I'll never be a DDGL

It was a Lodge's nightmare… both the District Deputy Grand Lecturer and Regional Grand Lecturer were in attendance. Also a visitor at that meeting, I sat next to the two dignitaries and thought, "The officers better be on their toes. This could get ugly."

It went better than I expected but at one point during the meeting the DDGL leaned over to the RGL and whispered, "The Senior Warden said, 'You will advance to the West and communicate the password...' It should be, 'You will approach the West...' Should we stop them and say something?"

The RGL shook his head, "No… they got there."

I'm with the RGL: I am not a hard-core ritualist – and that's blasphemy in some circles. Don't get me wrong. I like a well-done ritual as much as the next guy; but I care more about whether the ceremony comes off well than if a Brother says "this" when he should say "that." I know… I'll never be a DDGL.

And don't even get me started on the guys in the "peanut gallery" who start yelling out the next line any time the speaker has more than a two-second pause. I'm not alone in that. I've been in Lodge when the Master appointed a proctor with the admonition, "I don't want to hear a word out of anyone else." I'm big on proctors.

I bring all this up because this week my Lodge tested for one of the ritual awards my Grand Lodge sponsors. We invited the DDGL in to grade us on our opening and closing. The guys were well-practiced and the ceremony went like clockwork.

I just sat there thinking how enjoyable it is to be in any of our ceremonies – especially degree work – when things just click along. That, as opposed to the living hell of sitting through the same thing when the speakers are ill-prepared and have to be prompted on every line. Sitting through an opening like that is the only time I actually look forward to getting to the reading of the minutes.

So, congrats to my Brothers at Liberty Lodge #31. They got the award.

Oh, there were mistakes. There are ALWAYS mistakes. I knew our perfect score was gone as the Chaplain, asking God to subdue our discordant passions, prayed, "Grant that the sublime principles of Freemasonry may so subdue every insubordinate passion within us…"

See, I just let that roll right off my back. In fact, I thought it was kind of funny. Unfortunately, the DDGL – you know, the guy keeping score – was not amused.

A Small Sacrifice

I found a metal file box while I was rummaging through a closet recently. When I opened it, I discovered a treasure-trove of things my parents had saved. Among the items were World War II ration books. I'm certain they belonged to my mother, because at the time my father was slogging his way across North Africa, up through Italy and into France. You've seen the maps. My parents, Robert and Alice, were part of that industrious, young and determined group that really did save the world; and for good reason we now call them "The Greatest Generation."

People of that era made sacrifices unimaginable to most of us, now living in what Time Magazine has dubbed the "Me Me Me Generation" — not to be outdone by the "Me Generation" of the 70s.

I'm not sure what all of Mom's coupons were for, but I know for sure the U.S. rationed gas, food and other items. People were encouraged to recycle tin cans for the war effort. Children even donated their metal toys to help. Each family was allotted five tires (for one family car), and had to give any others to the government. Even the fact that we are at war today does not affect us like that. Most of us, apart from families with loved ones in the military, may make some sacrifices but not on such a large scale.

The material shortages ran so deep that it even affected, at least in one small way, the Freemasons. When Dad returned from the War, he joined the Fraternity. Although peacetime had returned, production had not caught up with demand and certain things remained hard to get. In Dad's Lodge and many others, it was customary to present a new Brother his apron in a cellophane envelope, suitable for its protection. Cellophane, however, was in short supply and his Lodge had to use paper as a substitute.

When Dad passed away, I could not find his apron. His Lodge, as is the custom, supplied one at his funeral. Later, while going through some of his things, I found it in an old cedar chest, inside that well-worn paper envelope. Despite its wrinkles and tears, it had protected the apron all those years. On it is a drawing of a Steward knocking at the inner door on behalf of a poor, blind candidate. Along with the picture is this accompanying note:

MASONRY WILL UNDERSTAND

Our fighting men need cellophane and its ingredients. For that reason the protection cellophane formerly gave our Masonic aprons has to be eliminated.

This white paper stock will carry on for the duration.

That envelope, having done its job, now hangs framed on my office wall as a reminder of those sacrifices.

