now, let’s get on to the fun part. The ‘how in the hell did we survive?’ stories.”
As we put together the agenda for the call, we left time for everyone to tell a story or bring up a memory of things we had done. It was like we were back in the fraternity house telling tales about the pledge class trip, hell week, who met their wives at the school, the psychedelic mural on the wall, and many other mostly forgotten pieces of our lives. A good time was had by all. We are brothers again, and still.
The story continues…….
John Sciambi:
As a postscript to this story, two days after the zoom call, I received a call from Jim Martorelli’s wife, Layne (1970 Little Sister class). She informed me that earlier that day, Jim had fallen and broken his hip and fractured his knee. His bones were so brittle from the cancer already and this fall put Jim in the ICU. His prognosis was now days – no longer, weeks. The following Monday, July 11th, six days after the call, Jim passed away with his entire family present. His suffering had ended, and he was headed home to be with his Lord. Jim was a devout Christian and was ready for this next journey.
I was privileged to attend Jim’s Celebration of Life in his hometown of Palm Bay, Florida with a large gathering of family and friends. I met his children and all three mentioned how much the zoom call meant to him. I believe that call was God’s exclamation point for Jim and, for our brotherhood, it was a reminder that we are brothers forever.
Once a Phi Tau, always a Phi Tau!!!
