Toga! Toga! Toga!

My generation had Superbad. The 90's had American Pie. The 80's had Fast Times at Ridgemont High. And well, the 70's had Animal House, which changed the outlook on social functions for the next 4 generations. This past Friday I attended a toga party at the Chi Phi fraternity to get my taste of the action.

The toga party portrayed in Animal House has been reenacted year after year, all over the country. It just so happens that there is a fraternity at Oregon State University that holds one of these annual toga parties, and I was able to get myself on the guest list. I went out to a fabric store with a few friends last week to get my toga material, and let's just say that Caesar would be proud.

Right from the get-go, I had the grief of waiting in line with every other person on the guest list, (Fraternity parties should take a page out of Disney's book and invest in a fast-pass line.) You can imagine the toll that the brisk Autumn weather takes on a person wearing a bed sheet. Once inside though, things warmed up immensely. Hundreds of people packed into a basement-style room gives off quite a bit of body heat, (I'm sure the Fire Marshall would love to hear some juicy information like this.)

The 70's didn't quite have the creativity that todays generation has. A plain white toga was out of the question, as every color of the spectrum was displayed throughout the function. Outfits ranged from camouflage togas to blue mesh ones, from rainbow silk togas to pink plaid ones. I talked to one of the guests that attended the affair about the strategies people used while choosing toga material. "It's all about having fun," said Devin Hohensee, one of the guests at the party. "These things dont happen often, so you might as well go all out."

Hohensee was right, these things dont happen often. So when they do, who are the masterminds behind it all?

Chris Jordan was one of the social chairman involved with the production of the event. "We have around 700 people on the guest list. I spent hours a day trying to plan it all out and set it all up."

"When you put something like this together, you're obviously doing it for the guests," said Casey Clarke, another member of the social committee. "When you're expecting hundreds of people to show up, we want to make sure they enjoy it and have a good time."