June 26, 2024 • 63 mins
Have you ever wondered how the principles of Freemasonry can guide us through today's fast-paced, ever-changing world? Join us on this compelling episode of "On the Level Podcast" as we sit down with Barry, a seasoned Mason whose dedication and wisdom illuminate the core values of this historic fraternity. From the essence of unity and camaraderie to the profound influence of mentorship, Barry shares invaluable advice for newly made Master Masons on making the most of their journey. Discover how immersing oneself in Masonic principles can lay a solid foundation before exploring other bodies within the fraternity.
Leadership is a balancing act, and this episode draws fascinating parallels between the roles of a band director and a Masonic lodge leader. Through personal anecdotes, we uncover the delicate art of offering constructive criticism while maintaining empathy and respect. Learn how understanding and mutual respect can navigate the intricacies of specific rituals, and how effective leaders mentor their members without diminishing their efforts. We also address current challenges facing Freemasonry, from membership issues to the importance of maintaining core values amidst societal changes.
But that's not all; we venture into intriguing discussions about modern technology, self-reliance, and even the mysteries of extraterrestrial life. Reflect on how technology has both connected and isolated us, and enjoy tales of extensive motorcycle journeys across the U.S. We also explore theories about alien life and its intersection with ancient beliefs, providing a thought-provoking contrast to religious perspectives. Concluding with a heartfelt tribute to Barry's inspiring journey, this episode is a rich tapestry of personal reflections, practical advice, and compelling topics that promise to engage and enlighten.
#freemasonry #podcast #bluelodge #Brotherood
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
you've reached the internet's home for all things
masonry.
Join on the level podcast as weplumb the depths of our ancient
craft and try to unlock themysteries, dispel the fallacies
and utilize the teachings offreemasonry to unlock the
greatness within each of us.
I have you now, and then I toldthem we were going to do this.
(00:39):
I wanted to do some rapid firequestions followed by a 10 word
association game.
If you're down, if you're okaywith it, all right, he's good,
we'll try.
Okay, what is your biggestfailure in Freemasonry?
Speaker 3 (00:59):
In Freemasonry, the fact that there are still some
brothers that apparently wecan't get along, and I don't
like that because I tried.
You know I don't have to agreewith anybody as long as we can
agree to disagree, but if you'renot even willing to shake my
(01:24):
hand and disagree, that's theproblem.
I don't think it's Masonic, andso the fact that I can't get
past those and there's not a lotof them, but there's a couple
it sticks with you.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
That's something that's in your mind.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
I don't think it's Masonic.
Yeah, and I don't feel it'sMasonic and I don't feel
comfortable being at odds.
You know we just you and Idon't have to agree on every
subject, to be friends or to atleast be cordial to each other
and be brothers.
I think that was the wholeMasonic concept.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
I'm pretty sure yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Abraham over there.
He's a good guy.
I know he's not a Christian,but he's got skills.
Why can't we have anorganization?
We both believe in the same God.
We could just ignore that partand utilize the rest of our
abilities.
I think that was the concept.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
I mean, you're building a much stronger society
if you can operate that way.
Right, I agree with you.
That's.
One of my biggest pet peeves ismasons that have no concept of
what masonry is.
There's too many masons thatdon't understand that masonry is
about setting aside ourdifferences and working together
.
At its core.
(02:39):
That's it, bottom line, at itsbasis.
That's what masonry is, and ifyou can't get past that, wow,
how are you going to go anyfurther?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Yeah, well, I've always thought the most unique
verbiage I've ever heard is bestwork and best degree.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Mm.
Hmm, exactly, yeah, that'sright.
With so many appended bodies,committees, district
opportunities, what advice wouldyou give a newly made master
mason like Matt Stone that islooking to get?
Speaker 3 (03:12):
more involved in Freemasonry.
Okay, so now you get to hearabout my amoeba theory.
You know amoebas, theySingle-celled organisms yeah but
they multiply by dividing.
So as soon as four amoebas gettogether, two of them are going
to go start another masonicgroup, right.
And then when they become four,two of those are going to go
(03:34):
start another.
And and people look at mywallet and go, man, you got a
lot of credit cards.
No, those are dues cards, man,those, those are dues cards.
You'll hear some guys go, look,man, just concentrate on
masonry, don't worry about theother stuff.
