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"FROM GIBRALTAR TO MOOSEJAW"
by V.W. Bro. Ted Morris
Travelling is sharing.
I recently swapped tales of my visits with about fifty Masters, Past
Masters, and Wardens of Ontario District. The February night promised
fresh snow and low temperatures so the turnout was a show of dedication.
These guys came from Colborne in the east, Whitby in the west, from the
shores of Lake Scugog in the north and the Lake Ontario coastline on the
south.
My address recalled why a newly-raised Master Mason in my mother lodge
kept his advancement a secret from his father in Kelowna. We managed to
smuggle him to his home town in BC and into the back corner of the
lodge. He waited until his father was called to the East to be invested
as Senior Warden. That’s when our lad, with his crisp new apron, emerged
from the west to perform his first piece of work as a Master Mason, that
of investing his father. Such visits are emotional and memorable.
And the brother from Kilmarnock who arrived at a Toronto lodge with a
small bust of Robbie Burns---Brother Robert Burns---and in his
presentation recited “A Man’s a Man for A’ That.” Ask any Scot if he
could forget such a visit.
Your turn now
Since it was an informal meeting, I said,
“Those are my stories, brethren. You’ve been travelling. What are
yours?”
The silence was frightening. If no one spoke, I was dead!
Then-----
“I remember a lodge in Spain.” (A voice from the second row.) “I’d asked
Grand Lodge for some phone numbers before I left and I took along my
regalia. A woman answered the phone, but she didn’t speak much English.
Nobody did.”
“But finally a guy got on the line and asked where I was and said
‘that’s just ten minutes from here’ and he invited me to a meeting the
next night. It was The Grand Master!! He told me to meet him at such and
such a hotel.”
The following evening he found himself not quite alone in the hotel
lobby. The only other person was a man dressed in a tuxedo, also
obviously awaiting. When asked if he was there for a lodge meeting, he
said he was, and that he was a visitor from Denmark.
Eventually the Secretary of the Spanish lodge came out to greet them,
lead them into the hotel’s ballroom, and introduce them as honoured
guests. There were more than 300 people in attendance. Everything in the
lodge room was portable, the chairs, altar, carpet and wands.
Everything. It was reminiscent of the travelling military lodges that
are the heritage of so many craft lodges in Canada. They unpacked, met,
and then melted away, leaving no signs of where they had been.
The Spanish brethren were extremely pleased with the Canadian maple leaf
and square and compasses pins. Our lad was given a souvenir menu of the
evening, covered with signatures.
A climbing the rock
Gibraltar brought back some memories from
an Ontario traveler. "I asked the guy on the phone how I could find the
lodge and he said ‘Just ask any taxi’.” It worked.
Gibraltar is a mountain fortress. Recall the Prudential insignia with
the motto, “The Company with the strength of Gibraltar”. Everything in
that town is located uphill or downhill and the real challenge is
meeting someone on the level. The lodge was no different, and our
visitor recalls the first thing greeting him inside the front door was a
long flight of stairs. At the top was a welcome bench with a sign “Take
a rest, Brother.”
Sipping and socializing preceded the opening,. Eventually the visitor
asked when the meeting started. “You’ll know,” he was told.
Then a bell rang. Was that the signal for opening? No. It was a reminder
to drain the glasses, a bit like the time honoured “Time, Gentlemen,” in
an English pub. The second bell was a call to work.
Longest break in history
Members of the lodge in Gib claim the
world’s record for time between going to refreshment, and being recalled
to labour. (For non-Masonic readers, this means anything from time out
for a coffee and comfort break, to a sumptuous banquet before continuing
the lodge meeting. Partway through a meeting the fortress had come under
attack. There was a proper but hurried recess called to permit the men
to go out and fight a battle, after which the meeting continued.
Stories become “adjusted” when they are carried home, and the brother
telling about Gib didn’t know when the battle was fought, who was
involved, whether lodge was called off for hours, days, or even weeks.
It’s enough to make me go to The Rock myself to hear the story in its
entirety.
The stories kept flowing.
Right night, wrong lodge
Medicine Hat. A phone call determined the
day and the time, but when the visitor arrived, it was the wrong lodge,
a York Rite meeting. He was, of course, welcomed and enjoyed the
fellowship of the banquet hour.
The police degree team from Oshawa shutting down an official visit at
Parkwood Lodge in Oshawa, then doing an overnight drive to Pennsylvania
to celebrate a double third degree the morning they arrived, one
Canadian and one American
Holland, where a brother was glad he packed his tux. Even the candidate
wore one when he attended lodge in the Netherlands.
Tampa, where the Board of Trial ran out of questions and the visitor
suggested a few they might ask. “Heck, you know more than we do. Come on
in.” The need to go through it again was eliminated when they gave him a
membership card. (From the front of the hall, another brother backed up
the story. “I visited there two years ago, and they gave me a card too.”
Does the portrait stay?
A visitor to Hong Kong reported that the
lodges there are still cautious. That goes back to having the temples
burned during the Japanese occupation of the 1940’s. Everyone not
imprisoned or executed went underground. The Craft re-emerged following
liberation, but the return of the Crown Colony to China caused concerns.
A brother travelling with the Ontario Association of Architects heard
the local concerns. “You just don’t understand. We may have to close
down again; meet in our homes.” The host pointed to a portrait of The
Queen. “We may be forced to take that down.”
Travelers to Europe suggested that language doesn’t make a big
difference. Belgian and German Lodges hold some meetings in English.
Turkish lodges meet in English, Greek, German, and Turkish
All this information came from a meeting of 50 men in Coburg. And it
wasn’t even a lodge meeting.
Where we are from
In ancient days, tired brethren travelling
from one job to another would go first to the craft guild, the lodge,
for food, friendship, and work referral. There they exchanged news,
architectural techniques, and jokes, stories and songs. That fellowship
has been a key to the survival of the Craft.
Don’t be afraid of that Board of Trial whatever the language, wherever
the country. The brethren-you-don’t-know want you in…not out.
-30-
Happy
to
Meet Again !
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