The Original Comedy Roast

"It's no coincidence George Hamilton loves the sun. They were born in the same year. The difference is the sun is actually a star." ~Lisa Lampanelli

"What's with all the surgery, Kathy (Griffin)? You've been stitched up thousands of times but you're still sad to look at. You're like the AIDS quilt." ~Greg Giraldo

"Justin’s fans are called Beliebers because it’s politically incorrect to use the word retards." ~Natasha Legerro

"My good friend Snoop Dogg said Jeff Ross' book was unreadable, but that's because Snoop can't read." ~Larry King

“Bill (Shatner), you were supposed to explore the galaxy, not fill it”- Betty White

Do you enjoy comedy roasts? You know they're those events where people get up and destroy their friends in what is allegedly good-natured fun. With apologies to sensitive or politically correct listeners, here are a few examples of actual things people have said about their so-called friends in such roasts...

Modern comedy roasts date back to the Friar's Club events of the late 1940s and have progressed (if you can call it progress) to today's televised productions that seemingly make a science of mean-spirited nastiness.

What may be the original comedy roast, however, dates well before the Friars thought of presenting organized evenings of vitriol. That honor goes to a gala event the Atlantic Monthly held in Boston the evening of December 17, 1877, celebrating poet John Greenleaf Whittier's 70^th birthday.

People today revere Brother Mark Twain as an American treasure. During his lifetime he was in demand as a speaker and it seemed no one was more well-suited to deliver the keynote address on that auspicious occasion.

Ever the mischievous humorist, Twain decided to go over-the-top and take a few friendly jabs at some of the impressive guests in attendance, specifically Henry Wadsdworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

He launched into a story about stumbling upon a miner's shack. The miner told him, "You're the fourth... literary man that has been here in twenty-four hours — I'm going to move. [The others were] Mr. Longfellow, Mr. Emerson, and Mr. Oliver Wendell Holmes — confound the lot!"

"Mr. Emerson was a seedy little bit of a chap, red-headed. Mr. Holmes was as fat as a balloon; he weighed as much as three hundred, and had double chins all the way down to his stomach. Mr. Longfellow was built like a prize-fighter. His head was cropped and bristly, like as if he had a wig made of hair-brushes. His nose lay straight down his face, like a finger with the end joint tilted up. They had been drinking, I could see that. And what queer talk they used…"

…And on and on it went. Expecting laughter by this point, Twain found himself speaking to a hushed crowd.*

Writing about the event later, Twain said he knew things weren't right, "Now, then, the house's attention continued, but the expression of interest in the faces turned to a sort of black frost. I wondered what the trouble was. I didn't know. I went on, but with difficulty… In the end, I didn't know enough just to give up and sit down.”

Following the speech, newspapers across the country erupted with stories of Twain's rude remarks and bad taste. His book sales dropped off as did, understandably, invitations to speak.

Today we think of Brother Samuel Clemens in his Mark Twain persona as having had the "Midas Touch" when it came to writing, a sense of humor and popularity. It was not so. At the time of the speech, Twain was in some degree of financial distress, and counted on speaking fees and book sales to carry him through. After what author William Dean Howells called "the amazing mistake, the bewildering blunder, the cruel catastrophe" Twain had trouble making ends meet. With no prospect of financial success in the US, he was forced to undertake a grueling European speaking tour.

Twain never completely recovered — financially or emotionally — from his faux pas. Near the end of his life, he wrote about it in an apologetic letter to a friend, "It seems as if I must have been insane when I wrote that speech and saw no harm in it, no disrespect toward those men whom I reverenced so much."

Maybe Brother Twain was just ahead of his time; or maybe we today have become a little too desensitized to what was one time regarded as rude.

____________________________

*Although at the end of the speech Twain called the men in the story representing Emerson, Holmes and Longfellow "imposters," it was a question of too-little-too-late. The full text of the speech is available at http://bit.ly/2ibRsU7

From The Summer of Love to Woodstock West

"Tried to hitch a ride to San Francisco

Gotta do the things I wanna do..."

In February, 1967, I was a sophomore living in Wright Quadrangle at Indiana University. The winter had been going on for about a century, it seemed, and I was beginning to think I would never see another warm day. Classes were dull and I had lost interest in being a student. The Vietnam War raged on. The Civil Rights movement was in full-bloom. I had attended rallies against the former and for the latter but cold weather was keeping everyone inside. An epidemic of stir-craziness was affecting us all. On top of everything else I had broken up with my girlfriend. That was one of the few things I had to feel happy about – more like relieved, but here it was a weekend night and I had no date. The dorm was a ghost town and I needed something to do.