And others will go man, youneed to become a Shriner, you
(03:55):
need to become Scottish Rite,you become York Rite or Scottish
Rite or the Shrine is.
There's not as much heavylifting to join and you don't
have to jump in with both feetin the beginning.
There's nothing wrong withgetting exposed.
(04:17):
I mean, I was raised in 88.
I went through the ScottishRite in 88.
I joined the Shrine in 88.
Scottish Rite in 88.
I joined the Shrine in 88.
And there's been with theexception of Scottish Rite
probably there's been yearswhere I didn't go into either
one of those buildings.
But eventually I came back andso you can join them.
(04:39):
But enjoy your Masonicexperience and get what you can
out of that and then do theother things when you feel like
it's your time.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Wow, great advice.
I love it.
Okay, what people had thebiggest impact on your Masonic
career and why?
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Well, I'll start with my dad, because he's the one
that told me to show up at thatbuilding you wouldn't even have
been a Mason if he didn't makeyou do it.
Well, I probably would havewound up there eventually anyway
.
Okay, I mean, he was a Masonand all of those other guys who
I've known pretty well for yearsand years and years, so I
(05:25):
probably would have wound upthere anyway.
So him, jerry Goetjer Wright,worshipful Jerry Goetjer taught
me more about ritual and thananybody he was was a great
(05:45):
teacher.
I learned a lot from him.
He's a good ritualist and I owehim an awful lot and I
appreciate it.
Guys like Rusty Glendening, edJordan's a past master of
Sarasota Lodge.
I picked his brain an awful lot.
(06:07):
Sarasota has had some reallygood masters over the years.
And then I joined Venice RockyKearney.
Where's Rocky Kearney?
Kearney, kearney, k-e-a-r-n-e-y.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Don't they call him Kearney?
Isn't that his name?
Speaker 3 (06:23):
No, no, they call him Rocky.
You're thinking of Les, ahyou're right.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Yes, yes, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
But Rocky put me in line at Venice in 2008 as senior
deacon and that started where Iam now.
So Bill Burris was a greatinstructor.
He helped me with learning someof my lectures and did a great
(06:56):
job.
He would have been yoursecretary also, right when you
were master he was secretary ofour lodge for a long time, yeah,
and was zone six chaircommittee on work for a while.
So I think when I got my firstor second blue orange card for
the lectures and I know I'mleaving some guys out, but uh,
(07:21):
that's okay, it's who comes toyour mind.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
So I wasn't raised at Sarasota Lodge, I was raised in
a lodge near there and I heardthe name Jerry Gocher.
Enough to know, when I got toSarasota Lodge, fear this man.
And when I met him, what Ilearned is there's there's a
little bit of truth ineverything.
What I learned is there's alittle bit of truth in
everything.
Jerry Goetjer is a man to befeared because Jerry Wright,
(07:48):
worshipful Goetjer, was adistrict instructor for more
than one year I think threeyears or something, yeah, and so
he knows the work.
He also doesn't know how totell you this properly.
So he's right 100% of the time,but the way he tells you makes
(08:11):
you not want to listen.
100% of the time.
He has a bit of an attitude,and so I see why he has the
reputation outside the lodgethat he has.
But what they're failing to seeis he's right.
Almost always he's right.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
He was a band director.
I think he acted just like aband director and were you in
the band?
No band directors have a lot ontheir hands.
Man right, they got 25, 50people out there with different
instruments and you're trying toget them to do all this every.
They'll all come together andwork on one thing at the same
(08:45):
time.
And you're trying to get themto do all this and they'll all
come together and work on onething at the same time and
you're not doing that withkumbaya songs.
You're doing it by cracking thewhip well, right, you got to
kind of snap your fingers andget things going.
When you get to a volunteerorganization, that seems a
little pushy.
Yeah, it did bother me for acouple of reasons.
(09:07):
One is I had been a mason along time and unfortunately new
masons come into masonrythinking all I got to do is make
one little mistake and thenthey're going to kick me out
forever.
It's going to have to be areally, really really big
(09:27):
mistake for that to happen.
Yeah, but you know, differentpeople have different demeanors.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
No, I'm with you because face-to-face I actually
wanted all of his criticism andcritiques and he did it properly
in my mind.
