The Woz

 

We live in a world steeped in technology. We run around with our smart phones fused to our hands avoiding human interaction in favor of texts, tweets, and Instagram posts that shout to the entire world "it's all about me." We grab our entertainment from streaming apps like Netflix, Hulu, Peacock and others that weren't around a decade ago. We order Alexa to turn on and off our lights and we drive cars that brake, steer and parallel park for us. Most of us, though, don't know much about the wizards standing behind the curtain who make this magic work.

You may, for example, have never heard of Tim Berners-Lee but you use his invention every day. We call it the World-Wide-Web. I could list others whose names are even more obscure to the general population. But some of these so-called nerds break through and become household names: Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are known around the world.

In that group, there is at least one other name you will know. He was initiated into the mysteries of Freemasonry in 1979. They call him "The Woz."

Steve Wozniak was raised in Charity Lodge 362, now Mt. Moriah Lodge 292 in California. He and that other famous technology pioneer, Steve Jobs, started and built Apple Computer, today recognized as the world's largest company.

Wozniak provided the technical skills needed for designing the circuitry for the first Apple computer, and together in 1976, he and Jobs personally built about 200 units in in a garage-shop operation. Each of those Apple I computers sold for $666.66, raising some eyebrows, but The Woz always claimed he chose that price because he liked repeating numbers, knowing nothing about its symbolism.

The following year, Wozniak designed and built the Apple II which together with improved models in the 1980s is now regarded as the first truly successful personal computer. For those early machines that launched Apple, Jobs' role was marketing and it was Steve Wozniak who provided the design and innovation. Many of his ideas were born of the fact that he knew what features he personally wanted in a computer and, since those computers didn't exist, he had to invent them. In describing his motivation, he once said, "I had two things going for me: I had no money and no training."

Wozniak married Alice Robertson in 1976. She was a member of the Eastern Star. As the marriage gradually became troubled, Steve thought if he joined the Masons with its associations to the Star, it would provide an opportunity to spend more time with Alice and might help their relationship. He subsequently joined Charity Lodge. The plan didn't work. Just a short time later the relationship fell apart. The couple divorced and with that Wozniak's participation in the Craft ended. It's likely his membership was more a commitment to attempting to save his marriage than to Freemasonry, especially when we factor in the fact that he has on occasion claimed to be an agnostic.

Years ago, when asked about his thoughts on Freemasonry, he had this to say: "A lot of things about me don't get filtered. My wife at the time, in the early Apple days, was in Eastern Star. I thought if I became a Freemason I could go to more events with her. I did become a Freemason and know what it's about but it doesn't really fit my tech/geek personality. Still, I can be polite to others from other walks of life. After our divorce was filed I never attended again but I did contribute enough for a lifetime membership. There is nothing wrong with the Freemasons."

In his personal life, Wozniak supports a multitude of charities, many tech related and aimed at youth development including the Tech Museum, the Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose, and his local school's technology program. He opened his own home to help start the Dream Camp Foundation for underprivileged youth, now better known as "Camp Woz." He is known as a generous donor who gives with no strings attached. He also, unlike Steve Jobs, remembered early Apple employees who did not stay with the company and lost out on millions of dollars. To that group, in 1980, he personally donated ten million dollars of his own Apple stock.

Later in life, Brother Wozniak went back to school and received a degree in electrical engineering from the University of California at Berkley. By the time he enrolled, he was so famous, he registered under an alias that reflected his well-known sense of humor. That alias is now the name that appears on his college degree: Rocky Raccoon Clark.

So, by his own words, he has no opposition to the Craft. In spite of his lack of enthusiasm and uncertain belief in a deity, he does, in fact remain a Brother. We'll leave it at that and without judgment ask, how many other members do you know who have long since become inactive or question their spirituality?

Steve Wozniak has contributed greatly through his inventions and has used his resources to benefit those less privileged than himself. In this amazing world of technology we live in it's safe to say we have all benefited in some small or even significant way from his pioneering work and for those accomplishments we are proud to call him Brother.

Put The Cart Before The Horse

 

I have attended and even spoken at a number of large, auspicious Masonic Meetings. A few of them have been so amazing, educational, well-produced, and fraternal that I will never forget them. Among these are the Masonic Roundtable's 300^th anniversary celebration at the George Washington National Masonic Memorial, a York Rite symposium in Iowa where I had the honor of sharing the program with Harry Truman's grandson Clifton Truman Daniel, the annual Grand Master's breakfast in St. Louis, and my own Missouri Lodge of Research's Truman Lectures. These have all been gargantuan Masonic gatherings sometimes with hundreds… yes hundreds… of Brothers in attendance.

