They Opened Their Golden Gates

My congratulations to the Freemasons of San Francisco, where a new Lodge has life. You can read about it here.

It’s been over 20 years since I’ve visited San Francisco. It’s such a beautiful city. And they love Canadians down there, as it seems men were always buying me drinks. On my trips down there I managed to visit a number of different Lodges and was appreciative of the friendliness of the brethren down there. A couple of Lodges back then met at the Scottish Rite Temple on Van Ness and Sutter. The Lodge room was absolutely huge with high ceilings and décor which I was told back then would have been impossible to replace. You got to the Lodge room in a rickety old elevator with a gate in the front.

I went through two extremes of visiting. On one hand, I ended up at a Lodge in Marin County with my dues card resting comfortably back at my hotel on the other side of the Bay. My examination consisted of a handshake. Not a Masonic one, just a handshake. “That’s it?” I asked. Yes, that was it. Not even a single question. They were conferring a Second Degree that evening and at the end the District Inspector stood up and jokingly noted that some Work from another state had crept in—and he recognised it because that’s where he was from. The Master then pointed out many of the officers were guards at San Quentin and asked them to stand up. “You shouldn’t have any problems when you’re down here,” he added.

On the other hand, another Lodge assigned two old Past Masters to examine me and started to go through the Third Degree catechism that I don’t even think Masons in California learn any more. I had to explain that my Lodge’s ritual was entirely different, we didn’t have those questions, our signs were different and even our obligation wasn’t the same as theirs. They left me in the ante-room for 20 minutes while the Lodge figured out what to do with me. They finally let me in, but I missed the opening ceremony. Still, they were pleasant old gents who took the Masonic name of ‘caution’ seriously and I gave a bit of a talk on how Masonry was different in my part of the world. There were interested and quite surprised, as everyone assumes Freemasonry is the same the world over.

Another Lodge was fairly young, but small, with a number of Chinese and Filipinos as officers. They offered to give me a tour around town the next day and I could stay with them if I wanted and they really didn’t want to take ‘no’ for an answer. It’s quite remarkable they would be so outgoing with a perfect stranger, so I suppose the point is I really wasn’t a perfect stranger. I was a brother.

Then there was a Lodge which had been ordered out of its long-time meeting place on Market Street by the Grand Master because—gasp!—a restaurant renting space on the ground floor served drinks. On my next trip, the Lodge had ended up amalgamating and I don’t believe it survived much longer.

And another Lodge stunned me by holding off its meeting because the Lodge’s charter had been removed from the building and was with someone who was too sick to attend that night. The Lodge had something like 444 members but there were maybe a dozen scattered about the room that night, and the S.W. stood up to announce he was moving to Washington State.

A couple of Lodges gave me copies of their histories. I have a beautiful golden bound book presented to me by Oriental Lodge No. 144. You can read about the early days of that Lodge on-line here.

My days of travelling to San Francisco are likely over, but I’m sure the members of the new Lodge an ashlar’s throw away from the cable-car line will treat their visitors with the Masonic hospitality that is a hallmark of our American brothers.

Lest We Forget

My father was in the Army in World War Two. My uncle was in the RCAF and served overseas.

This story is from 1935.

FREE MASONRY IS TARGET OF NAZIS
End of All Masonic Lodges and Abolition of Veterans’ Groups Announced
BERLIN, Aug. 8—(AP)—The end of all Free Masonic lodges in Germany and the abolition of more World war veterans’ organizations were announced today.
Reichsfuerer Hitler’s newspaper, Voelkischer Beobachter, stated that on Saturday the last Masonic lodges in the Reich, the state lodge of Saxony, the Dresden Great lodge, and the “German Brethren Chain” of Leipzig will be dissolved.
Use Law of 1933
Secret police today dissolved the veterans’ “Steel Helmet” formations in Berlin, Brandenburg, Pommerania, and Eastern Mark, the territory along the western ridge of Pomorze, Poland.
The dissolution of the veteran units was accomplished on the basis of the law of Feb. 28, 1933, for the protection of the people and the state. The property of the Steel Helmet units was seized.
After dissolution of the old Prussian Free Mason lodge July 21 and the gradual disappearance of smaller lodges in a year-long campaign, the Free Masons in Germany—first so-called “state enemies”—thus would be wiped out completely.
See Jewish Republic
Hitler’s organ, asserting the secret aim of Free Masonry was a Jewish world republic, said the forthcoming dissolution would “finish a special chapter in world history, and the guardian of the Nazi ideal will be alert.”
Jews accused of trying to hid their race to escape the anti-Semitism appeared to stand in the center of Nazi determination to purify German blood.
Der Angriff, newspaper of Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, minister of propaganda, directed an attack against Jews covering up by becoming Christians, and asked how much longer the Protestant church would continue to baptise Jews.