He took me aside after meetingsand would say, hey, you might
want to turn this way and maybehold the staff this way better.
And I was soaking that in.
I loved it, because most peopledon't do that.
They just pat you on the backand tell you what a great job
you're doing and you're likewell, thanks, that doesn't help
(10:00):
me get better, but thanks, Iappreciate it, whereas Jerry,
that doesn't help me get better,but thanks, I appreciate it,
whereas Jerry, he actually istrying to help you get better.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
When I was master he was my lodge instructor and
after the second degree that wedid, I took him to lunch and I'm
going, jerry, I know you meanwell man, but on degree night I
don't care how bad my guys screwup, I want you to go shake
(10:29):
their hand, pat them on the backand tell them they did a great
job At the next practice, ripthem a new one.
But they worked their ass offand they didn't screw up on
purpose.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Yeah, let them go home and sleep good.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Right, exactly, and then we can get to it the next
time.
And he knew and I'm going.
I thought you'd understandbecause you're a band director
and he goes.
The problem is, when I was aband director, I was in, I was
part of the band, I'm leadingthe band.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Ah, yes.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
So now I'm sitting over there on the sidelines
sitting on my hands.
That's tough with with nothingto do right and I'm going.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
I gotta understand all that knowledge and
experience in your head and yousee these young people out there
and you're like no, come on, Iknow.
No, I get you know I had anexperience like that recently.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
It was just one of those nights.
It was our uh state ofcommunication and it was just
one of those nights where it'slike, man, everybody screwed up,
screwed up, Everybody didsomething wrong.
You know it was.
It was rough.
And so finally we had a brotherI believe it was David Wenzel
visiting from Brandon, who is aphenomenal guy.
I've worked degrees with himbefore.
He's awesome.
He looks at me, he goes and I'mjunior deacon and he goes.
(11:43):
Hey, are you going to besitting over there next year?
I said I don't know, sir, We'llsee where things go when you
carry the flag, and just wentoff about how our guy had done
the flag wrong at the flagceremony and he's like it's a
hand on the hilt at 90 degrees,upright, free and aloft, and I
was like, yes, sir, Thank you, Iappreciate it everyone has
(12:04):
their pet bees.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Everyone does, but I think we voted on that a couple
years ago at grand lodge thatyou there's more than one way
yeah oh, really, yes.
Uh, because for years the booksaid 20 degree angle and then
and I think it was basicallyveterans were going well, well,
(12:25):
that's improper.
But I don't think they eversaid it has to be at 90 degrees
or 20 degrees.
I think it just said the lodgecan decide.
Is that right?
Do you remember?
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Well, the current combined floor workbook says 45
degree angle and it says to holdthe flag at ease, I believe, as
the prayers are given, but itdoesn't.
What does that mean at easeisn't really spelled out, so I
think they left that open tointerpretation.
As to what at ease is with theflag, you're right, it doesn't
(13:00):
really specify.
It could be straight up anddown, it could be 20 degrees, it
could be 45 degrees.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Well, for years that 45 degrees was it.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
And every meeting we had a past district deputy who's
also a Marine and he would givethat poor guy, the, the senior
deacon, crap every time.
And I'm a master going.
This is what the book says.
All right, so you carry it at45.
(13:34):
One of the reasons this is in alot of lodges.
If you don't get it that low,it's going to hit a fan.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Yeah, I've seen it.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
So you've got to be able to bend a little bit, but
again jumping on a guy.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Yeah, that's not Masonic, right, it's not.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Yeah, if I'm going to do it and I don't do it on
degree nights at all, but onjust a meeting night and I know
a guy's relatively new I'll comeup afterwards and go look, I'm
not criticizing and if you wantI'll just shut up.
But if you did this it would becorrect, right, but I don't
(14:17):
want anybody to feel like theydidn't try, because I've seen
guys that come in and obviouslydidn't try.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
But most of our guys are trying but they have other
lives and they got jobs andbosses that they might not like
and there's kids and wives andstuff at home and you got.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
You know you can't be perfect every time and I can
tell you, as somebody that knowsthis stuff, the pressure and
the fear gets to you.
Even if you do know the stuffand you tried really hard, you
still might freak out and makemistakes.
So you're going to makemistakes.
There's no way around it.