I walked down to the room of my friend Ken Riffle to see if he wanted to do something. He did… he wanted to go drinking and make the rounds at a few local establishments and, unfortunately, I was an underage liability. He offered to pick up some beer on the way home and said maybe we would get together later. I was pretty sure that wouldn't happen. I moped back to my room and saw that Dave Swinney's door was open. Dave was a psych major from Queens who lived across the hall from me. I stuck my head in and said hi. It turned out Dave was in the same boat as me — no girlfriend, nothing to do, and Dave certainly did not need to study. I always considered him to be a mass of brain material in the form of a human being.

Dave was 21 and could have gone out with Ken, but instead said he wanted to go to the Kiva — a campus coffee house in the Union building. He said he had read about the act playing there and thought it should be good. I decided anything was better than staying in my dorm room so I tagged along.

We almost didn't make it. Dave was wearing shoes with slick leather soles and twice during our walk over there he slipped on ice and landed on his butt.

Undaunted, we arrived and ran into some guys we knew from another floor. We ordered soft drinks – no alcohol allowed on campus. The act was pretty good. I don't remember the name of the group but it played a variety of folk and semi-rock songs peppered with not a few double-entendres. Pretty entertaining. At one point the lead singer said he and his group were headed for San Francisco later that year. He talked about a "Hippie Fest" that was apparently going to be a big thing, and how great it would be for people to gather there for the biggest celebration ever of peace, love and harmony. And drugs. And girls.

Dave and I started the trek back to the dorm. We took a different route back which would be better lighted and less likely to have more ice for him to fall on. We didn't say much. Finally, about the time we reached Showalter Fountain, a campus landmark, we both had the same thought, "You ever been to San Francisco?" Neither of us had.

That was the start of the adventure.

To be continued...

Sic Transit Gloria Sixties

That celebrated summer of sixty-seven. We turned on, tuned in and dropped out. For a few weeks, anyway. We knew it wouldn't last forever, but pretended it would. She drove down from Oregon. I scored a ride from Indiana. We met on a bench across from the Free Store.

The hippie scene was a kaleidoscope of experience, color, and constant motion. A band here, free food there, a crazy guy rambling, beads, hair, impromptu dancing, buskers. The smell of pot hung in the air. Next day, same thing. Day after, same thing. Pleasant but repetitive.

The warmth of June was upon us, even in forever-chilly San Francisco. In a few days we were set to join together with the collective human be-in at the Solstice and usher in another phase of the age of Aquarius. Until then… same thing.

She had a car. Let's do something different. Let's go somewhere. Parking at a premium, we took a bus down to where she had it parked, then she drove back up to the city. You never notice how bad traffic is when you aren't driving through it. Driving was slow. People milled in the streets. We sat still for long periods as the exhaust polluted the world we were there to save. A gal in a flowered summer dress and trademark floppy hat tapped on my window. She had a strange sales pitch, "Ten cents to change your life."

Ten cents, an amount even within my meager budget. Ten cents for a single drop of what at the time was still legal. Ten cents to change our lives. What a deal. LSD. No thanks. That was the moment she and I realized we were just tourists. We were in the scene but not of it.

So what do tourists do? Let's go to a ball game. Are the Giants in town? Don't know. We bought a paper, found out and headed for Candlestick through more heavy traffic. A couple of cheap upper-deck seats and we were set. I headed out to get us some food. We were at a ball park, so what else, I went for a couple of hot dogs. Two dollars. TWO DOLLARS. We should have bought them on the street for 25¢ and smuggled them in. At a buck each they better be some good dogs. Actually, they were.

The Giants lost. I think they played St. Louis. Can't remember the score. The main thing I do remember is those expensive hot dogs. A buck for a hot dog and ten cents for an LSD trip. Sic transit gloria sixties.

Skinny Dippin'

Bloomington, Indiana is the home of Indiana University, where I attended college. It is also the home of limestone deposits which are mined and used to construct many of the buildings on the campus. The area is peppered with abandoned quarries in secluded areas making them perfect locations for that most popular of all collegiate sports – skinny dippin'. It took some doing, but one hot spring day I talked my girlfriend into going for, shall we say, Olympic Gold.

A buddy had told me where the place was and cautioned it was hard to get to. I followed his directions down a path that he had mistakenly called a road as tree branches reached out and scraped the sides of my old but faithful '63 Chevy. Finally we came to a clearing and saw the quarry in all its magnificence. I guess you could say I drove my Chevy to the levee.