Now Pinch-Hitting for the Masons...

In honour of the Boys of November (why is baseball being played so late in the year anyway?), we pass on this bit of news from the Masonic archives.

Lodges are always—or at least should be—places of fellowship and conviviality, and have some kind of events involving the social aspect of a fraternity. One Lodge, I gather in Connecticut, had annual event along the following lines. This story is from the Hartford Courant of October 20, 1959:

Whitey Ford To Appear At Masons’ Sports Night
MANCHESTER (Special) -- Whitey Ford, star left-handed hurler for the New York Yankees, will be “subbing for the sub” when he appears here to night at the Sports Night of the Manchester Lodge of Masons.
Gil McDougald, another outstanding performer for the Yankees, was scheduled to appear here along with Jackie Farrell, Yankee public relations man and two local youths, both in the minor leagues, Moe Morhardt, who signed with the Chicago Cubs last spring as a “bonus baby”, and Gene Johnson, of the Milwaukee farm system.
Substitute Can’t Come
Several days ago, Howard Waddell, chairman of the committee making arrangements for the Sports Night, was informed that McDougald will be hospitalized until the middle of next month and that Bill (Moose) Skowron. Yankee’s first sacker would appear in his place.
Monday, Waddell was again told by Mrs. Skowron that a wrist injury her husband received several weeks ago during the ball season had not healed and that he underwent surgery for it again Sunday night,
The affair will start at 7 p.m. with a dinner at the Masonic Temple.

Kyle Rote was the featured speaker the following year and the event seems to have carried on through the 1960s. I gather the Lodge simply called the Community Relations department of some sports team, arranged for some athletes, and then sold tickets to a dinner as a fund-raiser.

Is your Lodge organised enough to be able to pull off the same kind of thing today?

Congratulations, Anti-Masons!

An Open Letter To Anti-Masons

Dear Anti-Masons,

On behalf of Baphomet and Jahbulon and the guy with the red suit and pitchfork in that hot place, I’d like to thank your more enthusiastic members for performing their Masonic duty.

Yes, your plan is going just as you hoped. The rantings and ravings by certain of your boisterous flock are continuing to swell our Lodges with new members.

Why, just the other day, a rather tall young man you can find on the internet as ‘Lightseeker’ received his First Degree along with two other men in one of the local Lodges in his area. Oh, this isn’t another one of those “lies” you keep saying we Masons are full of. Read about it HERE. It’s true! I swear on the severed head of Albert Pike we’re keeping alive in the matrix under the Denver Airport. Oh, wait. That’s one of our secrets. Forget I said it.

Secrets! Ah, yes. Baphy and Jabby were telling me just the other day the chuckles they have when your more extreme members spew about Masonic secrets on-line but they do so while hiding their identities and any information about them. Some may call it hypocrisy, but Baphy says it’s hilarity.

Even better, Bro. ‘Lightseeker’ got out and visited a Lodge only a few days later to see a First Degree conferred on two more men. It was great to meet him. Meeting new people is part of the benefits of being a Freemason; people you wouldn’t meet under other circumstances, from different towns and different parts of this dusty old globe. Sure better than sitting behind a keyboard and coming up with new ways to con people into still thinking the Taxil Hoax is real like you guys have to do. But Mrs. Baphy says she’ll send over some Devil’s Food Cake to your anti clubhouse for your next meeting. Devil’s Food Cake! That Mrs. Baphy, always kidding. The other day, she called her husband “an old goat.” Oh, I’m getting off the subject here. Kinda like when you guys post on Usenet. Anyway...

A shame Bro. Trudeau didn’t stay for the Festive Board, because that’s another fun part of belonging to a fraternity. We had pizza. Did you know, antis, if you arrange the slices just right and squint really hard, you can form one of those Washington, D.C. maps? Yeah, the maps that you say is prove we’re evil! Well, you have to squint and drink a lot of beer to get the proper visuals. And not eat the slices. Jabby says that’s the tough part. Feel free to talk about the pizza “proof” on one of your sites. It’ll fit in with everything else you write.

Oh, before I forget, let me tell you guys that a Senior DeMolay is getting his First Degree in another Lodge this week. Come on, antis, you’re slacking off on The Grand Plan. There’s only one of those DeMolays this week! Can one of you guys put out another ‘Satan’s Kindergarten’ book or something, because the 33-plus-degree Masons are sure we’d get a few more that way. What number degree Masons am I talking about? Oh, that’s a secret. You didn’t think all that stuff about “33” being the “highest” was true, did you? It’s just something to give you something to write about on those web-sites of yours. Baphy has a good laugh over that.

So, in closing, thank you again antis for your campaign to post such laughable dis-information about Freemasonry, you continue to help the fraternity gain members.

Yours,
Justa

Son of “Beyond the Valley of the...” etc.

If Hollywood can have sequel after sequel based on fictional books, so can your humble Justa.

