Breaking With Family, Still Manly

MY GRANDFATHER, father and uncle are members of the Owl Club. There is a photograph of the Owl Club of 1955 in our family living room. When visitors examine the picture, we ask them to identify the man standing next to my father. They stare, smile, and recognize the boyish face of Teddy Kennedy '54.

One night last fall, I found two invitations outside my door. The Owl Club requested my presence at an outing and the Phoenix-S.K. Club invited me to cocktails.

I have always had doubts about the morality of joining a final club. After the first two events, though, I decided to stop attending for a far simpler reason: I would not enjoy being in a club.

To begin with, the clubs encouraged obnoxious behavior. During cocktails, a club member suggested that I meet as many members as possible. Semicircles of candidates soon formed around each wearer of an official Club tie. Too much laughter followed stupid jokes. Too much respect greeted inane comments. Too much brown nosing.

Some Club members were obsessed with "manly" behavior. They cajoled candidates into guzzling "Owl Juice," which tasted like a martini, from an ornate pitcher. When I told a Club member that I might miss an event to keep a date with my long-distance girlfriend, he warned that the Club would frown upon an "unmanly excuse." Later I listened to two members brag about their liasons with various women.

Drinking and sexual exploits are hardly a test of one's manhood.

EVEN MORE UNPLEASANT are the signs of elitism that pervade the clubs. Some rooms of each Club are forbidden to non-members. If you invite friends over, you must tell them "you can go here but not there." Some clubs require women to enter through a side door. All clubs have a punching process that excludes people with little rhyme or reason.

The logic of all this is clear. Club members create rules and exclude others to make themselves feel important. You may feel silly as a candidate crowding around some senior at a club party or being excluded from a members-only drawing room, but then again someday you will be the one excluding others. If that's what you're after, maybe the clubs are the place for you.

Some club members are, of course, nice guys. But they are elitists; they have chosen to join an elitist club. Whether or not you have doubts about the virtue of joining such a group, think about whether you would enjoy it.