We got out, inspected the place for interlopers and, finding none, took the plunge, sans attire, into the really, really cold water. We sort of got used to it as we swam out to a debris pile forming an island several yards off shore.

Just as we got there I saw a van pull up to a place maybe 100 yards away from where we had come in.  Maybe a half dozen kids got out and started to set up things for their own little party. I was then reminded I had promised this place was so remote no one else could find it. I offered to swim back and get our clothes and bring hers back. No dice. She didn't want to wear wet clothes. So we decided to head back and put on a show for our new neighbors.

Just as we started back, however, the whole gang pulled up stakes hopped back in the van and left. So, without embarrassing incident, we swam back, dried off (we did think to bring towels) and got dressed. I told her I wanted to find out how that van got into the place without having to come through the jungle route we took. So we hiked down to that area and found a "normal" road which led right up to the place. I made a mental note to speak to my buddy about the directions he gave me.

We discovered something else at the spot and at the same time figured out why the other group had left. There was a "no swimming" sign warning that the water was contaminated, polluted and unsafe to the max. Bummer.

There was no way to drive down to the "normal" road so through much maneuvering I turned my behemoth of a car around and re-negotiated the jungle path.

Back in town we stopped for some ice cream at the "Big Wheel," a local greasy spoon that was for some reason a favorite of the college kids.

We ordered the ice cream and cokes and sat there for a while decompressing and reliving the adventure – which, of course was all my fault. That's OK. At that point I would have said it was definitely worth the trouble.

That's when the rash started to show up. It didn't affect me too much but she got pretty splotchy on her arms and legs… and, I assume, elsewhere. 

I felt responsible and insisted on taking her to the health center. There, we went through the whole story and the staff wanted to know what precisely was in the water, but we, of course couldn't say. I told them we just read the sign and got out of there. At that point the lecherous offending boyfriend whose rash had subsided was thrown out.

In spite of the cold water, lack of privacy and rash, the relationship survived… for a while, anyway.

Thoughts on Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, Brothers. I know as you read this the pain of facing another blue Monday is much tempered by the joy of the approaching three-day work week. Admit it… you're going to take Friday off, aren't you? I've never made that my habit. My philosophy is it's easier to get things done when the office is as empty and quiet as a ghost town. Besides, that's Black Friday. You can sit in the safety of your office while throngs at Walmart and Target trample themselves to snag that big-screen TV they don't really need.

But we all know there is a deeper meaning to the holiday. It's a time we can set aside to be with friends and family, and to be thankful for those relationships as well as the bounty of our country, which most of us share.

And What's Masonic about that? Many lodges celebrate with a Thanksgiving dinner or, like my own Lodge, provide one to a deserving family or group who might not have the means to celebrate with the rest of us. It's a springboard into a season of giving in which we can practice the second of our tenets of brotherly love relief and truth.

We all know the story of the "Pilgrims and Indians" celebrating the "First Thanksgiving." First in the "New World" it may have been, but it was not the first United States Thanksgiving since, at that time, the US did not exist. Brother George Washington proclaimed that first US official Thanksgiving celebration in 1789, when he declared November 26 to be set aside not to be thankful for the nation's bounty but to give thanks for the newly adopted Constitution. Washington also enjoined people to "...unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications... beseeching [God] to pardon our national and other transgressions.”

Although celebrated off-and-on, usually unofficially, from that time forward, Thanksgiving did not become a permanent official US holiday until Brother Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed it so in 1939.

So, once again, happy Thanksgiving, Brothers. May we all reflect on what he have to be thankful for as we celebrate happily passed out in front of a football game in our tryptophan-induced stupors.

Frank McKinney and Me

Frank E. McKinney (1904-1974) was a bigshot. An Indianapolis native, he was Chairman of American Fletcher National Bank, owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates and other baseball teams, and was hand-picked by Harry Truman to be the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He was even named US Ambassador to Spain, but never actually assumed the job. He owned a sprawling mansion in Indianapolis, was an accomplished pilot and his son, Frank, Jr., was an Olympic swimming champion.

