Ep. 99: What's the Subject?

Welcome back to At Refreshment! 
In this episode: It the Saturday Night Crue! We try our best to stay on subject of working and doing community service, but that gets lost as per usual and we talk about... well as of typing this I forget what we talked about. Oh, alcohol in the lodge building, Brock finds some collage fraternities rituals during his collage years, traveling to different places to see degrees and much, much more in this episode! So Grab a drink alcoholic or non-alcoholic, cold or worm and enjoy!🍻

Don't for get to check out "That Other Masonic Podcast"
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https://open.spotify.com/show/4yO9imtmHdnlDDTC3r6nPc?si=b5073b317dc84416


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The  At Refreshment Masonic Video Podcast is a lighthearted and educational series focused on
the world of Freemasonry. The hosts, who are Masons themselves aim to dispel myths about the fraternity while offering a glimpse into their rituals and traditions. They create a casual, fun atmosphere by sharing drinks and humorous discussions about Masonic life, often recorded in laid-back settings like after lodge meetings.
 The podcast blends comedy with education, making it accessible to both Masons and those curious about the fraternity. Episodes feature special guests from Masonic circles often diving into personal experiences and community contributions of members. The podcast highlights that Freemasons are regular people working to improve themselves and their communities.
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 They are known for a relaxed "at refreshment" style, emphasizing that this is not a formal lodge.
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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Washington Washington could have been president until he died. There was no they weren't gonna vote him out of office at all. He he stepped down. And they say he stepped down because you know said that's what good leaders do. He learned he learned that from the Sonic Lodge. Now sometimes they'll they'll hammer you because you should know better.

SPEAKER_03 0:18

Yeah, right. I've definitely heard those stories before.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Yeah, uh exposed to me.

SPEAKER_05 0:25

What are the criteria for dispensation to do a degree somewhere?

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Well I know in um in Indiana we have to uh to move our charter outside our lodge.

SPEAKER_06 0:36

Was anybody at that time uh here in American politics running for office and explaining proudly that they're a Freemason, you should vote for them because they're a Freemason or anything. Was there anything like that?

SPEAKER_05 0:48

Not that I'm aware of, but I I did see some uh old um like propaganda posters, you know, where like it was like vote for me and they had a square encompass as like a lapel.

SPEAKER_06 1:02

Right. And you know, most of the time, you know, it when we do go down to the bar, what is it? It's all of us just sitting together talking about everything we just did.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Right. Yeah, everyone else they just walked on water. Well, how do we know where the sandbar he's walked on? No one knowing who was there. You know, they were there for those guys.

SPEAKER_04 1:20

Oh my George, if I've been put taken for this today.

SPEAKER_06 1:44

Welcome everyone to the At Refreshman Masonic video podcast. Once again, I'm your host, Wesley Reuter. I am here with Brock and with our special guest once again, Todd from that other Masonic podcast. Welcome guys. Thanks for coming on out. Hey, thanks for having me. You guys got your drinks, need refills or anything?

SPEAKER_05 2:05

Oh no, nope. I got I got one right now.

SPEAKER_06 2:07

I got about halfway full right now, so we're all good to go. It's not like we haven't been talking for a half hour already trying to figure out what we're gonna talk about or anything. Exactly. What we were discussing off recording was, and I'm not really sure how to word this correctly, but outside of the normal community events that you do as a Masonic lodge or or as a Mason, what should you be doing for the community? You know, yes, we do our charity work, such as scholarships. Sometimes you do events at the lodge, uh uh table lodge, or some people do chili cook-offs. Everybody loves the pancake breakfast, and everybody's favorite green beans, but that's usually on a stated meeting. So outside of those things, what I don't want to say what is expected, but what should a Mason be doing? Sometimes we talk about politics, you know, there are Masons that get into politics, they do uh play those roles. We do have Masons that are judges, we have Masons that are in all different walks of life, especially in public service. And I guess that's where I'm going with this. So, as a Mason, what kind of public service should you be doing to I don't want to say spread the word of Freemasonry, but just be doing as a citizen of an individual.

SPEAKER_05 3:40

Yeah, I like like what you said about it being a citizen of your community. I think that's a huge thing that we've lost now, you know. Uh people just live in a town and they don't really participate. Sometimes they might uh, you know, a little bit in their school district, or if their kids play sports, maybe they'll they'll get a little involved there. But uh, you know, the Masonic Lodge is one place that still has an active community center, you know. Uh Todd, I know you guys do like a lot of funerals and stuff like that, where your lodge plays a big pivotal role to your community local, like that. I know our lodge isn't so much like that. Like Wes said, uh, we're more known like uh our chili cook-off brings in a lot of public, or uh when we have like the cookie walk, we pass out hot chocolate, open our lodge as a warm place for people to uh you know, commune and hang out inside of our banquet hall area there. So um, you know, it's things like that. I I mean our lodge, you know, we have the Lions and uh Rotary and um Leeds Group, you know, Boy Scouts. We have a lot of different people who use our hall building. So uh, you know, that kind of keeps the community around our lodge and stuff. And you know, we got Masons in all those groups as well. So uh it's really easy for us to interact with our community that way. But you know, I'm I'm sure every lodge kind of has a different way they kind of handle that.

SPEAKER_06 5:04

I think Todd froze up.

SPEAKER_05 5:06

Oh no.

SPEAKER_06 5:08

Oh no, Todd, if you can hear us, you froze up. So I know us what Raven, like you said, we do the chili cook-off. Oh, all right, you're back. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 5:20

Uh like the black corny.

SPEAKER_06 5:24

It sounded like you were gonna say something.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Well, yeah, like our uh our lodge is in a very small town, like less than I'm gonna say less than 600 people in town. And uh for any member of that community who has a law center family had a funeral or something like that, we open up our lodge and we'll actually you know spend money out of our own pockets to have a funeral dinner for this family, so they don't they don't have to worry about having to wake or whatever you want to call it the funeral dinner after the service and everything. They don't have to worry about clean up or preparing food or bringing food or like that. Our lodge takes care of it 100%. And usually the family gives a small donation, and even some of the other family members who show up will give a small donation too. And it really helps uh, you know, I think we do probably 10 or 15 of these a year. And uh a lot of times the Easter Star, like the people at Easter Star, even people lodge, we find a good deal on like pork loins or turkeys or hams or something like that. We'll buy them put them in our deep freezes and save them just for that purpose. But it's a it's a it's a great way for us to for people to know who we are and what we do. We give that service to the community. Now, if we had to do it like around where you guys live in Chicago, we'd go broke. Because if everybody wanted a funeral funeral dinner from us, it'd be seven or eight a week, and you know, we just couldn't keep up with that. But we do probably about I don't say 10 or 12 a year, maybe, maybe up to 15. I think we've had one year. That's amazing. Yeah, just something we provide for the community. That's one thing we do for the community to kind of help out.

SPEAKER_06 7:01

Now, I know we have a brother at our lodge that does uh I I'm not even sure what his title is within uh the government of the of the community. But he's ran for office, he's been elected, he hasn't been elected, and then re-elected. Do you have anybody like that in your lodge? Todd.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

No, not so much in my politically motivated. Um in my home lodge, we did. We had some guys who uh were in politics, and uh they would say that they were third-degree master masons or even 32nd degree master masons. But it seemed like some uh you know political season they were out for uh get votes, they wouldn't come to the lodge and ask anybody to vote for them. They had that kind of integrity and that good of character that they wouldn't they wouldn't come to the lodge of politics. And even sometimes they didn't they would just you know they were so busy working on the uh get elected that they didn't have time for the lodge. And we didn't see them for like you know six like three, four months. And I called him up to ask why. I said, Well, I'm running for office and I don't want to I don't want anybody to think I'm using the lodge to get votes. Well that's understand. Yeah, that's you know that's really nice. I mean I voted for I voted for both of them and everything, but they just didn't want people to say, well, he only got he only got elected because the Masons elected him. Like, well, we're only 200, we only had 250 members of our lodge, so I don't think that would work, but well, whatever.

SPEAKER_06 8:35

Yeah, we only got about a hundred and eighty something on our books, and yeah, you know, 15 to 20 guys will show up.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

But you think about back in the day though, you know, some of these bigger lodges like say Indianapolis or even Chicago would have three, four thousand members of it, or even some of the you know, some of the big, you know, big lodgements that had four or five lodges that had you know 10,000 members in it in different lodges, independent bodies, they they could sway a vote one way or the other for some of the smaller political bodies or political offices. You just don't know.

SPEAKER_05 9:13

Hey man, I think that was a whole thing for the anti-Masonic party, you know. Uh, I think people started seeing that, you know, how many Masons were in places of power and were like, wait a second, we gotta we gotta figure this out. And it wasn't even mainly Masons, it was all fraternal secret societies, you know, uh that had a target on their back for that. You know, it wasn't just us, you know, everybody uh that was a huge dip-off for everyone.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

So yeah, it's like you know, those those smaller towns, those smaller communities that you know have you know, they have 10,000 people in the community, but you know, all the guys belong to Lodge or belong to one of the fraternal fraternal orders somewhere in there. I mean, they see those guys, you know, they're on the jury, they're the they're attorneys, they're judges, but they all belong to lodge or something like that. So I can see back in the day people being a little bit scared of that because you know, some people probably did use it to their advantage. I mean, what am I to say?

SPEAKER_06 10:14

Oh, I I'm sure people are people. Uh every organization has people, and people are people. People are gonna do anything.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

You know, everybody has a speed ticket. I've gotten out of a speed ticket for being a mason before.

SPEAKER_06 10:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

It does happen from time to time.

unknown 10:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Now sometimes they'll they'll hammer you because you should know better.

SPEAKER_03 10:44

Yeah, right. I've definitely heard those stories before.

SPEAKER_06 10:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, expressing it. So how do I put this? So if you're gonna run for office as a Freemason, you know, I don't I don't recall anybody advertising that they were a Freemason. Do you guys recall that?

SPEAKER_05 11:10

No, uh I don't.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

You know, last person I ever saw, they were the guy running for sheriff in the county I grew up in. He needed Pedale against lifted accomplishments.

SPEAKER_06 11:23

Because back when they had the anti-Masonic uh party with the whole um Morgan affair, was anybody at that time uh here in American politics running for office and displaying proudly that they're a Freemason, you should vote for them because they're a Freemason or anything. Was there anything like that?