Everybody makes mistakes, eventhe best of us.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
It's the best way to learn making mistakes you know,
I really appreciate the factthat we've got a boomer, a Gen
Xer and a millennial masons allsitting down in one room,
essentially Because I guess I'mstill full of piss and vinegar,
like I get ticked whenever I seesome of that stuff go off and
I'm not perfect at all at myrole.
(15:20):
But I think it was that samelodge night I had to drive the
senior warden home.
He didn't have a ride and so helooks over at me and he was
riding in my truck and he goes.
You know, matt, I think we dida really good job tonight.
You know, what do you think?
Speaker 1 (15:34):
no, we did not really good really good.
You thought that was good, thatthat is a problem.
Though if you can't recognizethe issues, then that is a
problem.
Because when I have you can'trecognize the issues, then that
is a problem.
Because when I have a bad nightand Barry comes up to me, my
first words are going to be Imissed this line, that line, I
screwed that up Like I know whatwasn't good.
(15:56):
And if you can't even tell thatit wasn't good, that's a
problem.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Yeah yeah, they were either taught wrong or they just
learned to accept to have a lowexpectation of what they're
trying to do.
So if you weren't taught wrong,you're not going to know any
better anyway.
Or if you're in a lodge that'salways undermanned understudy
(16:22):
and they've just learned toaccept a mediocre presentation,
then that's what they're goingto say.
Yeah, so with that, as you comein, try to get some new guys in
, get the you know, show themhow it should be done.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Again, it falls on you to change things.
Sorry, yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Still the 20% rule.
Sorry for that.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Come on, gen Xer, you got all the piss and vinegar.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
You can do it when I got to Venice Lodge and I'm not
being critical of Venice at all,but the very first time I sat
in that senior deacon chair,they, I didn't realize this is
when the worshipful master, youknow.
They, I didn't realize this iswhen the worshipful master, you
(17:07):
know, asks if everybody's amaster mason.
They always challenged it 100%of the time, which is clearly
optional in the ritual.
And it took me two and a halfyears to change that, because
(17:32):
you can't change it as thesenior deacon.
That's right.
You just got to work on theworship of a master and go
optional, optional, it saysoptional, it says optional.
And I finally got there and inthe meantime I embarrassed the
crap out of myself because I hadno idea what I was doing.
Which means, if you'relistening to this and you're
studying ritual, when you get tothe optional part I'm not
talking about in the, in thelectures, but in the uh, the
(17:55):
rest of the work you should befamiliar with it.
Yeah, even though it saysoptional, be familiar with it.
I mean.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
I mean we dealt with that at Sarasota Lodge.
I mean when I first got there Isaw them.
The chaplain thought he had togo to the altar to pray, thought
it was part of the ritual, andit was perpetuated year after
year after year.
He was taught that, yes, yes,he was taught that.
And it's not obviously Notnecessarily and it did
(18:23):
eventually, but it took wouldstop that.
And it's not obviously notnecessarily and it did
eventually, but it took yearsfor that to get fixed.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Yeah, but it can be done.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
So so that same senior warden that I referenced
earlier.
I think it was one of our firstmeetings.
We had people visiting, we hada lot of visitors and everything
you know.
Of course there's a question iseverybody present?
Master Mason's?
And I see him stand up and hegets a look on his face and
because he'd been wanting to doit and and we hadn't practiced
it at all, so like we didn'tknow how to do it, and so he
(18:55):
gets this kind of smile on hisface, starts to look around and
the junior warden goes don don'tyou dare.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
I love it, I think avery's eyes should do it once a
year.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Yes, just to prove you can do it At the least
attended meeting of the year.
Sure, I agree.
So what would you say is yourgreatest success in Freemasonry?
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Success, success.
When I was district deputy, wegot two people into the Masonic
home and that was great.
You know, being able to helppeople get into a situation
(19:39):
where they're going to be takencare of was a lot of work a fair
amount of work involved in that, but it was nice to be able to
get that done and know thatthose people are being taken
care of.
So there's that.
Raising both of my sons waspretty darn cool.
Oh, you got to raise both ofthem.
(20:01):
I raised both, one as worshipfulmaster and I was worshipful
master in Venice when Cary wasraised, my youngest son.
It literally brought him to theEast for his catechism and did
the questions myself.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Wow, that is special yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
That is special, yeah so.
But other than that, I mean Idon't know.