A huge crowd is a wonderful part of sharing Masonic Fellowship. In these large gatherings I've had occasion to visit with Brothers from not just other jurisdictions, but even other countries, providing opportunities to compare and share the precious diversity within our craft. Large crowds of Brothers are uplifting and inspiring but, make no mistake, an audience of dozens, or hundreds, is not a prerequisite, for a great Masonic event.

For example, just a few weeks ago I attended yet another one of those auspicious meetings I will never forget – but only about 23-25 Brothers were there. I was honored to be the guest speaker at Homer Lodge 199 in Homer, Illinois. Homer is a small, rural Lodge and by its member's own admission, attendance is not what it should be. To put it in Senior Warden Darin Lahner's words, "we normally are struggling to make a quorum."

Darin documented the full extent of this meeting from its conception to planning to execution in a thorough account in a recent Midnight Freemasons article. To read the full story, search for "A Night to Remember" on the blog.

Darin outlines the steps he took to create a successful event that more than tripled the attendance in his Lodge. I'd like to share those with you. "The funny thing is," said Darin, "it really wasn't that hard to do. To start with, I heavily advertised on social media. I started an Eventbrite event page to get a count of how many would be coming in." I'll come back to those two items in just a minute.

Darin continued with the steps in what he calls a "simple recipe:"

1. Get your lodge's buy-in. That shouldn't be hard to do, but what you're really looking for is a space for the event. If not your Lodge, there's got to be another one close with suitable space.

2. Arrange a speaker. One of the best places to go is the site masonicinstruction.com, which not only lists available speakers, but gives their biographies and summarizes their speaking topics.

3. Plan the event. Pretty self explanatory. This probably will involve a dinner which can be as elaborate as you want, or maybe just ordering in pizza.

4. Finally, hold the event. According to Darin, if you build it, Brethren will come.

The process sounds a lot like the "old-timey" definition of management: plan, organize, activate, control.

I'd like to expand a little on the first two things Darin did. He said he advertised heavily on social media, and started an Eventbrite page.

I've seen events fail where Brothers swear they promoted the event. What did they do? They posted it on FaceBook. Brothers , that's not enough. The key word Darin used is that he advertised it "heavily." FaceBook posts are a dime a dozen – or actually a dime a million. So however you promote the event, become a promotion Ninja.

The next thing Darin did was to set up an Eventbrite page. If you're not familiar with Eventbrite, learn about it and do it. This will more or less get commitments from people to attend.

And I'd like to add a dash of spice to Darin's recipe: Put the cart before the horse.

I know of a Lodge that practices this and they swear it's a sure thing. They do as much pre-planning as possible and come up with a couple of dates, then find out if Brothers are available on those dates. They then tentatively select a speaker and see when he is available. After a bit of coordination they find a good time for the event. Then, they sell tickets to the event, moderately priced to cover the cost of a meal. And only when they have sold enough tickets do they launch the event. In this lodge's case, they also limit attendance to 25 Brothers, and they sell out every time.

In other words, they sell-out the event, then plan the event. Not the way we usually do things. With the way he used Eventbrite, the is close to what Darin did.

Maybe using that old management definition you might say what they do is plan, organize, control, and activate. It might be something you could try. Follow Darin's advice and plan one of those unforgettable events. But see if it doesn't work better when you put the cart before the horse.

 

I Was Second

Anticipation consumed me as I sat in the large dining area with my father. A voice from a man I did not know came out of the hallway to my right and bellowed, "It's time, let's go." The room, filled with about 40 others, began to clear. Each got up, including Dad, and stood in line in front of a log book on a counter and signed in. Within minutes there were only four of us left in that empty room.

I sat in eerie silence with two other guys I didn't know at the long table where I had eaten breakfast. The fourth guy in the room was, we learned, the Tyler. He introduced himself. He joked, told us stories, and tried to put us at ease. I was not at ease. It wasn't because I was concerned about what I was going to go through, but because I wanted to get right to it. Time drug. In fact, it seemed to stop altogether. What were they doing in that Lodge room that was taking so long?