SPEAKER_05 11:44

Not that I'm aware of, but I I did see some uh old um like propaganda posters, you know, where like it was like vote for me, and they had a square encompass as like a lapel, you know. So like it's there but not there, you know. And then I've also seen it the other way, like uh during the anti-Masonic party, people would be like, Oh, he's amazing, and like put him, you know, that he was evil because he was a Mason, you know. So I have seen it that way, but um, I think I I just heard on a podcast recently that uh in Congress and stuff like that, that you don't have to uh uh disclose or anything your private groups or something like that, like masonry is uh almost a like a protected class now.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

So in England, uh to run for the House of Commons, I think you have to, or you would be the I think we're the opposite to tell everybody you're belonged to lodge. Yeah, that's now you gotta remember during the anti-Masonic movement, during the anti-Masonic movement, um Andrew Jackson was running for re-election during that time, and he was a past grandmaster stay in Tennessee, and was a very vocal vocal about Freemasonry while he's in office and everything. So that kind of that threw up the red flag right there in some anti-Masons that well, see, they already got a Mason in the highest office in land and everything. Who else is you know controlling this stuff? So that was one of the things that kind of you know really irked the anti-masons back in the day because the president was a was a master mason, hell, past grandmaster state.

SPEAKER_05 13:22

So even today, though, it's it's still one of those things where like when people bring that up, and like uh I hear on a conspiracy theory show or something, they're like, Oh my god, but they're always it's like, yeah, but they're from 15 lodges around the state, they might see all each other all at one Masonic meeting at Grand Lodge, maybe, but like they aren't like being able to conspire, like maybe privately they might meet and like hang out as friends, knowing that they're all friends and Masons, and you might meet each other at a big banquet somewhere and uh you know, be like, Oh, hey, we're both in politics, we should, you know, link up a little bit. But uh, you know, I it's so hard for me to believe that Masons were conspiring throughout, you know, when they were three days on horseback ride, and like, you know, going to Lodge used to be like, you know, you'd stay the night at the local hotel and like stay, it was a whole deal, you know. All the brothers would eat together, go out to the bars together after. Like, lodge was a especially like the farming lodges, you know, where uh they were solar lodges and they met on the moon. It was so that they had the the high moon to be able to see, you know, to get to lodge.

SPEAKER_02 14:34

Go home.

SPEAKER_05 14:35

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

It just kind of crazy about all that stuff. Go ahead, Wes.

SPEAKER_06 14:42

Yeah, I just did a search to see if there was any kind of like political advertising for any candidates. Oh, I I don't I don't see anything.

SPEAKER_05 14:51

Oh, nothing came up, dang. No.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

Well, and really, you know, we're we're taught that you know positives aren't isn't to be discussed in the Sonic Lodge. So I mean, if you want to wear a ring, lapel pen when you're out and about and you know, with your constituents like that, that's one thing.

SPEAKER_06 15:08

Yeah, that's not political advertising. I'm just curious if everyone if anyone did try to you know do it.

SPEAKER_05 15:15

Yeah, I'm thinking also that has a couple of those posters in it.

SPEAKER_06 15:20

But well, we've all seen you know businesses where it's like, man, I are they masons because they're they use the square and compass in a particular way, or they make like the wording look like it's the square and compass or give you that illusion. And I you know, I don't see anything up here like that. And I'm a I honestly I'm a little surprised. Huh?

SPEAKER_05 15:47

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, shoot. I mean, if you're an open Mason and you're proud about it, it's no different than wearing a Masonic t-shirt if you're gonna put it on your poster, you know. I mean, I mean, yeah, I mean, you're definitely gonna get people saying, Oh my god, he's looking to get that Mason vote. Or right. I mean, but if somebody's like uh just because you're a Mason, somebody isn't gonna go against all their political views just to vote for you because you're a Mason, you know, when there's somebody that aligns with their natural views and values, you're gonna vote what it where it matters, not because it's a Mason, you know. Yeah, no, obligation as a Mason to vote for another Mason, you know. That isn't in any of our obligations to put another Mason, you know, a foot ahead, or you know, you have to vote for him because he's a Mason, or you have to, you know, give him the benefit of the doubt or cut him a deal.

SPEAKER_06 16:44

He's a Mason. Uh, are you gonna vote for him? No, well, why not? Well, he didn't learn his ritual the right way. What the heck?

SPEAKER_07 16:51

Yeah, he's passed on his dudes.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

You also gotta look at look at look at all the um all the politicians that have uh college fraternal connections.

SPEAKER_03 17:03

Yeah, yeah, right, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

Guys who belong to whatever college fraternity, I mean, there's a lot more of them in in Congress and in politics than there are Masons, I guarantee you that.

SPEAKER_07 17:13

Oh, yeah, right. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

I do think the whole college.

SPEAKER_06 17:17

So Rory is anti-fancy case.

SPEAKER_03 17:19

I think it goes both ways there.

SPEAKER_06 17:21

Yeah, I think that's a stronger tie now than uh the fraternity of Freemasonry.

SPEAKER_05 17:28

But dude, when you look at a lot of those Greek fraternities, they were started by Masons. A lot a few, a lot of them, not all of them, but a lot of them.

SPEAKER_06 17:37

I I'm sure our ritual is the basis for a lot of other rituals out there.

SPEAKER_05 17:43

Well, dude, and also I think a lot of those uh soror or fraternities and stuff that have like a lot of uh Knights Templary stuff in there too, which is odd. Really? I think so. I believe there's like a whole Templar thing because I I got big into um reading all those Greek rituals because uh I had a cousin hit her husband was in a fraternity, and I asked him about their secret rituals, and he's like, Well, my fraternity actually is the only fraternity who doesn't have secret rituals, and we're like anti-secret ritual. And then I was like, Well, what do you mean? And he's like, Oh, well, here's some of the ritual that we have from other people that like other can't or Greek fraternities on campus, and they had a couple of their rituals, and and dude, I just was like, Oh my god, let me read, you know, I gotta read these, these are crazy, and dude, it was just like some hazing, but like I remember one of them, and I'm trying to think of what it's one of the biggest fraternity, like um, it's at um it was in DeKalb. Um, but uh man, yeah, they had one that was like it was basically like Knights Templar, but it had no masons. The founders were masons and probably Knights Templar and created it, but like nothing in it was Freemasonry, it wasn't like a feeder group for me, like a lot of the guys didn't even know what masonry was. And I'm like, Well, dude, this is like commander, dude. This is this is like Knights Templar. But that was even before I was in Templar.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

Well, I know I had a uh treasure by Lodge. So when his son got his fellowcraft degree, one of his professors came and uh gave him gave him the obligation, and he said a paragraph at a time and he repeated back a paragraph at a time because they're both in the same college fraternity. He said they the obligation was that close together. Wow, but they took it for the fellow craft, not from the Master Mason. Yeah, if I if I remember that story right, so yeah, a lot of these college fraternities they were based off of Freemasonry because a lot of you guys enjoyed Rodge and Hey, I want to start a club here at my college, blah blah blah. There is a college fraternity based on Freemasonry, too.

SPEAKER_05 20:03

And it might have been a more of a feeder organization back then, you know, like oh, let me inspire you with a little bit of skullduggery and mystery, you know. And then once you're out in society, you know, then it turns you into uh you get into the the big boy fraternities.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

No, I know when I visited my friends in college after I joined Lodge, and they're like, I can I can master my lodge at time. No, I was too old for that. But while I was still going through the chairs, I was wearing my ring and uh was hanging out a bunch of them, and uh one of them goes, uh, oh, you try to get Eric join the Masons? I'm like, honestly, I didn't even talk to you, my buddy Eric. I haven't talked to him about it yet. So he's still in college. You don't you don't have time to join Lodge? I said, How do you know what the Masons are? He goes, Oh, I'm really big into fraternalism and everything. Like, well, you're the only one I ever met. So yeah, he only even knew what it was, so but but yeah, he he planned on joining every guy out of college, but of course I never saw the guy again. But I I was I just we're talking about the the all the politicians and you know being masons and everything. There's a lot more out there that are your Greek fraternity than they ever be Masonic fraternity.

SPEAKER_03 21:14

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

Why don't the conspiracy guys go after the Greek fraternities for controlling the world?

SPEAKER_03 21:20

I mean, uh those are the societies they can't see.

SPEAKER_05 21:25

Bishop Lady or Later Gator. What oh man, I can't even think of his name. It's like something southern. Uh there's a guy, he's a bishop like Larry Gator, maybe. I I don't even know what his name is, but you'd have to Google him. But he's uh he hits all the Greek fraternities on the conspiracy circuits, dude.

SPEAKER_06 21:45

Wait, wait, wait, wait.

SPEAKER_05 21:46

Larry Gatorry Gator or something.

SPEAKER_06 21:48

Oh, Larry Gator, not Larry Gary. Yeah, Larry Gator.

SPEAKER_05 21:53

I don't know, dude. Something like that. But he's like uh Larry Gaitelin.

SPEAKER_06 21:57

No, that's a singer. Larry Gates, no, that's An actor.

SPEAKER_05 22:00

It's that was yeah, it's something hilarious, and uh he's always talking about the Boulet Society, and uh what's the other group that he says? There's another one, and he dude, he's on it, dude. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 22:17

No, I can't find anything.

SPEAKER_05 22:19

I get one direction and you gotta type in Bishop Larry Gators, dude. Yeah, you gotta put the bishop. Yeah, he's a he's the bishop.

SPEAKER_01 22:29

He's a bishop of a church, doesn't have anything else.

SPEAKER_05 22:32

No, no. Bishop Larry Sullivan, and I think maybe, yeah, he uh he hates Freemasonry.

SPEAKER_06 22:40

He hates all sacred subjects. Bishop Larry Gators.

SPEAKER_05 22:43

Um type in a boulet society or put in um like Kobe or uh any of those, dude. Yeah, anybody who's a sports athlete, this guy's like, oh, they they owe the college fraternities, you know, the college fraternities got them into the MBA, and the teams that the schools pick, they train them into these secret societies through the schools, and so much for community.

SPEAKER_01 23:12

All right, because there is a nationally syndicated radio host, journalist, and CEO of Global Spentral Spiritual Revolution Media Group based in New York, Los Angeles, known as Bishop John Wick on social media.

SPEAKER_04 23:31

Yeah, dude's wild, man.

SPEAKER_06 23:37

So yeah, let's go to something else. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's what I got. Yeah, he does some uh Luciferian project allegations.

SPEAKER_05 23:48

Oh, yeah, yeah. See Kobe Bryant, yeah. Claim Joe Secret Society, is that what you were talking about?

SPEAKER_07 23:55

Yeah, yeah, he's in all secret society, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 23:59

He's in all these uh these different Greek um, and they're all like tied around athletes and stuff. Wow, I know nothing about it, so hopefully we're not blowing the lid off the somebody's cover, but there you go. He's probably gonna put this up on his Instagram that we're even talking about him.

SPEAKER_06 24:22

Yeah, the gatekeepers gators contends that the Buell Society, formed by influential African Americans, operates as agents for a uh broader global elite to control the black community. Okay, that's first time I've ever heard of that. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:44

Well, look at his podcast appearance, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 24:50

Yeah, they're like tied into like Freemasonry and all this crazy stuff. Um yeah, dude, he's hilarious, though, dude. And he just runs at a hundred miles an hour, too, dude. So um yeah, his interviews are really funny to listen to.

