A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…

No, not that long ago, but it was the late 1970’s while I was an undergrad at UNC-Chapel Hill (I was there from 1975 to 1979) that some of my friends and I were sitting around thinking about the things that college students think about 🙂 We were all members of the Rho Chapter of the Alpha Phi Omega service fraternity, and were generally motivated to do service and good works, all while having a good time, but most of us were not the type of student to get tapped for one of the classic honor societies of Carolina. You know…the “Order of ________” or the “The _________ Society” … I’m sure that you can relate. So, we decided that the only way we’d ever get into an honorary society was to found one ourselves. But what to call it? Well, we had fond memories of the ginkgo tree in front of New West Hall, and how the leaves would all turn yellow gold and then fall off, almost all in one night, creating a golden carpet…upon which to have a keg of golden soda! We’d have a party each fall under the tree…so, we decided to create the Order of the Ginkgo. We took up a collection to buy a page in the Yackety Yack (Carolina’s Yearbook). The first year, the editor wouldn’t publish it, so we hung him in effigy in the tree (and got that picture published for “student life” 😉 ). The next year, however, we were in the Yack! I think it may have lasted a few years after the initial group graduated, but it was fun while it lasted.

So, what does that have do do with anything, and why, after all these years, am I putting this in my blog? Well, I was looking for some old financial papers and while going thru my “filing system” I stumbled across a yellowed copy of the by-laws of the Order of the Ginkgo, which I offer here for your reading pleasure. Remember that this was the not-so-politically-correct ramblings of a group of college students 😉

Yes, I was one of the Four Tops, the Extra Extreme Grandest Mulch Excelsior…