I look at Mace Read definitelyhas had a large impact on my
life, but and I think about itevery day, but I've been doing
it for so long, I think that alot of that's just internalized.
(20:47):
I do think it's had a bigeffect on my attitudes towards
life and other people.
That I don't know how toverbalize, but I try to live it
every day.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
I think that's what makes you special, because not
all masons do.
And that leads to my nextquestion what motivates you to
keep showing up for Freemasonryafter all these years?
Speaker 3 (21:18):
I like the brothers and I like the ritual.
And I think you know I get thesame reaction from people when I
tell them I go deer hunting andI keep a diary.
I've been keeping the diary for30 years, so I know exactly how
long.
Well, I could know exactly howmany hours I've spent in a deer
(21:39):
stand.
Where was I going with that?
Don't worry, I can edit this.
No, no, but people go.
Man, I cannot believe you canjust sit in a stand for five
hours.
What do you do?
And I go.
Well, I think I get to watchnature.
(22:00):
I've got you know it's fun tome.
It might not be fun to you, butI don't mind being by myself
with my thoughts, whichtranslates into I like ritual.
I think some guys don't likethe ritual.
They think it's boring and theydon't.
(22:23):
So I like the ritual in itselfand then I like to see how
people are working with it.
So this is what brings me tolife getting to see the brothers
, seeing what's going on in thedistrict and in Freemasonry and
seeing how the new guys areadapting to it, and that's
entertaining to me.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
To me, I have to say, say like I've become a
beekeeper since I live in southcarolina and I I you're kind of
like the beekeeper.
Right, there's all these beesand they're doing their thing
and it's working the way it'ssupposed to work.
But none of it would workwithout an overseer, kind of
checking in once in a while,just making sure everything's
proper.
Do you need a little food?
(23:04):
You're good and let them dotheir thing.
You're kind of like a Masonicbeekeeper and all the bees are
out there doing their business.
It's a beautiful system whenyou look at it that way.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
It is.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
I don't think I'm the keeper, though those are my
words, not yours, okay, lastquestion what do you think are
the biggest challenges thatFreemasonry faces today?
Speaker 3 (23:33):
Uh, they're the same ones we've had all along, which
is, everybody worries aboutmembership, but I think that the
(23:55):
lodges, like Sarasota, areactually showing that that might
not be the end of the world.
Right, we're getting newmembers, so we got to keep that
going.
We're going to have to getthrough this next couple of
years.
I think our country is goingthrough some stuff, man, and it
(24:20):
may have an impact on thefraternity at some point, and I
hope that it doesn't, and I alsohope that our fraternity does
what we've all obligatedourselves to do, which is, no
matter what's going onpolitically in this country,
that we remain committed to eachother, regardless of which side
(24:41):
of the political spectrum thatyou're on.
I don't know if that'll happen,but, yeah, at the end of the
day, we got to have membershipand not change our values, and I
don't.
The beauty of Freemasonry is Idon't think that we can.
I'm seeing in some appendantbodies that some of those guys
(25:03):
are getting desperate enough formembers that they're willing to
change their core values, and Idon't think that that's going
to work.
I just don't think it's goingto work.
If we're going to survive, wekind of need to keep doing what
we're doing?
Yeah, just do more of it.
My dad said what this countryneeds is a good depression.
(25:24):
Right, we kind of need to keepdoing what we're doing.
Yeah, just do more of it, mydad said what this country needs
is a good depression, right?
People need to learn to count oneach other again.
That's true, which washappening in the 1930s, when he
was born, and I'm not sure thatI don't want our country to go
into a depression.
But look, we can sit here on acomputer.
Never leave the house.
You got 550 channels on TV.
(25:45):
You got a computer.
That'll get you into moretrouble than you need to be in.
You don't need to leave thehouse.
You don't need friends.
I think people need them, but Ido think that there's a fair
amount of people that are livingin their own world and not
living in the world.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Yeah, and if the internet went away tomorrow,
that would change, changeeverything.
We'd all be in trouble, some ofus more than others.
I mean, I definitely want tocome to you when I need to eat.
You're going to have all thedeer meat in the world.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
I'm going to be over here eating my turnips I think
that I think the funniest partis, if we were to lose internet
tomorrow, just how many peoplewould be lost because they've
never even seen a map book yeahright, I know they couldn't
navigate they, oh man, it'd behorrible.