SPEAKER_06 25:09

I'll have to look that up further.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

It's strange people like him who just hang on, I gotta take a pause real quick. All right. But like I said, it's just strange how some guys like him, he just they're so convinced that the the strings are being pulled by somebody else. It it'd drive me crazy. Like 99% of the time, no one knows what's going on. No one knows what's happened. Now, the bomb in Iraq, was that kind of wagging it on a little bit? Maybe maybe the FT file has something to do with that. I don't know. But they're never gonna tell us either, so it don't matter.

SPEAKER_06 25:46

No, yeah, we're yeah, I don't, you know, people just are afraid of what they don't know.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Yes, what they don't understand, and they'll listen to somebody who sounds smarter than they are.

SPEAKER_06 26:01

Well, yeah, because if it sounds smart, therefore it must be smart, right? Right. I'm it's you know, especially when you're all hyped up on something, right? And I don't mean drugs or anything, but you're just uh hyped up on a on a subject and you're just going and going, and then somebody says something that sounds very logical to you at that time, obviously you're gonna go with it. And it can be completely wrong and off basis. But because it sounds logical and smart, people, even you, will go for it.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

Oh yeah. Yeah, it just I don't know. It just I get so sick and tired of everybody saying, Oh, the Masons are controlling the world. It's like we're not trying to control nothing, we're trying to make the world better by having a higher standard to our keeping keeping ourselves to a higher standard. You know, yeah. We don't we don't want to gossip about each other, we don't want to put each other down, we're always trying to build each other up, and we're trying to build the whole world around us up at the same time by using you know the allegories and the symbols we learn in masonry. And you tell people that, like, no, that's not right. Like, okay, all right, sure. You know, we just made it all up just to have a club, you know.

SPEAKER_06 27:17

I mean, I mean, it is pretty much all made up, right? Oh, yeah, but I mean, yes, it's it it's all allegory. Uh we had a commenter a couple weeks back say something, and I'm like, no, everything we do is allegorical, and uh he didn't know what allegorical was. I put it up there and he's like, That's not what it means.

SPEAKER_05 27:42

Wes, it's from time immemorial.

SPEAKER_06 27:45

Well, I got the Webster's dictionary, you know, for him and I put it out there, he's just that's not what it is. Okay, well, I I don't know what else to tell you. Well, you gotta remember whatever they want to believe. You know, that I mean he just you know, it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

You gotta remember all legends, all stories came from somewhere happening, and then it's been a game of telephone for years and years and years where the story gets changed a little bit, or someone makes it a little more interesting for the next story, or hey, this don't fit for my narrative, but I'm gonna change it to this to fit my narrative. And then you get taken for gospel after a while. I mean, it's I've heard guys argue about the Bible. Some of the stuff in the Bible, you know, did you know is 100% true, but it's been so translated differently, and you know, people had different point of views of it that it's kind of got you know angelized and just you know changed that it in the beginning it was true, now it's something totally different. You know, yeah, I heard one guy say that Jesus walked on water. Well, how do we know it was a sandbar he was walking on? No one's no one knew it was there. You know, it made it a miracle of those guys. Yeah, remember electricity would have been a miracle to people back.

SPEAKER_05 29:07

He's riding on a hydrofoil, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 29:11

Yeah, I mean, yeah, electricity would be considered a miracle back then.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

But all the all the stuff we're taught masonry came from something else. I mean, it came from other kind of, you know, as far as the builders and everything. And if I've always said this way, a guy becomes so enthralled in his job that he does it so well that he understands it to such a level where he does see it as like, you know, you know, making this stone square is like trying to make myself square. Okay, I get that, or trying to keep myself level and having a square deal with my friends, like using that level to keep everything level. I mean, it's just you gotta think once you become that high of a master of your profession, that yeah, you're gonna look deeper into it, you're gonna find more meaning into it. Like, I don't think guys these days do stuff like that because you know, you know, honestly, jobs are repetitive and boring. Back then, you were known as a craftsman, you were a well-respected man for being able to do your job well. I think it kind of made people people were kind of all of you, the blacksmith, the farrier, the wheelwright, whatever it is, is those guys who did a who you know never had a return or job, always did a job well. People were you know highly respected, but we were kind of all of them, too.

SPEAKER_05 30:33

And those were the kind of people that also fund founded these towns, too. You know, so when you look at a town that was founded in the Masonic Lodge is there, and you're like, Oh, well, there's a blacksmith and a banker and this and that, and they were all Masons, like, well, dude, that's why, because they were all craftsmen, they all have been, you know, dedicated to working their art. And you know, when you're that advanced, you can look back and see like how you affect the community and like where, and you know, yeah, of course. And then not only that, but for them to see together, like, man, we could pull our money together and have like you know, the life insurance uh things they used to do, uh, how they used to do the grave markers, or like um, you know, the lodge would buy your grave plot, or they buy uh cemetery plots with from the lodge and shit like that. There are so many different weird things the lodges have done over the hundreds of years, you know.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

The the graveyard my parents are or my grandparents are in is a Masonic graveyard, is owned by the Masons. Uh I forget what Lodge owns it, but it's owned by a lodge and taken care of by that lodge. So it's like if you're a mason there, they got uh anybody can be buried there, of course. But yeah, yeah, if you're a mason there, you have a spot there. I mean, they ought they always have spots open. Now, when I was mastering my home lodge, my uh treasure came to me and he said, You know, we own I think we own 12 grave sites at the town cemetery.

SPEAKER_02 32:02

Dude, see, that's exactly what I'm talking about. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 32:06

We own like we own like 50 of them. I was like, What's the point of that? Because I was too young to really realize back then. He goes, Well, usually we had a member who was old and destitute, didn't have the money. We would just we'd give that member the grave site for free, you know, because we owned them and everything. I think by the time I was mastered, we had like three or four left, and we ended up selling them to uh uh one of the churches for like a pretty good how much did you sell them for?

SPEAKER_06 32:32

You froze up a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 32:34

Uh, I think I think they were five thousand dollars a piece. Whoa, okay. If I remember right, like three of them so then you know fifteen hundred dollars or fifteen thousand dollars.

SPEAKER_05 32:43

Yeah, I mean, dude, if you want a family plot though, or like you're like, you know, thinking of doing something that like that. I mean, dude, or uh another really cool topic here. Uh, while we're kind of on this and in the communities, dude, you go to any local cemetery and just take a look around in the older section, and you'll see a lot of Masonic gravestones, or you'll see a lot of big uh mausoleums built up, uh, where those were families of mason, you know, and the whole family was in there. You can see uh a lot of Egyptian uh symbolism on there. Sometimes they'll have Rosicrucian or they'll have Masonic stuff.

SPEAKER_01 33:19

I know in the uh the Tipton uh cemetery, city cemetery up there, you saw a lot of keystones, so a lot of obelisk, uh obelisk with uh keystones on it, square encompasses on it. Uh, but then there's a whole section, I guess, the Catholic Church, but like this whole section of it, and they got a big giant crucifix in the middle of it, and all these like really ornate uh sculpture stuff they had made put into it, stuff like that. So, you know, the churches, the big churches would buy big plots of it, and lodges would buy big plots of the grave of the graveyards, yeah. So I guess that's that's one thing to do for your community that way, too. But I mean, it's kind of funny how at one point, you know, you think about you know, Oddfeld lodges, they owned a bunch of graveyards. They had they had a bunch of graveyards around it around the country. Um, if I remember right, there's a lodge here in or that there's a uh cemetery somewhere here in Indiana Free. That's where it's at, but it is it has a lodge set up in the middle of it, it's got an altar, uh the three chairs. Yes, yeah, I've seen that.

SPEAKER_05 34:26

It's a full lodge, yeah. The whole deal.

SPEAKER_01 34:29

And it's it's it right there in the middle of this of the cemetery, like an eternal lodge, yeah. Something like that, yeah. And I can't remember it's it's over by like the Illinois border somewhere, and I cannot remember where I saw that. Anyone knows?

SPEAKER_05 34:48

I've seen the photos of it. Yeah, it's like all cut in granite.

SPEAKER_01 34:52

Yeah, it's all granite, all squared. I mean, it's really uh it's really pretty, it's been taken well care of, but we should do a degree. Do like a nine-time degree. That'd be kind of cool. Low cool.

SPEAKER_05 35:09

We have a lot of uh acacia cemetery in Chicagoland, and uh maybe once a year. Um usually different lodges, usually Hinsdale, uh, we'll do a degree in there.

SPEAKER_01 35:23

And I've been told that before.

SPEAKER_05 35:25

Yeah, I've been to a third degree there uh once one time I seen a triple degree third, and then I've been there another time for a third degree.

SPEAKER_01 35:34

But I'm the okay, is oh dude, it's huge.

SPEAKER_05 35:38

Well, when the very first time I went, uh Wes told me about it and was telling me about how cool it was, and he was saying it was in a mausoleum. So I was thinking maybe 15, 13 people in there, you know, and I show up, dude. This place is three, five, seven stairs to get in. It's absolutely massive, looks like a Greek uh castle. I'm like, yo, dude, this is nuts. Um big, huge ass brass doors on the front with square encompasses. It's gorgeous. Uh absolutely beautiful building. Yeah, and then you know, it was 40 people at the degree, you know, you're like, oh shit. Um while you're doing the degree, there you got the brothers are buried in the walls of it, you know, like it's a whole section uh in the basement for uh urns uh for the ashes, and it's oh dude, yeah, it's just like a little box where the casket is, and then it has like a little Scottish right eagle on the front, and you're like, whoa, dude, uh right here, dude. Brothers right here.

SPEAKER_01 36:43

No, it's Indiana, the building green Indiana, which is about an hour north of me. They have a castle up there. Someone built a castle, I don't know where I'm thinking about. Hold on.

SPEAKER_05 36:53

Yeah, but last year we wanted to make it to the castle.

SPEAKER_06 36:56

It's got a drawbridge and everything.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

I think so, yeah. But uh, I was supposed to go up last year. My buddies, one of my good buddies from Elwood, uh town over from Tipton, his son was got his third degree in that castle. Uh I paid I paid for my dinner, I paid for my way up there. I woke up that morning and I had one of those sore throats and headaches that I'm like, I just can't make it. I was like, I've already paid, I paid like 50 50 bucks for the dinner and everything. And is this it? I had to call my I had to call my buddy and said, dude, I cannot make it. I am sick as a dog. Where is that at? Is this it? No, it's it's much bigger than that.

SPEAKER_05 37:34

It's that's like a mausoleum one. This is like a real castle. Okay, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:39

It's in Bowling Green, Indiana.

