Triangle

Dear Reader,

            I want to tell you about a place that has meant a lot to me since I have come to study at the University of Louisville. The place is the Triangle fraternity house, located on Louisville’s Greek row. It’s the blue one second from the end on the right. I want to tell you about this particular place so that you can understand how I feel about it.

            When I walk up the front steps to the house I can smell the food that is being cooked at west side diner, mixed with a bit of car exhaust, and a nearly inconspicuous bit of nature. As I walk up to the house I usually don’t look up, I know by heart what I would see anyway: blue painted house, small tree to the right and left, bit of shrubbery, old and very large tree to the right side of the house, porch swing and bench. Instead, I keep my eyes to the ground to make sure I step on the Delta T symbol, which has been crafted into the sidewalk, for good luck. Not sure why I think this will bring me good luck, no one ever told me it would or anything. It just feels right.

            Once I reach the porch and the front door I reach for the key that I earned in my pocket and prepare for a fight with the lock. It doesn’t take a lot to earn the key to the Triangle house; you just have to memorize word for word their code of ethics after accepting a bid to pledge. However, the key means a lot to me, it represents my ability to open a door into a place I can feel safe and be in the company of people that I care about and they care about me in return, it opens a door into a place of learning, and a place I have great respect for. The lock, I guess from a lot of use, has never worked quite right. Well, it keeps the house locked, so it does its job, but it doesn’t always let people in. After a few moments of jerking and finagling the key in the lock the door opens to a dimly lit entrance room with an old chandelier hanging in front of you, the Triangle crest painted on the wall, a closed up fire place to the right, in front of the fire place some recently added couches, and a hallway dead ahead with stairs a little ways down to the right. To the left is the study room.

The study room is actually a dining room, but we are frat guys so it gets mostly used for studying. The table was made by Triangles that have since graduated, it is thick and sturdy and has a large Triangle symbol inlaid into its center with slightly different wood from the rest of the table. The chairs for the table, up until recently, have been assorted and most somewhere between nearly broken and broken. Now there are new chairs that I must say are rather comfy. Up against the wall is another closed fireplace and to the sides of are two book shelves. Above the mantle of the fireplace is the most recent composite of current Triangle actives. On the wall facing the front of the house is a window which is often used to people watch people walking by, or to do our more favorite activity: watch people try to Parallel Park. You can often smell some recently eaten Sub Hub or other near campus food. This is also my favorite room in the house. I like this room so much because when I am in it I feel better about the hard classes I have to take at J.B. Speed. When I’m in this room there is almost always someone to help me with whatever class I need help with. I guess you could say it’s my educational safe place. The room brings me a lot of peace and good memories of long hours spent learning with friends. But there is yet more to see.

As you move into the next room from the door way in the study room, or by walking down the hallway and taking the first left, you enter the living/ hangout room. When coming in from the hallway there is a bulky TV on the left in the middle of the doorway to the study room, pictures of past Triangle composites covers all of the walls, yet another closed fireplace with a baseball bat that is spit in two on top of it. There are three heavily used couches that from a square with the TV and a coffee table in the middle. This is where we hang out, sometimes just to watch TV, but other times to tell old stories, learn more about Triangle from older members, or just use the area as a meeting spot for something we are about to head off to. This is where I go to relax and be surrounded by friends. In this room I feel like I belong. I can see myself proudly smiling one day in a composite, surrounded by my best friends and Triangle brothers on one of the walls.

There is much more to see of the house. Two more stories up and a basement to talk about, along with finishing the first floor. However, I feel like I have hit the most important things about Triangle. I hope you can feel, or at least understand, what I feel when I think of the Triangle house.

Sincerely,

    Joshua Frasure