We'd be mass extinction ofpeople yeah, I'd be like all
(26:39):
right, you need to go north.
Is that up or down?
Speaker 1 (26:42):
it's me the burger king right, and I gotta go to
burger king, is what you'resaying.
And then keep going yep, go toburger king.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Turn left I miss maps , you know, uh, when I'm
traveling, like on my motorcycle, sometimes you just can't beat
a map with With phones or iPadsor any GPS, you get too big and
you can't see what I want to see, which is the small stuff, the
little roads, you know, whichyou're going to find on a map.
(27:10):
So I rode to Laconia in Mainelast year on my bike and I took
maps, I used my phone and my GPS, but there were times when you
break out that map because youwant to see everything at once
you have driven all over thiscountry on your motorcycle
Practically.
(27:32):
I'm short.
Four states Michigan, wisconsin, minnesota and Alaska, and I'm
hoping to get those done thissummer.
I got a nephew in Anchorage sohe says we can ride in August.
So I'm going to fly up thereand rent one, which is what I
did in Hawaii, and then I'mgoing to ride up or maybe
(27:54):
trailer.
You know, last year at GrandLodge my wife got me a puppy
that I didn't ask for that.
I love Link, yeah, link, but hemakes motorcycling a little
difficult.
You know, I can't just put himon the back.
I'm working on it but, I, justdon't know if it's going to work
(28:16):
.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
You know I'm actually part of Zendigrado here in
Plant City.
Our guys I think it's in Augustactually but our guys are
actually doing a charity ridefrom Zendigrado here in Plant
City, florida, all the way up toAnchorage, alaska, and back.
So they're actually going to bedoing a long fundraising.
They're going to stop at thedifferent grottos along the
(28:38):
route to raise funds forHumanitarian Foundation and
Miles for Special Smiles.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
How long is that going to take?
Speaker 2 (28:48):
I'd have to call Travis or George and ask them.
I think they're going to begone for quite some time.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
this is way off the subject, but about 10, probably
10 years ago there was an Indiantribe in Florida that put up a
million dollar prize and theseguys had to ride a motorcycle
from Key West to Alaska, to thefarthest point north.
(29:16):
Winner got a million dollarsand every day they left from one
spot and were given the nextdestination.
It wasn't like they had it allplanned out ahead of time,
because otherwise these guyswould have mechanic trucks set
up, so every day they found outwhere they had to check in the
next day.
I think the winter made it infive days.
(29:38):
Wow, five days from Key West tothat's crazy stuff.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
That must have been painful.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
Three or four guys died.
I mean that's just, there's nosleep involved to be able to do
that, or very little sleepinvolved to be able to get those
two points in that little bitof time.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Yeah, that's not an enjoyable trip, not in that time
frame.
Million dollars, yeah, I guess.
For a million dollars, I meanI'm okay with not being a
millionaire personally.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
I think it would have been exciting.
The guy that owns PrecisionCycle here in Sarasota, ron him
and his brother wrote it I thinkthey were fifth and sixth and
he said he crashed, slept forlike 24 hours and then called an
Uber or taxi driver and saidwe're going to hit every bar in
(30:37):
this town, which was probablyonly five, right, because it's
the middle of nowhere, alaska,but pretty funny.
Okay, so I belong to some moregrottos.
Find out how long that's goingto take, maybe.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
I'll jump in.
Oh yes, sir, I just text one ofthe guys.
If you text back while we'restreaming, I'll tell you.
All right, cool.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
That would be fun.
So we're now an hour and 46.
This is going to be.
I'm going to split this intotwo separate episodes.
We're going to do the generalconversation in this Masonic
question and answer.
Probably is another episode,but I do.
I've never done this before andI've seen it done and I love
the idea of it.
Word association You'refamiliar, okay, yeah, and so I
(31:25):
have 10 words and I'm reallyexcited to say them, and then
you, just as quick as you can,let me know the first thing that
pops into your head and maybewe'll talk about it, maybe we
won't.
You ready?
Speaker 3 (31:39):
I'm not sure.
Let's see Number one.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Gringo.
Gringo Friend All right, allright, because you're trying to
learn Spanish.
You've been trying for likeyears now, so that's one of the
first ones us white boys learn.
