The Flower Petals of Florida State

Classes for my third and final year of law school begin in two days. The Suwannee Room, the main dining hall on campus, is open again and I am eating almost all of my meals there. The walk from the law school to the dining hall is about 10 minutes, and it takes me down a section of Jefferson Street lined with a dozen or so sorority houses.

Each year at this time, at least while I have been here, girls trying to join these sororities line up outside the houses wearing cute sun dresses. They perform cheers and chants. Other girls (actual sorority members, I suppose) wearing uniform colored t-shirts guide them quite seriously from house to house to do who-knows-what activities inside.

Personally, I have never been inside a sorority house. These houses were illegal when I was an undergraduate student in North Carolina. The law said something about too many women living alone in one house as constituting a brothel. So, this late August ritual at Florida State is fascinating to me.

This evening, as I walked to dinner, Jefferson Street was empty. Then, almost simultaneously, the doors to the sorority houses opened and dozens and dozens of girls began quietly flowing out of the houses. The had on classy dresses of all colors. Most wore sandals and carried their high heeled shoes in one hand.

The girls must have been forbidden to speak, because not one made a sound. The sidewalks became so thick with these girls that I stepped onto the grass and the road to give them enough room.

It was an amazing sight. I thought of a cherry blossom tree or a Bradford pear in spring as the green leaves overtake the flowers on the branches. A breeze would blow the flower petals off the trees, and it was pretty to watch the petals float to the ground. This was the effect of all of these beautiful girls, floating out of the houses- flower petals floating down to the sidewalks.

A few of the girls smiled at me, as if they could read my mind. It was like something out of a dream, to be the lone guy in this ocean of moving, silent, beautiful women. Even now, as an older guy done with my undergraduate years, the whole spectacle was intoxicating.

It was one of the most beautiful things I have seen here at Florida State. I wonder if the law schools at Harvard or Yale have something that could compare?

Until Next Time,

Nathan Marshburn