SPEAKER_05 37:44

People just don't do mausoleums like that anymore, man.

SPEAKER_01 37:48

No.

SPEAKER_05 37:51

The Nicholas Cage one in uh New Orleans is like a pyramid.

SPEAKER_02 37:56

What?

SPEAKER_05 37:57

I think Nicholas Cage is a pyramid one in uh oh, is it in Vegas? I don't know, wherever it is. I thought it was in New Orleans. Uh here in Naperville, I guess I was gonna say here in Naperville. I don't even live there anymore. In uh the Naperville area, uh their cemetery, dude. There's uh two or three really cool old school Egyptian temples, uh, like fully built up uh mausoleums. Like they are just absolutely gorgeous.

SPEAKER_01 38:27

Is this it right here? Uh that's the clay, yeah. Clay Shire Castle. Yeah, that's it right there. I just see you a link for it too, so don't just disregard that. All right. Yeah, my buddy he uh his son got his master mason degree in that building.

SPEAKER_05 38:42

Uh I mean what a cool thing that is for the community, man. Like to be able to use uh, you know, venture outside of your lodge and uh take part in cool places in your community. So, like what do you do? You just reach out for a dispensation.

SPEAKER_01 39:01

Yeah, pretty much.

SPEAKER_05 39:05

Is there a criteria for Grand Lodge? Like, you know, I know lodges meet in churches and stuff, but like uh, and you know, we've done outdoor degrees on people's farms and things like that, but like you know, what what I wonder what that is. Like, what are the criteria for dispensation to do a degree somewhere?

SPEAKER_01 39:26

Well, I know in um in Indiana we have to uh to move our charter outside our lodge. We have to call Grand Lodge, get dispensation and letter and everything, and then we can only have it like for a day or for like two days or whatever outside the lodge, but we have to get dispensation to move it. Uh, there's certain places we don't have to. If like we're gonna do a uh go to Schofield House where they found the Grand Lodge of England or Grand Lodge of Indiana, we don't need to do that, but uh there's certain things we can get away with without asking Grand Lodge, but huh? I'll send you a link. I'll send you this other link.

SPEAKER_06 40:03

And you know what I was thinking too? Uh if well, I I don't know if you need dispensation to do this, but instead of bringing everything, you could just you know draw the or art on a chalkboard or something, yeah. Like we like maybe back in the day.

SPEAKER_05 40:23

Well, I was just thinking uh I was thinking of something completely stupid, like to do like um, you know how we do like a grand master's class, you know, to be like, oh my god, we're gonna do like one at the uh like down on the black hawk ice or like in the bull state, you know, like something right, you know, like something super duper random and wild, or like you know how many hips would be broken if we did it on the ice? Oh my god, I know I know, but like like rubber mats, you know, like uh not the sonic ice in the ice, you know, like just so I'm sorry candy walk on ice, or like do it at Soldier Field, you know, like do a third degree in the middle of Soldier Field, you know, like that would be random as hell. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:14

I mean, could you get enough guys there to fill up Soldier Field? No, but I mean could you do it?

SPEAKER_05 41:22

Yeah, I don't know like what the thing is, like, you know, to do that. I don't know if like you obviously like the staple center or something, you couldn't get it private enough, you know, to because of all the workers and security, you know, like so. How would you do, you know, how would you do something?

SPEAKER_06 41:37

I'm sure you can get it rented out, a rent something out like that for a Grand Lodge event.

SPEAKER_05 41:43

Oh, for like a Grand Lodge event, yes, but I'm talking like just do a third degree, dude.

SPEAKER_06 41:47

Yeah, like well, where did the where's the most elaborate third degree been done at? Like dude, you we couldn't even afford to turn on a lamp in that place.

SPEAKER_01 41:59

Well, where did the Grand Lodge of England do like your 300-year celebration? Was that like Royal Hour Hall or something like that? Or that place is huge, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 42:09

I remember looking at the photos and some video clips of after it happened at Freemason's Hall in England.

SPEAKER_06 42:16

I don't think it was super bigger, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 42:19

Because, dude, it was like so many people, it was insane, dude.

SPEAKER_01 42:23

I think they had like 3,000 people show up for it.

SPEAKER_05 42:26

Yeah, it was like two days of introductions.

SPEAKER_01 42:28

It was like the only time they've ever had the entire Grand Lodge of England in one room in like the last hundred something years. Wow, from Prince, whatever, down to the lowest like provincial Grand Master and all his staff. The first time they've all been in the same room forever. And then every other lodge sent their master or guest or whoever went there, and they said there's over 3,000 people in that building. Well, did you see that link I sent you by the Schofield House? Yeah, yeah, that's where our Grand Lodge was founded in 1818, and now our Grand Lodge owns that building. How cool! And we can do a uh we can do uh fellowcrafts and enterprise there, but it's it's too small to imagine.

SPEAKER_05 43:16

Did you guys record there? Didn't you guys do a show there?

SPEAKER_01 43:19

No, we're we're working on it. We were supposed to, and then Jerry got busy.

SPEAKER_05 43:23

We had to get well, you guys went somewhere else to like uh that lodge. It was like a tiny lodge or one of the founding lodges or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 43:31

Uh we went to Newburgh Lodge. And then we went to Bedford Lodge.

SPEAKER_05 43:39

Something historic, I thought. One of them, what's that tiny lodge where you can't where you guys talk about like you can't even get two guys walking next to each other?

SPEAKER_01 43:48

That's New London. That's around Kokomo. Yeah, we haven't been there yet. Uh but yeah, it's so tiny. If uh a guy my size, if a guy my size going with Kelly, and I've seen your deal. We can't walk between the uh the altar and the junior war at the same time. It's too narrow. It's tiny. And we have packed up.

SPEAKER_05 44:12

You know, you see some of the old drawings and stuff, how tiny it's just that's when dinner plates are 20 inches round.

SPEAKER_01 44:18

So yeah. Well, remember uh a lot of them met in tents during like the war and everything. They'd meet like in big canvas tents. And you know, how many those you fit 15 guys there, maybe maybe 10?

SPEAKER_05 44:31

Military lodges probably have the coolest place they've done degrees for sure. I bet like do degrees on an aircraft carrier.

SPEAKER_01 44:39

So this is a schoolfield house, and it's set up. That's the upstairs of Schofield House. Yeah, it used to be a tavern uh back in the back in the day, and that's where uh guys actually sleep up there.

SPEAKER_05 44:53

Oh, that's beautiful, man. Yeah, how cool.

SPEAKER_01 44:56

Yeah, but you can uh every lodge can move their charter there with no dispensation. They've got set up with the Schofield house to get time to do it.

SPEAKER_05 45:07

So, what about that's another thing, too, you guys. Uh, back in the day when your Masonic Lodge used to be uh a place of boarding, you know, you know, when they were connected to when like lodges, uh like and things like uh people would come in town, you'd have the brewery, the lodging, and then all that would be right there, and your Masonic hall would meet above it, you know.

SPEAKER_01 45:30

Right.

SPEAKER_05 45:31

Because uh Wes, uh remember when we went to the Valley of Madison and we got that crazy tour, and they have a whole entire safe room, and they said that back in the day uh people would travel there and you know they'd have their gold or their money and then they'd put it in the safe, and then while they were there on their vacation, they could come back and take and pull their money out.

SPEAKER_06 45:52

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 45:53

And uh, you know, they had rooms there that it would stay. So if you were a Mason, or actually, I just heard this on um I think on the Masonic Roundtable, they were talking about uh Masonic buildings where uh people used to be able to stay in the building. So if you were traveling to say St. Louis to go to the degrees, they would have a few rooms for out-of-town brothers that you could stay for free and be able to like crash there, you know. Or uh back in the day when lodges used to even have like a caretaker, you know, somebody who would live in the building and you know take care of the building 24-7, the big halls, you know.

SPEAKER_01 46:30

That's why Schofield House is there's the guy that lives there uh full time and takes care of the place.

SPEAKER_03 46:36

Oh, see how cool.

SPEAKER_01 46:38

And his living room is actually the preparation room for degrees.

SPEAKER_06 46:43

That's wild. Well, uh, you know, back in uh well, I'm not sure exactly what time period, but we'll say like 1800s when you used to have to travel on horseback to go to a lodge, it was within the length of your cable tow. And now, from what I understand, that's 15 miles. Okay. And once you go 15 miles, that's pretty much your whole day or half the day. Now you're gonna do the meeting, and then you're gonna have to go another 15 miles in the dark, you know, through uh uncharted territory sometimes, other than right to the lodge, let's say.

SPEAKER_05 47:20

Uh, they're not gonna do that, they're gonna stay how crazy it was to travel to grand sessions back in the day, you know, like how elaborate and you know, how big of a deal that was, you know.

SPEAKER_01 47:31

Well, I remember uh our founders' day we have every year in January. We have around the time the Grand Lodge got founded, it got founded in January of 1818. They talked about guys, you know, going to Maston, Indiana, which is basically north of Louisville on the Ohio River, about I think an hour, maybe maybe 45 minutes north of Louisville. The guys from Vincent's would travel by horseback all the way across the state in January. You know, cold as hell's it be, but would travel by coach or by horseback, whatever, to go to and start that Grand Lodge. Or they come up from you know Vince, Blazing Star, Charlestown, New Albany, that part of the area, and Corden. But it was still a day trip for something a week-long trip for some of those guys to go and find a Grand Lodge. You know, they gotta come up in.

SPEAKER_05 48:23

Yeah, this is something outside of your normal daily invocation job, you know, like this is something they were doing for like that's dedication, man.

SPEAKER_06 48:32

Like, yeah, but also at the same way, yeah, in those time periods, trying to set something up, yeah, that's it's very difficult. And I wonder what um, let's say, uh, possess you know, any grand lodge to do it in the middle of winter.

SPEAKER_05 48:49

Yeah, I dude, you gotta do the fellowship celebration, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 48:54

The library now I'm thinking from the establishment of any Grand Lodge in the United States, okay. Let's say this is the you know 1800s, okay. Just say 1800s. Now we're gonna establish a Grand Lodge. Let's do it in the dead of winter when it's really hard to travel and the ground is frozen. I don't know if that's what every Grand Lodge decided, but it's the easiest time to pass a vote.

SPEAKER_05 49:17

Yeah, that's they're thinking about future.

SPEAKER_01 49:19

There's no there's no farming, there's no uh true, no one's in the field at the time, stuff like that. But also at the time they found the Grand Lodge of Indiana, they were also founding the state of Indiana, so they had a bunch of guys that in the Corridon and uh what Coridon and I think New Albany and Chesterton, they kind of met several different places, but they're they're writing the Indiana Constitution and getting all the uh the laws that he set up for Indiana. I think and this is kind of a tongue-in-cheek thing, but they said that the reason they found the Grand Lodge then because they had guys in the Congress that didn't want to run the Grand Lodge. They kind of did when they when they were already predisposed. Now, I don't know if that's true or not, but they said it's a kind of coincidence that the same time they were writing the uh the the Constitution for Indiana, it's the same time they were they were finding the Grand Lodge of Indiana. So yeah, they all them important guys, the influential guys who were in in there getting the government set up, all the rest of them were getting a lot the Grand Lodge set up.