When you're trying to learnSpanish because you want to know
who's talking about you.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Yeah, friend.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
That's talking about you.
Yeah, friend, that'sinteresting.
Two Feather.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
Turkey.
I'm into turkey right now, okay.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Number three Trust.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
My wife trust.
Uh, my wife.
Okay, word association, so I'mjust going with it.
Number four love again my wifelove it family I think, yeah,
number five aliens.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Uh it family, yeah, number five aliens uh wow, wow,
okay, wow is a word we'll takethat.
Yeah, we're gonna have to getwith now.
We said we could talk aboutthem.
Where are you at with what'sgoing on in the world, with
(33:01):
disclosure, the changing of UFOto UAP, the idea that the
government does have a program,and they lied and said they
didn't Like, where do you fallon all that stuff?
Because you're one of thesmartest people I know and I'm
really curious where you standon this.
And if you don't want to talkabout it, I get it.
(33:22):
You don't have to.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
I was just reading something about this recently,
about why we haven't found alienlife, and one of the first
reasons is because it's hard,they're a long way away and they
(33:45):
don't have the technology, justlike we don't, right, I mean,
we sent a record out in aspaceship.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Sure, if you've got a record player, you'll be able
to.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
I know, yeah, exactly right.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
It's meaningless what we're sending out Meaningless.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
I guess it just shows that there's some kind of
advanced form or what we thinkis advanced.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
And if they found it in their advanced that they
would figure out the technologyto be able to read it.
The down and dirty answer is ifit's an unlimited amount of
time and space, then we can't bethe only sentient beings right.
Highly improbable.
Yes.
Then the question becomes well,how the hell are they going to
(34:31):
get there?
So how are they getting here?
And if they are here, whyhaven't they shown themselves?
Are here, why haven't theyshown themselves?
So I got big questions aboutwhether we've actually contacted
anybody.
And you know, going back to thearchaeology thing, one of the
first things, my firstarchaeology class, our teacher
(34:55):
had us buy this paperback bookand the premise was that humans
were put here on earth by alienlife.
And I'm going.
Why the hell are we readingthis book in an archeology class
?
And the reason was she wasteaching us about how science
(35:18):
works.
Because what that book did isit looked at all kinds of
evidence and picked anythingthat fit their theory and
ignored the rest.
So they just cherry picked.
This is the same thing thatcreationists do.
Creationists believe that theworld is only as old as what the
(35:39):
Bible explains so it'd be 5,500, 6,000 years old and that
fossils were created by thedevil to make us believe, not
believe, the Bible.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
I haven't heard that one.
That's fascinating.
Oh, we need to have aconversation sir.
Are you?
A creationist that believes theworld's only 6,000 years old.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
No, but I was raised and educated by them.
Okay, I was able to logicallydeduce that they're full of crap
.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
I mean, there's ways that you know, you can still
believe in Genesis, because Goddidn't create light until what,
the sixth day, we measure timeby revolutions of our Earth
around the sun, which is gettingshorter and shorter over time.
(36:30):
But if there's no sun, how arewe measuring our time?
I think there's probably alienlife and I doubt seriously that
we found it.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
That's my theory okay I could be wrong.
Well, um I.
There's a lot going on likefast.
Information is coming fastthese days, because when I in
the 80s you would hear storiesof like area 51 and groom lake
and all these things right andit, and it was just you were
crazy if you listened to theradio stations that talked about
(37:05):
it.
And now it's mainstream.
It's like generally known thatthese things are out there, so
obviously we don't know.
But I think that's the beautyof it.
Anyone that says they knowanything for sure is full of
shit, because nobody knowsanything for sure, nobody.
You can choose to believethings, but that doesn't mean
you know it to be true inreality and what you choose to
(37:29):
believe is your choice andthat's for you.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
And I haven't seen anything concrete enough to make
me I mean again, it's probablethat there's alien life.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Well, I don't know if you saw it.
They just did a little analysisof like a tiny little .001
milligram of our brain tissueand have you seen what they
found in there?
No Billions of synapses, andthe visualization looks like a
(38:05):
universe, an entire universe,inside a tiny, tiny piece of our
own brains.
It's mind-numbing the fact thatwe know almost nothing about
the world we live in.
So I'm fascinated by whatpeople believe about this stuff
world we live in.