Frank and My Dad

McKinney was also a friend of my Dad. I don't really know how the friendship developed. I never asked Dad and after he was gone I tried to do a little digging to find out what they had in common. The first place I looked was to check to see if Frank was a Freemason. For all I can find out he was not. Dad was the Secretary-Treasurer of his corporation's board and as such made its banking arrangements. He may have gotten to know McKinney in his role with AFNB. In addition to the Pirates, McKinney also owned the Indianapolis Indians minor league team. Dad was one of the Indians' original shareholders and they may have had that connection. Maybe it was just the fact they were both avid fishermen.

What led up to the invitation I don't know but at one point Frank told Dad to bring my Brother Jim and me to the Indiana University pool in Indianapolis where we got free swimming lessons from Frank, Jr., the eventual Olympic champion.

Another time, Dad flew to Canada with Frank to a lake inaccessible by road for a fishing trip. I do not know how many were with them, but I imagine it was a pretty small group.

Dorm Room Civil War

Throughout my high school years, I hung around with a friend who was in my DeMolay chapter. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say we were inseparable. We both enrolled at Indiana University and were roomates in Wright Quadrangle. About midway through our freshman year, we were each asked to pledge separate fraternities. I declined but Joe (not his real name) accepted.

As Joe became more active in pledging his fraternity, he grew distant to the point that our relationship completely deteriorated. Without going into detail, he became pretty nasty toward me and nothing I could do would change his attitude. In retrospect I wonder if his fraternity required its pledges to eschew former relationships in favor of the pledge's new Brothers. At any rate, things became unbearable for me. For the record, I was no angel in the dispute. Then, like today, you come at me, I come at you harder.

Joe's antics finally got to the point where I couldn't take it any more. One morning the situation hit a tipping point and I called my dad at the office and told him what was going on. His reaction was typical Dad: "You are at school to get an education. That's your job. Get to class, knuckle down with the books and forget about Joe."

Then he said the magic words: "I'll take care of this."

After the call I went to my classes. When my afternoon classes were over I walked back to the residence hall anticipating more of Joe's nonsense.

When I opened the door Joe was inside having a hissy-fit. He was taking clothes out of his closet and throwing them on the bed, cursing as he did it. He saw me come in and turned his wrath on me, "YOU WON'T GET AWAY WITH THIS! I'LL GET YOU IF IT'S THE LAST THING I EVER DO!" By suppertime he had taken all of his things out of the room and down to a waiting car. In just a few hours Dad had eradicated the little unwanted pest. I actually didn't know if Joe had been kicked out of school or just moved. I soon discovered from others in our residence hall he had been kicked out of the dorm and was moving into his fraternity – probably not the best situation for a pledge.

I questioned Dad about the situation but he wouldn't tell me what he did. His only response was for me just to concentrate on my school work.

Frank Stepped In

Fast forward a couple years. I was home for the weekend. Dad and I were sitting in the kitchen having lunch when the phone rang. It was Frank McKinney inviting Dad to go on a fishing trip. They took a while to make plans and then Dad hung up and asked me, "Remember that trouble you had with Joe a couple years ago?"

"How could I forget it," I asked.

"That's the guy I called to get him thrown out of your dorm room," he said.

It turns out, in addition to all the other impressive things on his resume, Frank McKinney was the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Indiana University. All it took was one call to him and Joe was booted from the room. I am certain that kind of thing could not happen today, but things were different back then.

Epilog

One final thing… during that same phone call Frank McKinney invited me to fly back to Bloomington in his private plane. I had been doing my share of flying over that period, but I was a nervous flier. I could handle the big jets but no way was I getting in a small private plane. Looking back, I wish I had taken him up on his offer.

As for Joe... I never saw nor heard from him again.

Forget Me Not Day

Are you ready for the holidays?

Oh, I'm not talking about those holidays… you know, Veteran's Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year… the ones that march us out of the old year with all its "vices and superfluities" and into the hope of the new year. No, I'm talking about the less common holidays that give us an opportunity to celebrate the forgotten, the mundane, the obscure.

This is 21^st century America. We are an equal opportunity nation and must give these quirky days their moment in the sun — not to mention their own individual marketing event.

Let's hear it for the revenue generating enthusiasm of National Ice Cream Day (December 13), Popcorn Day (January 19), National Doughnut Day (first Friday in June), Sun Screen Day (May 27) or even National Underwear Day (August 5).

