Wilke

I met Wilke in Eldridge Hall, one of the newest dorms on Western Michigan’s campus, in the fall of 1965 . He wasn’t the first guy I met, and to tell you the truth, we really didn’t hangout together until the summer prior to our junior year. Most of us were known best by our last names during college. Wilke, Maher, Miller, Smith and Tebo were easier to remember. Each was unique. Sometime during our first year Maher became The Fox as a tribute to his wiley way with the ladies. Wilke, The Fox, and I agreed to share an apartment during our junior year. That’s when we became what would turn out to be life-long friends.

Wilke pledged one of Western’s newest fraternities, Lambda Chi Alpha, during his second year of college. After his induction, he recruited The Fox and me. Lambda Chi, in addition to being the newest fraternity on campus, boasted its members were among the brightest. Part of the recruitment process was to discuss the grade point average of several of its “brothers”. They also looked for “face men”, good looking guys, to be the face (pun intended) of the group. Wilke was a bit of both.

I had never really considered joining a fraternity until Wilke posed the idea. Initially, I saw it as an opportunity to meet new people and attend a few parties during the fraternity season known as “rush”. I lived with my cousin, Ruth Ellen, and her family during my sophomore year. Ruth Ellen was a sorority girl. She hooked me up on a couple of blind dates with her sorority sisters during that year, so I had a taste of the “Greek life” and I liked it.

Wilke, The Fox, and I all arrived on campus with “girl friends” from high school. During our time together, Wilke always had a steady girl. If I recall correctly, Linda was the name of his high school squeeze. Once he arrived at Western he met Lynn, and she became his girl. She remained that way all through college, and they married a couple of years after we graduated.

While The Fox and I had girlfriends at home, we ventured out a bit, expanding our horizons so to speak. That’s how The Fox was born.

Wilke and I shared a bedroom in our new digs. Sharing a room opened my eyes to his peculiar way of studying. He wanted to become a dentist which required that he earn good grades. The better the grades, the better the potential dental school. He had his eye on the University of Michigan. He ended each night studying in bed. Almost every night, as he prepared to go to sleep, he laid the open book next to him on a nightstand. He said the information in the book would continue to flow into his brain throughout the night through “osmosis”. It must have worked because he made it into Michigan’s dental school which was the beginning of his very successful career.

TBC