SPEAKER_05 50:20

Well, and even though a lot of that either way, but yeah, that early documentation, a lot of that stuff is written the same, you know, like the way they uh the way we report our minutes and the secretary's reports and stuff, you know, is how those you know, those early groups like that, you know, they kind of based off of us and structured, you know, well, this is how we're gonna set up our local government here, and then this is how we're gonna set up this, you know.

SPEAKER_01 50:46

Yeah, I know uh Chris Hodap, he had a good podcast with uh, I think the uh one of the grand Aja Canada of the podcast, I think Mystic Tie, if I remember right, but he talked about that after the revolution, I mean, no one really knew what to do. They didn't know how to vote. No, no, no country had ever their own leadership. It's always been the kings or whoever's been in charge. But they said that's when they turned to the Masons, the Masons go, Well, we've been vote for our own leadership forever. So here's how you do this: everybody gets one vote, blah, blah, blah. You know, have a certain day. And that's what I kind of think that's where the our voting came for the Masons because we've always voted for our own leadership. And we were America win the revolution. No one really knew what to do. No one knew how to do it. Now he's more eloquent than I am, so don't you know if you want to check it out. I think it's on the Mystic Tide podcast, if I remember right. But he got a real good talk about it. I think he all just froze up on me. Nope, there you go.

SPEAKER_06 51:48

Brock, does that uh podcast sound familiar to you? You're the podcast doer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:55

I think they're out of the uh east coast or west coast of Canada, if I remember right. But uh he went there and spoke and he did a podcast night for it, and and uh kind of opened my eyes a lot because you know if you ever hear Chris Holdap speak, he can he can blow your mind away. But yeah, that was one of the ones I've heard. And uh really kind of opened my eyes up to where you know I always thought, yeah, Mason's founded United States. Well, we we we kind of did. If you think about it, we kind of took our ideals and put them out there in the Constitution, not as far as the Constitution, but as far as the just kind of way everything's ran. You know, you got one guy, then you got two guys below him, and then you got guys below them, and you know, it kind of works out that way.

SPEAKER_06 52:41

I mean, I see it as it was based off of some Masonic principles, not everything.

SPEAKER_05 52:48

Not no, but I mean it's it's the basic thing of like we were talking with the blacksmith, you know, you have the master blacksmith, and then you have his apprentice, and you have the skilled craftsman, you know, that work with him, and then something happens to him, and the next guy moves up, his son takes over the thing. You know, it's like yeah, it's just kind of the structure of how humans do education and seniority and you know passing on the torch.

SPEAKER_06 53:17

Right. Well, the worshipful master of the lodge can't, you know, be worshipful master and say, Hey, I'm gonna stay in this position until you know my son comes up for power. You know, there's no nepotism like that. Now, if you might have been master one year, and then 20, 30 years later, your son comes in and he becomes worshipful master. I don't think that's nepotism, that's just the way things work.

SPEAKER_03 53:45

A little legacy.

SPEAKER_01 53:46

I remember Washington. Washington could have been president until he died. There was no they weren't gonna vote him out of office at all. He he stepped down, and they say he stepped down because you know said that's what good leaders do. He learned he learned that from Masonic Lodge. Now, I can't see it either way. I think you just tired wanting to go back home. Yeah, all right.

SPEAKER_05 54:06

He didn't file enough by that point. Damn, dude.

SPEAKER_01 54:10

If he but if he had wanted to, they would have elected him until he passed away. Because they weren't he's one of my ratified, wasn't even opposed to be present the first president. But you know, you say to you, you know, you know, it's time for me to you say it's time for me to go home and let someone else do this. And if he gave up the power because he could have been basically king of the United States for as long as he needed to be, and then who knows if he would have appointed his son or stepsons, whatever, take over for him. But he knew the importance of electing our own leadership, not appointing our leadership, and he stepped down and let the election happen. Did I blow your mind away?

SPEAKER_06 54:49

No, no, no, no. I was just thinking, like, wow, we uh really got off of community service and yeah, George Washington, baby.

SPEAKER_05 54:58

This is Freemasonry.

SPEAKER_06 55:00

It's just another Saturday night. It's not a lot of freedom at all.

SPEAKER_05 55:05

I can't have a Saturday without talking about uh George Washington. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:11

No, it's not Saturday night. Because every lodge had a picture of George Washington on the wall. So I always want to you know do a uh like a little comedy thing with me asking George questions and answering me a different voice or something like that. Flashing other pictures going back and forth.

SPEAKER_05 55:30

I thought that'd be how we were talking about that other video. Do it how Conan did it and just cut George's mouth out. Yeah, do it.

SPEAKER_02 55:39

Yeah, oh don't you worry, I'm watching you, brother.

SPEAKER_04 55:47

You're just like kneeling at the altar. Oh, why, George? Have I been forsaken for this today?

SPEAKER_02 55:54

Oh, I'm right here, don't you worry.

SPEAKER_03 56:00

That's a hilarious skit. Yeah, we gotta do that. Yeah, give me a really high-pitched voice.

SPEAKER_06 56:06

If you leave out uh hemp and cherry pie and you open your lodge in form without any mistakes, George Washington comes out.

SPEAKER_03 56:16

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 56:20

Well, I know my daughter thought it. She, you know, she's been into a bunch of Masonic lodges now. And uh she's like, Why do you guys like why is George Washington in all of them? And I'm like, Well, he was a Mason, you know, he's like one of the best Masons ever. And she's like, Well, is that why you guys put him on the money? And I'm like, Well, we I don't know who put him on the money, that wasn't us, but you know, I'm like, but yeah, he's on there.

SPEAKER_06 56:47

Yeah, well, I don't I don't know why we decided to put our presidents on the money.

SPEAKER_05 56:57

Yeah, well, she just sees the triangle and the all-seeing eye on the back, and then George Washington is like, Oh, yeah, that's that's the love.

SPEAKER_06 57:06

Do you find her just oh yeah, I got it framed up at my house.

SPEAKER_05 57:11

Are you kidding me?

SPEAKER_01 57:13

Yeah, the little rabbit hole right there. Yeah, you all see now in the back of Darbille.

SPEAKER_05 57:18

Yeah, I got mine, I got it blown up, and I got uh all the letters circled that spell Mason on it. Yeah, I got it all blown up. And I got a little owl in the corner, too.

SPEAKER_06 57:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 57:39

Uh you know what, though, dude? The craziest thing ever, and this is a whole entire rabbit hole, but um I think that the money system is like um, so like have you guys ever seen the correlation between like advanced mathematics and origami? Have you guys ever heard of this?

SPEAKER_01 58:01

I've heard about that. I've never looked at it.

SPEAKER_05 58:05

If you take like uh an animal shape, like uh an origami shape that looks like an animal that's like really well done, if you unfold it, it makes like a sacred geometry pattern. So the pattern in the paper reflects, you know, it the full it creates this animal, right? And so um there's like cancer scientists and like biology scientists who use um advanced origami mathematics folds to try to use that to like break cells in cancer and shit like that or whatever.

SPEAKER_06 58:46

Oh really? So interesting.

SPEAKER_05 58:48

Well, because of the weird techniques of like how the paper's folded and the shapes and how it I it's so hard to it's like kind of talking like between like uh the paper is second dimension, and when you fold it in a mathematical way, it creates a third-dimensional object, you know. So, like if thinking of us in the third dimension, thinking of how would we create a fourth dimension, you know, like what would be the origami of that fourth dimension, you know, what what would we use to create, like what would be the math that would create that dimension or the scale of it, you know. So uh Salvador Dali used to draw like a cross unfolded or a cube exploded, you know, the hypercube and would do that as a reflection of what the because like uh when you think of uh dimensional mathematics, the you can only see a higher dimension in its shadow. You can't, you know, you can only see a projection of its shadow of the dimension or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 59:53

Like you can't see you can't see all sides of a three-dimensional projection of it.

SPEAKER_06 59:59

So are you talking about that that theory? Like, okay, if there's a string, okay, people only see two directions, forwards and back, when actually there's more directions than that. If you take a bug walking across this line, the bug will go underneath and sideways all over it to get to it, creating different paths to get to the same uh the same ending or or beginning. Is that what you're talking about?

SPEAKER_05 1:00:36

Well, that's yeah, that's um that's a fold. So like um yeah, you it that's like a um this is hilarious, even be yes, yeah, yeah. So yes, that whole thing. So on paper, you can do the same thing, like you put the bug and then you spin the corner of the paper, then turn the other thing, and it's like infinite. He could walk from the back side of the paper to the front side of the paper, going from one end of the paper to the other side of the paper, and on an endless loop forever, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:07

Yeah, because it's like a dimensional I I forget what it's called, but I seen them like, oh, okay. Um thing, yeah. You only see one way to go, but there's actually multiple ways within that direction. You just you can't see it because you know we're used to gravity being on one plane and we can only go upright, you know. I I can't remember what it's called.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:33

Yeah, I know. I well, dude. There's this whole I remember watching this crazy documentary about this. He this dude, he's a crazy mathematician and physicist, and uh he brought up his son completely homeschooled and in physics, and his son is like one of the world's greatest um origami builders, and he builds these crazy geometric forms out of origami, and he can just see the mathematics. It's very, very bizarre the way he does he, but then um in the documentary they talk about how the things that they you know I don't even know how they can use it for disease and blah blah blah, and yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:18

That'd be interesting to see. I don't know what I know. I was kind of blown away the other day. We had a uh guy covered for Logic is Logic Education on the several little arts and sciences, and he pointed out that our numbering system, one through uh nine, let's call it nine, is all based on the angles of the numbers.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:37

Yeah, yeah, it's all Arabic numbers, uh, based on Arabic.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:40

I never I I guess I guess I didn't have good enough teacher to explain that to me, but it kind of blew my mind that even in numbers, right numbers. We we talk about the angles and the you know how many you know you know, right hand or right angles and everything are in the numbers. That's that's that's a numbers like wow, it just kind of blew my mind. You know, you're we don't you don't get taught that stuff. You know, why didn't anyone say, Hey, have you guys ever noticed this?