And don't forget to celebrate the days that are just plain absurd like If Pets Had Thumbs Day (March 3), Sneak Some Zucchini onto Your Neighbor's Porch Day (August 8), Hoodie-Hoo Day (Feburary 20), Have a Bad Day Day (November 19) and, my personal favorite, No Diet Day (May 6).

Well, there's a little wheat among all that chaff. Did you know this Saturday, November 10, is nothing less than National Forget-Me-Not Day?

To those we might refer to as "the profane," National Forget-Me-Not Day is an opportunity to remember friends, family and loved ones.

But we, as Free and Accepted Masons, know it to have another meaning. I know what it means; and you know what it means. It's not really a Masonic secret but, as for the rest of them, let's keep them guessing.

Happy Forget-Me-Not Day.

A True Story

The following is a true story. Names have been omitted not so much to protect the innocent… but mainly to protect this author.

The Grand Master of the jurisdiction, Orient Sovereign Grand Inspector General (SGIG) and Scottish Rite Sovereign Grand Commander (SGC) were in attendance at a large Scottish Rite Luncheon, sitting together at the head table. The Grand Master got up to speak and his address included the following:

"In 2011, I was in Washington, DC, on business. I had never been to the House of the Temple, so I went there to see it. When I got there I found out it was Honors week and most people were at the main hotel for the event. I took the tour and as a part of it they took me to the SGC's office. He was not there and neither was his secretary. I don't know where he was... perhaps at the motel with his secretary."

The room filled with gasps that erupted into laughter.

The Grand Master realized how that sounded, turned to the SGC, took off his 33° cap and offered it to him. The SGIG stood up, walked over to the Grand Master and (close enough to the microphone so everyone could hear), whispered, "Don't forget, "I'm an attorney."

The Grand Master continued, "They told me since I was the ranking Freemason there, I was in charge and they had me sit at the SGC's desk. I told them if I was in charge I should be able to make a few decisions."

They asked, "What decisions do you want to make?"

"Well," said the Grand Master, "I told them what my Orient was and said that out there we have this SGIG... uh, maybe I shouldn't finish that story."

The SGIG got up and said he had an award for the Grand Master. He read a proclamation and finished with, "...and I'll give you the award after I hear the rest of that story."

In My Day We Did It This Way...

I often mention the fact that the reading of the minutes may be one of the less exciting parts of a Masonic meeting. Personally, I live for it... I live for it to be over with, that is.

One of the bodies I belong to, in my opinion, does it right. At that meeting we always have a dinner beforehand and the Secretary sets out copies of the minutes and any other pertinent material such as financial statements on each table. During the time before the meeting each member has a chance to read through the handouts. Then, during the meeting, without a reading, we vote on approval.

It doesn't always go this way. In my own Blue Lodge — God bless 'em — we still have the ever-present dronin... uh, I mean reading of the minutes at each meeting. To add to the frenzy of excitement this creates we also read the name of every officer in every station, every visitor and every single word of every petition. I remember one night in particular when we had multiple petitions. By the end of the evening I almost had the entire document committed to memory, and would have... had I not fallen asleep.

When I became Senior Warden I sat in the West close enough to the Junior Deacon that we could converse during the meeting. Together we felt we could solve the problems of the world, so solving the problems of the Lodge was a piece of cake.

Every single meeting when the reading of the minutes came up Allen (not his real name, of course) would turn around to me and say, "When I get up there in the East, we're not going to do this." He encouraged me to do it before he got there but I told him I just wanted to get through my year unscathed and would leave it up to him to make the radical change.

Years passed. I went through the East — only scathed a little bit but I survived. Then I moved to that most coveted of all Masonic positions, Past Master, and waited for Allen to take the helm; and take it he did — full of the vigor of his still youthful age and the expectation of the exciting year he had planned.

I was nearly giddy as I went to his first meeting knowing he was about to shake the Masonic world. I sat in great anticipation as Allen opened the meeting. Then, in an instant, my hopes for a better world came crashing down as he turned and said, "Brother Secretary, you will read the minutes..."

I nearly had an out-of-body experience as we droned through the meeting and Allen embraced the usual pomp and circumstance — more pomp than circumstance — of all the meetings and Masters that had come before him.

After the meeting I rushed up to him and asked why he had fallen into the routine he seemed to abhor back in his Junior Deacon days.

His answer sounded a little familiar, "I just want to get through my year unscathed."

Change is difficult, Brothers, and the penalty for attempting it may be a good sound scathing, which many times starts with the words, "In my day, we did it this way..."