You’ve no doubt read our original post and its sequel with links to newspaper articles spawned by the editorial mantra “We’d better get local reaction to that DaVinci sequel.” Well, we have a couple more.

One is from Owen Sound, Ontario and the other comes from Naperville, Illinois. The picture is from the latter article, linked from the Sun website.

They’re both pretty good articles. I don’t know if the Grand Master in Ontario sent out a news release in advance of his trip to Owen Sound announcing his arrival and his availability to speak to the media about that sequel book. If he did, it’s.... well, it’s pretty progressive on someone’s part. Progressive for Freemasonry, that is.

There’s also this article from Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

It’s a bit of an odd duck journalistic piece because it asks the question “What is Freemasonry?” and never really provides an answer. In fact, I’m bowled over by a couple of things in it, but no more so than this from the reporter:

They won't say, for example, whether any living U.S.
president is a Mason but will list the deceased presidential Masons.

“They” won’t? Who’s “they”? Setting aside the purely American semantical oddity that someone who is no longer in office is still deemed “a U.S. president,” I’ll say that the current incumbent in office and no living former presidents have ever been members of the fraternity. That information should be readily available on the internet. In fact, it’s even in the Illinois newspaper article I’ve linked to.

And unless they do things differently in Masonic Lodges in Cedar Rapids, the reporter got her information a little mixed up:

Two men are seated in the center of the room, behind a table that displays an open holy book

Though she’s quoting a “past Grand High Priest over Iowa’s Freemasons” (does the York Rite really have that much power in that state?), I have my suspicions no one is sitting in the centre of the Lodge room. After all, it’s never been done that way. So, in Masonry, that means it can never happen.

Another Dip Into Justa’s Ask-It Basket

It’s been several months since we’ve had a look inside our basket to see what queries and comments have been left behind by people looking at this blog. So, let’s do so now.

Woking, Surrey: Funny Masonic Graces
You can tell there’s a cultural difference between Masonry in North America and in the land of the Mother Grand Lodges. Masons occasionally come here hunting for Masonic toasts or graces, and they’re almost always from England and never the United States. American Lodges don’t seem to have a festive board/harmony/South like you find in the British Commonwealth. Americans are more inclined, by my experience anyway, to have dinner before the meetings and even wives and friends are welcome.
That being said, I’m sure some Past Masters would turn up their nose (at an appropriate Masonic angle) at the very idea of a “funny” Grace. After all, the occasion is solemn and is to thank our Creator for sustenance and perhaps health and friendship. Regardless, here’s a story:

The Master calls for everyone to pray attention to the Chaplain for Grace, but the Chaplain is not in his place. The Master briefly panicks, looks around, spots the Senior Deacon and, catching him off-guard, asks him to give thanks to the Great Architect (surprise addresses are also apparently an olde Masonic custom). The Deacon turns his eyes skyward and comes up with this doggerel on the spot:
I’m surprisingly addressing you, Lord.
The grace should be done by the Chaplain.
But he’s stuck in a line at our bar.
It seems with the Devil he’s grapplin.’

Hey, you’re getting this blog for free. Don’t expect Robert Service.

United Kingdom: Masonic room of death.
For a moment, I thought this was the title of an episode of The Simpsons. My guess is the blog visitor might have been looking for information about the Chamber of Reflection, which is used in some rituals outside of the U.K. and North America.
W. Bro. H.L. da Costa of one of the Lodges in Vancouver wrote a paper on it some years ago that can be found at the Grand Lodge of B.C. and Yukon web site.
Compare that to ante-rooms I’ve seen for preparation of candidates, illuminated (oh, the irony!) by fluorescent lights, with chairs and tables stacked against a wall and never-to-be-repaired furniture that had been shoved in a corner years ago to gather dust. Not only does such not provide an opportunity for even the remotest reflection prior to initiation, but it makes our rooms look like a junk yard or a storage room, not the spot where one should be engaging in the serious task of becoming a Mason. The only thought that must come to the candidate’s mind is Masons don’t care an awful lot about their meeting place or ceremonies.

United States: What does it mean when a mason asks three letter or four?
It’s turnaround time, as we have a reference that will likely baffle Freemasons of the British Commonwealth and outside the sphere of American influence.
Grand Lodges in the U.S., for the most part, designate themselves “Free and Accepted Masons” or “Ancient, Free and Accepted Masons.” Numerous tales have developed about why this is so. Myths, being the only explanations heard, are thus passed down from generation to generation as if they’re some kind of Great Masonic Truth.
The one I chuckle at is from those serious-meined chaps who insist it has something to do with ritual; that some other state’s ritual is different because “Oh, they’re Ancient Free and Accepted. We’re Free and Accepted.” Evidently, they’ve never studied the Baltimore Convention and later numerous attempts in the 19th century to come up with a common ritual for all states.
Others inexplicably colour-code it. I’ve read on line how A.F. and A.M. is a code word for “Prince Hall” and F. and A.M. is, for want of a better phrase, “the other kind.” That would be news to Masons in my area, because the designations are the reverse.
Probably closer to the real answer is it dates from the creation of Grand Lodges on the U.S. eastern seaboard during and immediately after the Revolutionary War and whether or not the Lodges which made up the new Grand Lodges stemmed from the “Ancient” Grand Lodge of England. For later Grand Lodges, it’s a stylistic choice. For example, the Grand Lodge of Oregon is A.F. and A.M. Washington State, which sprung from Oregon, is F. and A.M.