SPEAKER_06 1:03:08

Well, think about it. We uh when we write our three, it's two backward c's basically basically. And then what then what's a five? A right angle, and then another C. Okay, it's not taught everything is on an on a right angle or a 90-degree angle. That's not how we're taught, we're taught elegantly, okay. So it looks it looks pretty, and it does look pretty, and shit, yeah. But you know, when you square it out like that, it doesn't look pretty, it looks pretty archaic, but it's like that for a reason.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:46

Yeah, we're just not you you've I had to send it. Yeah, I got I had to record some of this guy's stuff. He's uh he does the Masonic Education thing with a deck of cards, it just blows my mind. He made up on his own everything, he's like a whole mentorship thing on cards, and it's it's just so neat. He'll set up an entire log that deck of cards explain what each card means and what allegorical, what moral lesson it is, and everything. It's very, very neat. But this guy, he's what 45, he's already got a 33rd degree, he's pastmaster with lodge. I mean, he just has a great mind for masonry. Yeah, he's killing it. That's awesome. I had to introduce you guys to see him sometime, but he's got a brain that just does not stop on massing. Yeah, let's get him on the uh he's the guy we brag about being um he did the uh he lists our episode on the third ruffians on the three ruffians. Oh, he's the one that did, yeah. Yeah, he did the actual law dedication. He got the inspiration from us, which Jared keeps telling everybody, well, it wasn't for us, he would have done that. Like, well, he would have figured out some later.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:54

Hey man, I don't know if it's the chicken or the egg there, but I'm glad that it happened.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:59

Yeah, but yeah, he uh but yeah, he uh he every time he does the law dedication for us, he just blows my mind because oh that's awesome. Several little arts of sciences, and he's like, Holy crap, you may have you finally explained where I can understand it, but you may have where he went so deep into it, like even you know, as far as liberal, you figure out where the Greek term from liberal comes from, it actually means free arts. You break it all the way down and everything, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:27

Like, yeah, free. It doesn't, it's not a political thing. It liberal means free to give liberally, right? Freely, yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:34

Which I'm just a meathead football baseball player, I didn't I didn't pay that close attention in high school, so not a lot of us did, so I don't know. Yeah, sports, but well, dude, and you like forget about it, you know.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:50

You start working, you have kids, you're distracted by whatever, you don't really think about all that shit, and then now that you're chilling and reading books again and taking Little more retrospective uh path in life. You you can kind of reflect back on those things. And like we were talking about the guys, the old craftsmans, you know, who are like, now this ruler, I could break my day up into this ruler. You're right. This tool does reflect my more than what it just is, you know. I live by this ruler.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:21

You know, Timmy and Susie got to go to soccer practice. The uh the the fourth rule of Euclidean math can you know wait a little while.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:36

Uh I remember uh Evan Haber.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:38

You know, Timmy and Susie got soccer practice, you gotta go do that. You know, you don't you don't have time for it. It's not things are just different nowadays than they were back then. We've got more things to take up our time.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:50

Yeah, Evan Haber was talking about that on a uh podcast he was on. He's the founder of Black Raffle Coffee, and he was saying, You gotta remember guys back in the day when they were traveling by horse, they didn't have a radio, they didn't have a you know a Walkman.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:06

They had you know, if they traveled, they probably had one book with them that they read 25 times, or a journal, you know, and in your journal, you would write your thoughts, you know. As you rode that horse for eight hours, you would think about it. Yeah, dude, and you would write it down, dude. And like like that's the thing I I find the most amazing about uh guys who like Masons who are writing books or something. Like uh we had a guy at a couple uh oh shit, hang on perfect, great time at your club. Got this book right here from this brother. Hopefully, we're gonna get him on the show someday. Yes, yeah. Um he came out, uh he's a high school English teacher, and um he's the master of his lodge in Wilmington, which is a town pretty close to me here. And uh he came out and spoke about this book he put together. And it basically it's um it's a Mason's journey, but it's broken down into like simple uh not necessarily lessons, but like questions and reflections and things or whatever. But um dude, man, listening to that dude and talking and hearing him talk about his students and like how we gotta really work on masonry, man, to get these younger kids uh interested in masonry. But dude, uh I just found it so interesting, dude, that outside of him being a Mason, master of his lodge, and he had time to write this book. And I'm like, well, dude, how'd you come with original ideas to write it and these ideas for these like little workshops and like uh you know contemplation things, you know? And uh he, you know, he's got his reasons and how he came about it and you know how you know he's passionate about it and you work it in your schedule and you get it done. But to me, I thought, man, dude, between all the podcasts I listen to and like all the conversations I'm having, like I sometimes I wonder if I can even have an original thought because I have so much stuff being influenced into me that it's like, you know, am I reflecting off of this because I heard it on this show and now I'm I'm regurgitating my belief based off of like my opinion and his opinion and then what he heard from somebody else. I'm like, you know, to sit down and do the research or to have a thought and to think it out for six hours, you know, and that's all you're thinking about.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:27

Yeah, but Brock, I would say that's what masonry is. You're taking stone from the mountain, carving it out, and and putting it into your own building. So you're taking the knowledge from somewhere else, the pieces of that, shaping it into your own, and placing it.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:46

I I think exactly what you just said, that's it applies to kind of the topic that we were talking about, the about our community, you know. I think that Masons are working on making themselves better, and in that you can see that you can also make your community better by taking these small little efforts, you know, volunteering here, picking up trash on the side of the highway here, cleaning up a river or a beach. Uh, it's those small things and putting up your sign, you know, and leaving uh these little breadcrumbs around the community of like, oh, well, the Masons clean this highway, and oh, they they sponsor this uh creek cleanup, and you know, oh the masons they sponsor this Japanese garden. Because like I know um uh man, I can't think of the name, Jild Geneva Lodge. They uh sponsor that really beautiful Japanese garden across the river from the Fabian Society. And oh wow, oh dude, yes, it is absolutely dude. The Fabian Society's got these awesome old Egyptian parks, it's a beautiful little park to walk through, and then right across from it, um across the river is the is this Japanese garden, and it is beautiful, dude. It's a traditional Japanese garden, and it's like got a whole zone garden, yeah. The water, the little archway bridge over the water, everything, dude. Um, yep. And uh in the Masonic Lodge, they like I don't know how much or they just financially do it, but uh I know that the like the signs there when you walk up. This is uh maintained and sponsored by the Geneva Masonic Lodge.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:25

So that's cool. Um yeah, I always want lodges to do stuff like that. I know uh the entrance to the park in Tipton where I grew up was paid for by the uh Easter Star back in the day. Chapter, I forget the number of it, but but yeah, that that that Easter star is not around anymore. But that one point they had this big you know stone, elegant, you know, stone wrought iron arc uh uh built up on the entrance of the park and everything. And you know, I wish I wish more lodges would do stuff like that to help out their community and build more stuff, but at the same time, see how many lodges have that kind of money laying around? I mean, that's probably probably 500, you know, let's say I think we build the 20s, so it may cost thousand dollars in the 20s. Well, what's a thousand dollars now compared to 20s money?

SPEAKER_05 1:12:16

So what do you what would you guys think about like we were talking about earlier? What if we were to like approach the city nowadays and be like, hey, we see you guys have this city land, we'd like to appropriate this land and do like a sculpture garden, or like, you know, if if we were to approach that, do you think we'd get the same as we did back then, you know, or would we, you know, what would be the you know, what do you think the city's approach to Freemasonry would be? Do you think they see us in the same light?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:48

I think nowadays they see like they probably need a parking lot more than they need a sculpture garden.

SPEAKER_09 1:12:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:55

Well we have enough parts already. You know, we're gonna we're gonna sell this land to a development they could put house on or something like that.

SPEAKER_07 1:13:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:03

Well, my lodge, Azure Lagrange, I want to say maybe eight to ten years ago now. Maybe it's maybe it hasn't been that long. Um, we had a monument placed up uh for uh I think the historical society, something to do with Lagrange, where the old Masonic building used to be. Oh I couldn't I couldn't make it, but I I've seen the pictures, I know about it. Um so things like that are still possible.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:34

Now, when it comes to the cool up like a brass mason statue, you know, in like in your town, if it's like an empty field where the lodge used to be or something cool.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:44

But that's different than like a garden. Now, a garden is gonna need upkeep, okay? And if you come to the city or village and say, Hey, we want to do this garden thing, which is fine and great, we'll we'll give you the land, but the thing is, is don't let it turn to crap. Well, we need people there that are gonna keep up maintenance, and that's that's about it every day. I I do believe that. I and that's why they give us the these places to put these monuments in, um, whether they're brass or whatever they're made out of stone, yeah, in the community for you know the plaques and everything to read, because it takes no maintenance. And if there's any kind of maintenance, you know what it is, they're probably cleaning it off once a year. Oh, hey, there's dust on it. Can you get the janitor to go over there and wipe it off? Because there's nothing to it, and especially if it's outside and it's you know, the rainfall and everything, it's gonna almost wash itself. Not really, but there's no maintenance to it. So, yes, we're still part of the community, they still see us as something. But when it comes to monuments and gardens, they're two different things.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:55

What about that? Uh what about that in like uh high schools or college campuses? You know, like I know like we do scholarships and things like that, you know, we give out a scholarship to the high schools here every year and stuff like that. But like, what if we were to be like, can we put a plaque in the school, you know, of uh all the people who have received the scholarship? You know, we want to honor them in the school by putting a plaque in there or something, you know, so that people can see our square and compass in the school and also see the students, you know.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:30

For for example, um, and I'm just throwing this out there, like the brother of our lodge that that does a lot for the community that may run for office, who has done uh a lot outside of the lodge for the community, who's known by the people and stuff, after maybe that individual has passed away, and you're like, hey, they went to this high school. This is where all this started. We could probably you know bring that to the high school and say, Hey, we would like to put a plaque up. It's their building, they can do whatever they want.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:08

It's just our well, dude, like you just said, we could do like an a community award and name it after that person, and then you know, every year present that at the school at an awards night, you know, that we give this award to one student every year as if he stays there, you know, and they just get their name on it, you know. We just buy that little plate name, the name plate every year.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:33

Yeah, my lodge Azure LaGrange, we have the Peter Zaluba um scholarship, which is a scholarship just unique to our lodge and unique to the school of Lions Township, uh, Lions High School, I believe it's called. Uh, we've been doing it for years, and they have done it just about every year, I think, except for like two years, and I think that was like during the COVID years, you know, how everything was screwed up. Yeah, but now they're we're we're back at it and we're we're doing that, and we're the only ones that have that music scholarship for that school. So yeah, you can definitely uh don't you guys cook?

SPEAKER_05 1:17:15

Don't you I forgive me if I'm wrong, is it like Straussenfest or something like that?