A Dot Within a Circle

By Right Worshipful Brother  Lloyd G. Lyon

In Masonry we often see and reference to the certain point within a circle bordered by two perpendicular lines, representing Saint John the Baptist and Saint John the Evangelist, and upon the vertex of the circle rests the Holy Bible.

The point represents the individual Brother and the circle represents the boundary line of his duty, beyond which he is never to suffer his passions, interests, or prejudices, to betray him. 

In going around the circle, we necessarily touch on the two parallel lines, as well as the Holy Scriptures.

When a Mason keeps himself within these due bounds, it is impossible that he should materially or spiritually fail as a child of God. We strive for perfection but, as humans, we fall short of perfection.

According to the Book of the Law, as man, we are bound to certain frailties and failures. This keeps us all from becoming ideal men and ideal Masons, no matter how hard we may try.

We therefore hold for ourselves as the perfect form or ideal of a Mason, the two Holy Saints John.

Here we have two Saints John, very properly described as parallel figures. Both of great character and both projecting a strong influence, with words, symbols and life experiences, on the civilized world. Yet, they were so different as Saint John the Baptist was very dogmatic and rigid while the other Saint John the Evangelist, intelligent and esoteric. In both we find the integrity and unwavering fidelity so common to Masonic teachings, but, their manner of teaching, living and preaching those virtues were as different as night and day, darkness and light.

Even though we know they were not perfect and probably were not Freemasons as we are defined today. What we know of them shows them to be perfect examples of what a Freemason should be: kind, righteous, loving, passionate, zealous, filled with Light, and above all, faithful unto death, to the trust reposed in them. They are the Platonic Form or Ideal of the Freemasons, never to be achieved, but always to be emulated.

With this pattern of reasoning we can see the mythical Lodge of the Holy Saints John at Jerusalem as the Platonic Form or Ideal of a Masonic Lodge. It can and should exist as our ideal of what a Lodge of Masons would be if all its members achieved the Ideal Masonic life of Saint John the Baptist, dogmatic and rigid, and represented here by the Square within an upside down triangle, and,

Saint John the Evangelist, intelligent and esoteric and represented by the Compasses within a upright triangle.

Placed together the symbol for the Saints might look like this.

Perhaps the modern Mason can even see in that Ideal Lodge, God as our Master, the Saints Johns as Wardens and King Solomon as Marshal composing the leadership of the perfect Lodge. But, the symbol is not complete. We have found the Holy Saints Johns in our Masonic symbol but other parts are missing. This was the letter of God.

During ancient times, people were not allowed to spell out the word God, so they changed one letter. The Word now looked like this: YOD. This is the YOD symbol.

Let’s now place the YOD symbol together with the square & compasses.

Is this God and our Masonic symbol?

Today we used the letter “G” to represent Deity. The letter “G” also represents the Holy Scriptures, the Word. The Word is God. The Word is our rule and guide to keep us within the circle, that boundary we are never to cross.

Yet, there is still something missing.

What about that point that we find in that circle?

Why is it we do not remember that point on our Masonic symbol? Have you forgotten?

I would hope that everyone reading this could answer that question. If not, look in a mirror. Look at that reflection of you. Do you not see the point? Every time you wear a Masonic pin or cap or shirt or jacket or tie or ring, you become a part of the Masonic symbol. You are the completion of our Masonic Symbol.

Without you, the symbol would never be complete. The symbol would have no meaning. The symbol would have no purpose. 

THAT POINT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE SYMBOLISM OF FREEMASONRY.

YOU STAND WITH GOD (THE WORD) AND THE HOLY SAINTS JOHN (THE PARALLEL

LINES) WITHIN THE CIRCLE.

BE PROUD OF YOUR MASONIC HISTORY. BE A PLAYER OF, AND A CONTRIBUTOR

TO, THE FUTURE OF FREEMASONRY.

Ray V. Denslow Pictorial

Ray V. Denslow was one of Freemasonry's most prolific authors. These pictures of him, his wife and homes are from his private collection, many of which have not been published before.

Old Masonic College Memorial

On May 18, 1934, I dedicated the replica quarter scale of the original building of the Masonic College of Missouri at Lexington, and the Memorial Columns erected at the four corners of the original site of that building, the replica occupying the middle of the site. This event took place on the eighty-seventh anniversary of the laying of the original cornerstone of the building in 1847.