Finally, a guy stuck his head around the corner to my left and called out, "Randy!"

Rats. I wasn't going to be first. He took Randy away. More joking with the Tyler. More waiting. Eternity came and went. Finally, the same guy appeared at the corner to my left. I said a small prayer: "Make him say my name. Please make him say my name…"

"Steve."

Prayer answered, I leaped up and followed him into a place that was more a closet than a room. The three guys in there helped me put on a pair of… well… pajamas. They took a gold cross I wore on a chain around my neck, replaced it with a cord of some sort, slipped a sandal on me and then in their haste apparently forgot to put on the other one. After they blindfolded me, the main guy, followed by the other two, escorted me to a set of double doors, knocked and announced my presence. After a small wait, I was, for the first time in my life, in an open Masonic Lodge room.

I went through the degree, trying to soak it all in. I learned the lack of a second sandal was not a mistake. I learned why they took the gold chain from me. But it was like drinking from a fire hose. Other things I had experienced… well… I had questions.

They took me back out of the Lodge room, had me put on my street clothes, took me back in and we wrapped things up. It was amazing that the degree that seemed to take so long while I was waiting had passed in a flash. Parts of the degree swirled through my head as I tried to remember everything I had been through.

Then, suddenly, as they sat me on the sidelines, I realized there would be another degree for the poor guy who was still waiting outside, and I would get to see it. I was elated they had called me second, so I could immediately review what I had seen.

There was a knock at the door I had recently passed through. The same three guys walked in with the third candidate. I focused my attention. I hung on every word, every motion, every symbolic allusion. I watched transfixed with my Brothers… my BROTHERS… and tried to absorb it like a dry sponge in water. My Masonic education had begun.

The Dishwasher King

Is a dishwasher one of the appliances in your kitchen? My guess is the answer to that is yes. These days they're almost a universal part of every household; but your parents or grandparents may not have been so fortunate. The first commercial dishwashers made for home use were unreliable, leaky, temperamental gadgets that most times created more work than they saved.

In a nutshell, they didn't work… until, that is, the Dishwasher King came along.

Sam Regenstrief had quite a track record. Born in eastern Europe in about 1906, he moved to the US with his family two years later. He studied at Indiana University, then transferred to the Baum School of Engineering in Milwaukee, staying there until the school folded. A series of jobs led him to Rex Manufacturing in Connersville, Indiana, where he began to make his mark. Rex, a supplier of steel refrigerator cabinets, was in serious financial trouble. Sam turned the company around and by the age of 29, was running the show. Instead of just manufacturing refrigerator cabinets, he soon had Rex making complete refrigerators and selling them to, among others, Philco. He did such a good job Philco bought Rex and made it a subsidiary with Sam as president.

A few years later most thought Sam, by then a Philco corporate Vice President, was on track to become its President. Instead, in 1958, he left the corporate giant and started his own company, Design and Manufacturing (D&M), in Connersville. There, he earned his Dishwasher King title, transforming the household dishwasher from a piece of near-junk into the modern appliance most of us use today. That alone would be enough, but there is more to his story.

Sam Regenstrief was a Freemason. A member of Warren Lodge #15 in Connersville, he was raised October 28, 1948. Fueled in part by the same strong humanitarian principles inculcated in the Craft, Sammy first provided for his family and then became a generous philanthropist. Among his other endeavors, in 1969, he founded the Regenstrief Institute, an internationally recognized healthcare research facility. In turn, the institute developed the Regenstrief Medical Record System, a progressive, comprehensive patient care data collection system. For this, he has had numerous medical facilities named in his honor. Even when Sam was still at Philco, Brother William Denslow listed him in his iconic work, 10,000 Famous Freemasons.

Brother Sam Regenstrief passed away January 17, 1988. Looking at his accomplishments would not reveal how humble his beginnings really were. Shortly after his birth, a fire destroyed his family records. He never knew what his birthday was and remarkably, he was never sure where he was born (his family has said Romania; Sam himself once wrote he was born in Austria). Throughout his life he proved those things really don't matter that much: the cliché is true – it's not where you start out, but where you end up.

Sam valued his employees highly and maintained a good working relationship with them, including my father. You see, in 1969 he bought the company where my dad worked and served as a corporate officer. He was always warm and congenial with my dad, who called him Sammy. Me? I called him Mr. Regenstrief. Now, years later, I have learned I can also call him Brother.