SPEAKER_01 1:17:20

You guys go it's not uh it's Line Lodge, it's in Jasper. Uh they uh they uh have a booth at the big they call it Straussenfest Street Fest in in English, but uh they'll sell like uh the big thing around here is like uh deep-fried chicken hearts, uh sauce smoked sausage and stuff like that. Uh and they'll make most of their money for a year doing that. That they need to operate on, and they have like an angel fun thing to do in the in the uh Christmas time, they'll pick a family and they'll basically buy their Christmas for them and everything. They they use basically to run their lives, they make most of their money from just that one festival. I mean, because it's it's a good size festival, it's a three-day. I mean, they got a beer guard that will rival anything you guys ever seen, and it's huge. I mean, I think they bought there was 12 uh beer trailers there last year. They went through every one of them.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:17

Yeah, I okay. That brings me to another thing. Do you think we'd get more participation? We had alcohol at these things.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:26

Hey man, I mean that's a great debate on a lot of Grand Lodge's plates, man.

SPEAKER_07 1:18:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:32

I don't know. I was uh I don't know what the right answer is, but I mean, dude, if it's like anything else, you do it in a bottle club or you do it in moderation where your lodge isn't responsible, and you know you put it on the the Masons and you're not doing it before Lodge, it's an after lodge, it's not till three in the morning.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:52

And so here, let me let me place this scenario. The Lodge wants to do a community event, and the lodge says, Hey, we want to serve alcohol. No, wait, wait, wait, wait. Hear me out. We want to serve alcohol and beer. Now, we just happen to have a liquor license from the town, they allow us to do this, so everything's legal and legit. We're not going to be held responsible.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:16

Just like if you're bringing in, yeah, like a mobile R.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:20

So if all the P's and Q's are capitalized and dotted, you know, everything works out. Why couldn't this be something that works for an individual lodge?

SPEAKER_01 1:19:32

Yeah. Well, I don't here in Indiana is we can have alcohol in our lodges.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:40

Certain criteria has to be catered in catering out here.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:44

Let me it has to be catered in by a catering company that has that license to cater in alcohol. And they have to be their bartender, it has to be security on site. And we've got to be licensed bartenders, of course, they're like that. But I if I remember right, the the lodge can't own the building itself. The lodge has to be under a temple board or something like that. Okay. My home lodge was that way. It was we were owned by the Mason Building Association, which consists of you know, the York Right, the Easter Star, Dean Lays, uh Job's and the Rainbow Dars back in the day. Well, now it's just the Lodge owns it. It's still under the Bill Association, but the only thing that meets there is the Lodge, the Blue Lodge. But we we could have alcohol, alcohol catered in there, but at the same time, do we really want to mess with that kind of trouble? I mean, you still got some of the old guys in there and go, well, they see people walking drunk out of Mason Codge, they're gonna think less of us. And yeah, I kind of see that point of that. But at the same time, I mean sometimes it's nice to have a beer after lodge, and not have to walk, you know, two, three blocks, go to a bar or something like that. But like where we're at where I'm at now, there's nothing open by the time we got a lodge. Nine o'clock, that little town is rolled rolled the sidewalks up and everything closed down. Dominican restaurants don't think it serves alcohol. And they're closed down by nine o'clock every night.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:09

Now, I'm not saying that there you know issues couldn't pop up, but you know, for you know, just our conversation's sake, uh everything everything is legit. It's on the up and up, we can't get sued, you know, all that. Obviously, there's still gonna be other problems. You gotta worry about what people are gonna say, uh how people are gonna act. But if we're not liable for that, I'm not sure even if that's still right, but why are we gonna have those kind of members involved on their own time?

SPEAKER_05 1:21:46

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you don't want to make it like um, you know, like the other fraternal groups that we all know of that have bars, you know, where it just turns into how much uh is the fraternity meetings happening, or is it just bar hanging, drinking, you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:22:05

I mean we want that kind of membership, or do we want to keep our standard higher?

SPEAKER_06 1:22:10

Yeah, and by no means am I you know pushing that, oh, this needs to be a thing. I'm you know, pushing for alcohol at lodges, you know, whatever your grand lodge decides, that that's up to them. You know, I'm just it's just a conversation, like I said.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:25

Well, the the big thing here in Indiana is it's not so much the lodges want to be able to have alcohol, is they want to be able to rent a place with waiting receptions or just banquets and people don't have alcohol in them. Well, you can't serve alcohol in the lodges.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:40

Oh, I hate to stop you guys, but I'm gonna have to totally cut off. I gotta hop off. I have a yeah, I got a baby up, dude. And I was like, I just paused it and I went in a second, and my daughter's up and the baby's up. So I'm like, we got two up at 11 o'clock at night.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:59

So Melody is your friend.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:02

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:02

My mom's like, uh, how important is this show right now? I'm like, well, we've only we've already done an hour and 20 minutes, so I can probably pause out of here to carry a video.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:14

Yeah, you're probably all right. Yeah, no, no, no worries.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:17

Yeah, I'll let you guys keep going, but uh, dude, shouts out to you guys, man. Uh, thank you guys for hopping on and recording. I'm sorry to have to hop on on you guys. All right, I understand.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:27

I've been there.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:28

Yeah, right. Exactly, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And hey, man, I'm trying to enjoy this one because this is the last time I'm doing this one.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:39

All right.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:40

All right, I'll see you guys later, man. All right.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:43

Have a good one.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:45

Later, guys.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:50

Well, you get back to the alcohol thing. Is do we want to attract members who are only there for a cheap drink?

SPEAKER_06 1:23:56

Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:58

I mean, the reason I joined the grotto is because we went there after uh a Pennsylvania degree team came down to Kokomo and did a uh uh put on their mathematician, which if you ever get a chance, go see it. But um, we went to the grotto for the after party and it was two dollar Bud Lights and two dollar mixed drinks. And I'm like, well, hell man, you got to need to be a member here. This is awesome. You know, I can drink here for I can spend 20 bucks having a good time here. But that's one of the things that attracted me to the grotto. And once I got into it, the fun and everything else, you know, was more that found more than what alcohol basically. But at the same time, Blue Lodge, that's the reason you join clubs like that. The Shrine, the Grotto, you know, the Lions, the Eagles, whatever. You join that for that kind of fellowship. Where I think with Blue Lodge, you're more likely to join that to have the fellowship and the the friendship and everything, but to learn more about yourself and look deeper into yourself. I mean, it's it definitely helped me out. It gave me a set of rules I can live by that you know, I saw the other guys with high with good, good high character men around me. Like, you know, every decision after that is like, well, I don't want to let these guys down. I don't want to look bad in front of these guys.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:16

So whereas the other clubs and everything, they look just as bad as I do, you know, but yeah, I mean, you know, sometimes to me it sounds like a good idea, and you know, the more I think about it, well, you know, maybe it's not such a good idea. Now, if if your lodge has, you know, brothers that like to go out afterwards, or if your lodge does allow alcohol, uh beer or something, it's just a couple of you in the lodge. It doesn't need to be, you know, not in the lodge, but in the lodge building. It's just a couple of new cabinets, yeah, just having a drink and talking, and chances are you're probably leaving after that. Yeah, I don't know anybody that's like, hey, let's go and get trashed at lodge. It doesn't sound like that. Doesn't sound like the thing to do to me.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:07

That you know what is the rule in Illinois now? Can you guys bring lodge bring alcohol into the lodge as long as it leaves with you?

SPEAKER_06 1:26:13

Uh we can, but it has to be if it's gonna stay at the lodge, it has to be uh in a locked uh drawer, locked cabinet. Uh it's got to have its own designated space that's locked.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:26

I'm thinking there's there's one stuff out there and I can't think who it was, but you they can bring they can bring uh I think just beer in the lodge and have have a have a beer after lodge, but it has to leave the building when everybody else leaves. It can't stay in the building overnight.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:45

It's somewhere out west, it might be Kansas or something like that. I could be wrong on that, but I think it is out west where they can they can bring it in like during lodge and everything, they can put it in the refrigerator and everything, but at the end of the night it has to leave the building.

unknown 1:26:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 1:27:06

No, we can have it. We just uh, you know, we can't have anything before a stated meeting or a degree meeting or any kind of meeting that we have afterwards. It's fine, and obviously don't let anything get out of hand, but uh nobody really wants to get out of hand. I think it's more the idea just like, hey, I can have a drink here and that's it. Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:29

Um you can have that conversation over a drink instead of having you know walking down the bar and hearing everybody having you know all that noise range, too. So right.

SPEAKER_06 1:27:39

And you know, most of the time, you know, it when we do go down to the bar, what is it? It's all of us just sitting together talking about everything we just did. Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:48

You know that little bar down there in the corner. That's it, that's a neat little bar. I love it. I love little bars like that. That little bar by Ravens Lodge.

SPEAKER_06 1:27:56

Yeah, yeah, that's that's the bar we that's the bar we go to. Those little bars are basically a hallway. Yep. Yeah, that's pretty much what it is. So we just go there and you know it's like one or two drinks, and then you know that's it. And most of the time, because it's a weekday, I'm not I'm not drinking. You know, it's just just lately Saturday, since we've been doing this, I've been having you know a a couple drinks. But right, you know, that's so not every lodge night do I need a drink, and not every lodge member I know needs a drink every night.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:29

Right. It's it's to me, drinking is more of a social thing than now there was a need. Yeah, you're like, I don't need to go lodge and get um, I don't need to go to the grotto and drink, I don't need to go out to drink anymore. Just families around, or if I feel like I have a drink, I have a drink. I don't worry about it.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:46

And we do have a couple guys that you know they don't have a drink, they just come out and have water or pop. That's it. Because what do we do? We're just talking amongst ourselves, right? Yeah, especially on a Monday night, nobody's looking to you know tie one off and go to work the next morning.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:01

Yeah, now in England, um, they had a series on Netflix in England. They did a whole thing with the uh with the grand odds of England, and they showed like a seven-part series, but in the interpret degree, the guy was nervous and he's like, How much time do I have left? Oh, I can go drink half a pint before we get started here, you know, and stuff like that. It's like this is on Netflix. It was not on there anymore. Wait, was it Scottish?

SPEAKER_06 1:29:29

The Scottish English. It was English. Wait, uh okay, I think I remember now.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:35

Uh they talked about all three degrees and then uh kind of some more other stuff aspects about lodge and everything.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:44

I think I know which one it was. The the and they had uh they showed everybody at the dinner table and they're all holding their glasses, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:51

They all got their wine glasses and everything. And they had a member who's a smallier, a wine smaller, and he was choosing the wine for a night and everything.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:00

And okay, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:02

Yeah, they had full they had a bar with full of taps and everything for the beer where they got drinked. And England, yeah, they they they said there there's no reason why you how you how do you have fellowship without having a drink in your hand or something like that? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:16

Didn't they say that, especially about America?

SPEAKER_07 1:30:18

How do you yeah, how do you have Freemason without alcohol or something like that?