Earlier in the year I had been notified that this replica was being erected as part of the Civil Works Administration program in Lafayette County by R. W. Brother Henry C. Chiles, who was Chairman of the C. W. A. for that county, and I had authorized the marking of the site by a suitable bronze memorial tablet in the name of the Grand Lodge, pursuant to the resolution adopted by the Grand Lodge in 1932 at the suggestion of M. W. Brother Denslow.

The Memorial at the northeast corner, consisting of three steps of stone surrounded by a brick column, capped with stone, was erected by Lexington Lodge No. 149 and on its east side the Grand Lodge Memorial Tablet was placed; on the north side is another memorial tablet placed by Lexington Lodge. The two tablets fully commemorate the Masonic College of Missouri.

The other Memorial Columns were erected by the City of Lexington, which had cooperated with the C. W. A. as the old College Campus is now a City Park. The one at the northwest corner commemorates the Battle of Lexington, September 12 to 20, 1861; the one at the southwest corner the Central College for Women, and the one at the southeast corner the Presidents and former students of the Masonic College of Missouri. Appropriate memorial tablets and pictures provided by the city, ornament these columns.

Following a luncheon in my honor, I opened a specific Grand Lodge in the Hall of Lexington Lodge No. 149 and the Masons in attendance marched in a body to the old College Campus. The dedication program was so arranged that the various addresses unfolded the history of the Masonic College of Missouri, the Battle of Lexington, of the Central College for Women and of the plan for the erection of the replica, etc. The occasion was a most interesting one and the Grand Lodge is to be congratulated upon the fact that all of the important and historic activities and events so intimately connected with the 6.47 acres of ground which were the campus of its College have been suitably memorialized. It is worth the while of any Freemason to make the trip to Lexington and see these things for himself.

Dr. Arthur Mather, and Dr. Z. M. Williams were in attendance and took their places on the dedication program.

Reprinted from 1934 Proceedings, Grand Lodge of Missouri; Frank C. Barnhill, Grand Master.

Thoughts Become Things

On a recent high-school tour, I saw a sign inside a classroom that read, "Thoughts become things." I like that idea.  I had heard it before, but I wasn't sure where.  I thought it might be a quote from an unknown person or something from a book or play.  I decided to research it and maybe use it in an article.

So I went where we always go these days to find out — straight to the Internet.  The first thing I ran into was this, from a Metaphysics site:

"Thoughts become things when they are given substance with feelings in the Mind."

Bunk.

It is true that thoughts can become things but it takes a whole lot more than "feelings in the mind" to make a thought — some might call it an idea — become a reality.

Good ideas are a dime a dozen; they really are.  World peace — there's a good idea.  Well, we've been rolling out "Visualize World Peace" bumper stickers for decades and we're still visualizing, aren't we?  

Every Master or even Grand Master comes into his term filled with good ideas and the intention to make Freemasonry in general or his Lodge in particular better by the time he leaves.  Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn't.

What are the secret ingredients that make things work?

Think about that… because you and I both I'll bet have sat through many meetings, in the fraternity and in business, where great ideas are kicked around. Those meetings can produce a gold mine of things we can do. Those are the meetings we walk out of feeling energized, but if the ideas are not put into practice nothing gets done.

John Ruark of the Masonic Roundtable and Robert Johnson, host of this podcast, have written a book that, like those meetings, is bursting with ideas.  You may have read the book. You may have told John and Robert it's the greatest thing you've ever read; but then, if you put it on the shelf and do nothing, they have wasted their time writing the book and you have wasted your time reading it.

You see, Brothers, the secret ingredients that make things work… that make thoughts become things… are action, dedication and hard work.  If we take the ideas from that inspiring meeting and do nothing or take the book It's Business Time and put it on the shelf, what have we accomplished?

Let's challenge ourselves to take a single idea from that great meeting, or just one of the chapters from John and Robert's book and put it into practice. That might not solve all our problems, but it would be a great start. Full disclosure: I'm doing this for Robert's podcast, but neither he nor John knew I was going to talk about their book.

Steve Jobs, you may recall, had a lot of good ideas; and he knew how to turn those ideas into a lot of good things.  I like his take about thoughts becoming things: "Most people," he said, "have a disease: they think once they've had a good idea they've done 90% of the work.  Coming up with the idea is easy. Working to make it a reality is the hard part."