Chicago: Why can’t masons discuss what goes on in their meeting?
Here’s a little primer on how just about any club works. If you want to know what happens at their meetings, become a member. Otherwise, it’s really none of your business.
However, Masons can certainly discuss meetings in general terms. In fact, your friendly Justa has done so in this post.

United States: How can you tell if someone is a freemason?
By asking him and getting a “yes” or “no” in response.
Okay, perhaps I’m being unnecessarily glib. I have no idea why the question was asked; it could very well be someone is passing himself off as a Mason as a joke, or for some nefarious reason. If that is the case, an e-mail to the local Grand Lodge office stating the situation and requesting confirmation might suffice.
As for Masons in a private Lodge setting, there are certain methods of authentication, though I admit I’ve been taken aback some times by visiting Past Masters who don’t even know them.

Murfreesboro, Tennessee: Masonic 50 year member poems.
I can sympathise a bit with the brother who made this enquiry because poetry is not an easy thing to write (if you don’t believe me, you apparently skipped past the beginning of this post). But I’ve said before I really feel when a brother is being honoured for an accomplishment, it is far better to come up with some words personally about the individual and from the heart than just plugging in some generic stuff from the internet.
Still, poetry can always be adapted and if anyone reading has a well-crafted verse or two appropriate for a special night for a special brother, feel free to leave it in the comment box.
Below is something I’ve banged off that’s not exactly Service either. But maybe it’s service-able. (That's a pun. Please laugh).

THE FIFTY-YEAR MASON

Two trembling knees, some covered eyes,
A sword jabbed at his breast.
What happened next was all a blur;
He can’t recall the rest.

They told him of a way of life;
How to act to one another.
‘Twas fifty years ago tonight
They all would call him brother.

For weeks, he learned the ancient words
Of square and rule and trowel
Though incorrectness always brought
An old Past Master’s growl.

The years have passed, some came and went
But in Lodge he still remains.
A reward he’s earned that’s better far
Than mere material gains.

For cash does not a Mason find,
Nor gold for selfish ends.
His fortune is more valuable.
He gains a wealth of friends.

Young men have come; they want to know
Of Wisdom, Strength and Beauty.
Our brother stays to tell them all
Because he knows that is his duty.

“I was taught, so now I teach,
It’s the true Masonic way.
For others will follow in their path
They’ll have to teach some day.”

Let’s celebrate those fifty years
Since the knocks at the Tyler’s door.
And Masons here and Masons far
Do wish him fifty more.

You can peer into other Ask-it-Baskets here and here.

That Ball is Going... Going...

Since it’s World Series time, your humble Justa “Can of Corn” Mason is marking the season by posting the following cute little news item from 80 years ago this month. Freemasonry only plays a coincidental role in the story but, being a baseball history fan, I thought it was worth passing on.

This is from the Ludington (Michigan) Daily News of October 11, 1929.

Jack Pegs 6 Balls Over Masonic Hall So ‘Pitts’ Pays Bet
An argument about the relative merits of World Series pitchers cost Milton (Pitts) Stalter $5 this morning when Jack Varner backed up his argument with a demonstration of just what he meant by “pitching.”
“Say, listen, some of this stuff about pitchers in the Series gives me a big pain,” Jack is reported to have said. At this point, Stalter differed vociferously with him with the result that Varner could not throw six balls over the Masonic Temple from the sidewalk in front of J.B. Smith Recreation hall.
The balls were secured and a crowd gathered to witness the show. Jack took his coat off, rubbed his hands in the dirt, spit on the ball, wound up and let fly. It cleared the top of the building by at least 30 feet. In quick succession the remaining five balls followed, whereupon Jack collected his bet, remarking “I hate to take this because I failed to tell you that I pitched on the Oklahoma City team for four years.”

The photo of the building in question is from Google Maps. You can’t see it due to the sun’s reflection, but it says “Masonic Temple” at the top and there are symbols in the arches above the windows.

I suspect neither gentleman in this story was a Mason. After all, we all know if one of them was a member of the Craft, six balls wouldn’t have been used. The number would have been three, five or seven.

Coming soon.. a post on baseball and Lodge events.