SPEAKER_01 1:30:23

But you know, hey, it is what it is, but you know, I kind of looked into why the prohibition everything they kind of come from uh kind of the anti-Masonic thing. Uh, but then when prohibition hit, it kind of just stayed that way. We just we just never allowed alcohol back in our lodges.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:40

Um I I heard a couple different things. Uh, one thing keeps coming up, and when I say this, it's not to offend anybody, but I guess it was um a Christian push to uh keep hold probably uh alcohol out of the Masonic Lodge, at least here in Illinois. I've been told that I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:01

I haven't looked up any documents to say that or anything, but yeah, I um I'd like to look back through our main, but you know. I'd really like to look through the Grand Lodge minutes back then to kind of see uh what when was the time when alcohol was allowed and when was it prohibited? And I don't it's probably lost in time right now. You probably had to go back to the early 1900s and just work your way up year by year.

SPEAKER_06 1:31:31

Yeah, I don't know if that's always been a thing since the inception of our Grand Lodge here in Illinois. I that's a good question. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:41

You know, and I I know it's different because um in some of our original minutes of my home lodge, we read through that, and there was a uh kind of a uh ledger kept to the side about okay, there's so this is how much the whiskey and cigars cost for lodge meeting. So we're talking we're talking 1850s, where the lodge would buy so much whiskey and so much so many cigars for after a lodge meeting. Huh. So at one point there was some drinking going on in the in the lodge, but uh lodge found 1851.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:15

Were those part of the official bills?

SPEAKER_01 1:32:18

Uh yeah.

unknown 1:32:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:21

Part bills being paid because they had the they had the food. Remember, it it it's really the the piment ship was so good it was almost unreadable in a way because it was just so the cursing was so elegant and everything. But yeah, one of our uh one of our uh more you know established brothers were there because oh look at here, this is where they they had uh the cigars and it have a ledger for how much cigars cost and how much because they buy a box of cigars and they buy a couple bottles of whiskey for after the meeting. You know, wherever I probably have a have a cigar and have a have a drink and head home for tonight. Yeah, why not? You know, but yeah, I like to see when when was that prohibition in in India, especially in Indiana, when was it started? Because you know, where I live, it's a big Bible belt area, but I live in a big Catholic area too. But you go up to where uh Tipton is, Tipton's was a very religious area as far as you know the non-drinking Christian sect, so not just the Catholics and Methodists to look at, but as far as your Baptists, your Nazarenes, your Church of Christ, they're uh they always made a big push. They always had a uh sub in there every year about praying for all the bars to be shut down in town, like all three of them. I was like, Well about the poor bartenders, they didn't get a job.

SPEAKER_06 1:33:37

Yeah, well, you know, prohibition was a big thing. It was uh it was something needed from the things I've read and you know seen on documentaries. It was it was getting pretty bad. Men were dying of uh fatty liver disease, alcohol toxicity.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:59

Um that paycheck weren't weren't making it home.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:04

No, and I'm sure some of them were drinking because of the because of the pain, um, and then it becomes something else, or it was something else, and then it turned in because of the pain and into something else. Uh always funny.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:19

Where I work at, uh they used to back in the way back in the day, they used to get paid every Friday. And they hand paychecks out back then. This we're talking back prior to the 60s and uh 60s, 70s. Well, they said uh one of the wives came in and complained that you know she never sees her husband's paycheck because before he gets home, he stops at a bar and drinks it all the way. Cash is at the bar and drinks it all the way. Well, the owner of the company being uh you know, he wasn't a sober guy by no matter by no stretch of imagination from what I hear, but he's like, Okay, we'll start paying on Wednesday. So he started paying on Wednesdays, and more checks started making at home because guys weren't stopping at the bar because they had to work the next day, so they can't get off tracker because they have to work the next day. I was kind of funny story.

SPEAKER_06 1:35:05

So in in the 90s, uh when I was in high school, I worked as a bar hand cleaning up the bar, and there were a couple guys that I I know it wasn't on the weekend because I I did not work there on the weekends. Uh, would come in and I'd see checks laying there, and I didn't understand. You know, I was told, yeah, they cast your checks here at the bar.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:30

Okay. I see a lot of guys he, you know, I was working, uh I was working right there at Tipton, a little main part at the the cool bar in town where everybody kind of was drinking everything. Now one time I had my paycheck and I just had my getting money out of my, you know, I wouldn't have to work out my paycheck out and I was getting money out. And they go, hi, you want me to cash that paycheck for you? And I'm like, no, that's just a stub, it's it's already in the bank. Oh, we'll cash the paychecks. Like, no, it's drinking positive, don't worry about it. But yeah, yeah, we'll cash. You know, it's but I guess you know they they like cash and paychecks. I don't I don't know what to I guess because they you if you get up to cash in hand, you're more likely to buy more drinks. Yeah. You know, but you yeah, sandwich and hey, you can drink a lot more with a fish full of dollars. So you you can buy a round for everybody. It's like no, you know.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:33

You ever see that one movie with uh Mickey Rourke uh Barfly? Uh-uh. It's like a it's like a B movie. Oh my gosh. Mickey Rourke, yeah. That's like when you that's one of those movies when you're up late.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:51

Comes on late night TV.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:53

Yeah, that's like one of those, like I know it was on like HBO or Cinemax or something like that. Yeah, look it up, Barfly. It's something else. Has nothing to do with Freemasonry whatsoever.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:06

Right, right. Yeah, we kind of got off subject here.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:10

Yeah, oh yeah, definitely. Well, we we tried to stay on subject for everyone, but it you know, we we like going.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:17

It's a conversation, just guys talk. We start on something, you know, it's like our podcast, you know. You start on one thing, you get something else comes up, and you follow that line.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:29

I was gonna say it's like a stated meeting. You you start off with uh you know, communications or something, then everyone's like, no, uh, you know, they we start with new business, and then you like stay on new business forever, even though you're on something else. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:43

Miscellaneous business. I think we start on uh reading approval minutes. That takes like three seconds because no one wants to go, you can do it. And then we get to old business and we talk about that for like 45 minutes. It's like, wait a minute, we're now we're talking about new stuff we want to do about the old stuff. No, we gotta stop this.

SPEAKER_06 1:38:00

Yeah, uh, can we go back to this? Like, oh okay, yeah, we write it in the minutes.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:05

So yeah, which I'm bad being master chair, I'm bad about not writing down like an itinerary of stuff I want to write that. I want to talk about. Like, well, I'll remember that. I never do.

SPEAKER_06 1:38:15

Yeah, I always think I'll remember it too.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:16

And I I never do. Is there anything else I want to talk about in the afterlife? Oh crap, hey, I want to talk about this too, real quick. Like, not pre-posing.

SPEAKER_06 1:38:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Well, I I think that's bringing us to the end of the episode. So um, do you got an uh do you have a shout-out and shouts out for for anybody?

SPEAKER_01 1:38:37

Yeah, I do got a shout-out tonight. Um if if you don't know and uh if you ever heard of the Bob and Tom show, uh they're based out of Indianapolis, and they're a big syndicated, big one of the biggest radio shows in the country and everything. But uh Bob Cavoy and one one of the the Bob and Bob and Tom just recently passed away uh from uh some sort of some type of cancer. I forget what kind of cancer he had. But the story I have with Bob and Tom is when I first moved to Indiana, they were it was during the pork festival parade they had there at Tipton. And Bob Tom used to come up to our festival and put on a big show on Friday, Friday or Saturday, I think it's Saturday night. But they'd be in the in the parade too, just you know, trying to make everybody laugh on a float, stuff like that. I think the first year they they want everybody to eat a pound of pork a day to help out the pork producers or something like that. Well, I remember going and watching that, and I thought these guys were hilarious. Well, then I found out on the radio, and I've been listening to them forever. Since I was 13 years old, I've listened to Bob Tom every day. Um, every morning I was telling away to work, and I listened to their you know their podcast after work and everything. Well, Bob just recently passed away, and Bob was the kind of guy who liked cigarettes, he liked beer, and he liked boobs. So everything that every man should love in the world, right there. So I want to give my shout out to Bob Kavoyan. May you rest in peace and may you be covered in boobs in heaven.

SPEAKER_06 1:40:06

To Bob. Well, uh, my shout out is gonna be to Brock for being um an awesome brother and an even better father for like you know trying to go back and forth dealing with the kids in the show. So yeah, shout out to you, Brock.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:28

What do you guys got coming up next or the show?

SPEAKER_06 1:40:30

Oh, I don't know. Um, by the time this is released, I think we'll have uh, let's see, the one uh the three of us did with uh Andrew from Time for Fellowship.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:45

Yeah, we got an episode uh we had the gunslinger come out uh last Monday, our good friend Greg Carey. He's a uh competitive pistol shooter. He does like three guns, stuff like that. Oh, nice. Uh he's also uh uh a member of two lodges, and I just saw him today and everything. And uh I think senior deacon at one lodge and senior lord on their lodge there in town, there around the area. But he's uh we had him come on and uh we have an episode with uh Jared basically uh interviewing me when I was it's kind of he wanted to go let's go back in time when you were the first year you were a master asking me about stuff I had to learn and had to figure out and everything, and we had to kind of cut it short because then our our big guest showed up who we talked about previously. Um Aaron uh Stevenson, I was formerly known as uh uh Damian Sandau from WWE. And we had him on our show, we had about a good hour-long conversation with him, and it was so fun watching Jared do this episode because he is the biggest wrestling mark nerd, whatever you want to call him. He's the kind of person who not only remembers what match happened, he remembers where it happened, what the attendance was, and everything about lead up to it, everything. I mean, he is like an Uber wrestling, you know, if if not nerd aficionado. So for him to actually talk to a guy who has wrestled WWE and is currently wrestling with the NWA uh power hour out of uh I think out of Chicago, I think, if I remember right. But uh to have him actually talk wrestling with actual wrestling or thing, it it made me happy watching how happy he got for having that guy on there. And it it's really a good episode. I think everybody will enjoy it. And then after that, I think uh I think we wrapped up for a day after that one. So no, we have we have one where uh brother John McKinney came on and kind of talked about uh his podcast and kind of a sermon he's been working on, and we kind of discussed the stuff behind that. So nice. Got three good episodes coming out. I think everybody really enjoy them. At least I hope they enjoy them. And if not, we'll do three more they might enjoy. Who knows?

SPEAKER_06 1:43:00

Yeah, who who knows? Uh yeah, who who knows? So I know this will probably be the last Saturday for uh maybe one or two Saturdays, uh, whatever thing I got going on, because I got to set up for a refreshment uh next Sunday for uh in-person recording, and then the following uh Sunday, I have to leave early to go to Ottawa to record for the grand chapter. Okay. So we'll we'll play it by here. Um something changes, I'll definitely let you know. All right, man. Um all right, man. Uh that's our episode. Everyone, thanks for watching. If you haven't figured it out, please like and subscribe. If you're watching us on YouTube, please leave us your comment and we will be back.