So I'm fascinated by whatpeople believe about this stuff.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
So, since, since we're on the topic, uh, chris
and I'll send you some articleson it, but the the favorite
thing, my favorite thing aboutthe aliens has come out recently
is, uh, they don't believe thatthe aliens are coming to us,
but that they've always beenhere and they're just hidden.
You know so nasa started out asan underwater exploration and
then they found something andsaid we need to get the heck off
(38:44):
the planet.
Yeah, um, you know so thosesorts of things, or, especially
if you go in the christian realm, you know there's a, there's a
whole group of christianconspiracy theorists that are
like no, these, you know thiswas described in books of the
bible uh, multiple books of thebible that that there were
flying wheels of fire that wereset up in the sky, and so the
(39:05):
thought is that the aliens areknown as the greys, which are
actually demons.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
See, I saw on a documentary a Christian family
and the father's teaching hischildren that it's all part of
the Bible.
Teaching his children that it'sall part of the Bible.
All those stories are alienideas, Angels from heaven.
You know they're alien entities.
So he's literally teaching hischildren scripture, but from the
perspective that it's all alien, it's crazy.
(39:33):
It's crazy what's happening.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
Doesn't all of that negate the Adam and Eve story?
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Well, no, not necessarily, because they
believe that the aliens are.
It's like a zoo, basically,right.
So they populated the planetwith people, um, for whatever
purposes.
Uh, you know slave labor, orwhatever you want to call it.
Um, so I've heard latelythere's this theory that they're
vessels for souls and that'swhat they consume are the souls
(40:01):
of people, and so we're all justcontainers carrying around
their food, which is our soul.
You haven't heard that one?
Speaker 2 (40:09):
No, oh man, there's so many fascinating crazy
theories out.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
And then the Pope just made an announcement like
two days ago, I think, he cameout and gave new guidance on
spirituality and, uh,spiritualism and UFOs and all
this stuff.
He actually made comments aboutit and they're starting to
class.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
I heard he came out with an announcement, but I
haven't read it yet.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Yeah, it's basically the Catholic church trying to
classify, like how to deal withreports of abduction, or like
seeing orbs, like is it aspiritual thing that the priest
should be involved in or is itbasically something that is
against the faith that they needto counsel them on how to deal
with the idea of the experiencethey had.
(40:51):
So it's giving some guidance asto how the church should deal
with this stuff.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
I just want to be clear.
This is the same organizationthat's been forcibly casting out
demons for like hundreds ofyears.
Right, you mean exorcisms?
Yeah, yeah, that's the same one.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
Seems reasonable.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
Okay, we went way off topic.
We're only five in Number.
Six you ready to get back inthe zone?
Speaker 3 (41:19):
Yeah, okay, I don't think I was ever in the zone
here number six honor uh, man,you want one word, I know it's
hard yeah, it is very hard, yousurely get a vision in your mind
(41:40):
of something.
Honestly, I think the visionwas Arlington.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Cemetery.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
That was the vision, that was what popped into my
head, dead soldiers who foughtfor their country, yeah, honor.
Well, they honored our country,paid their ultimate sacrifice.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Yeah, number seven, faith.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
Faith, something everybody should have.
You need to have faith insomething.
I don't know what that is, Ithink it's different for
everybody, but yes, and I thinka lot of people come into
Masonry trying to figure outwhat that's about.
(42:35):
Right, they come, they may.
I mean, none of us are atheists, so we all have some kind of a
religious background, I guess.
But I think we all need to atsome point become comfortable in
our own skin and what webelieve, and it doesn't have to
match what everybody elsebelieves.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Right.
Speaker 3 (42:59):
And I think that's one of the reasons we don't
discuss religion.
That's right.
In Lodge is well.
If we just keep that subjectout of here and get around, get
along on the rest of it, weought to be able to do great
things.
But you need to figure out whatyou believe.
That's what I think.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
It took me a while Figure out what you believe and
why you believe it.
Fred used to say that all thetime.
Speaker 3 (43:25):
It's honestly how I wound up in anthropology.
Is I took religious coursestrying to figure out?
Is I took religious coursestrying to figure out?
Because you know, I was raisedin a First Baptist church.
I was baptized when I was 11.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
Now wait what kind of church is that?
Now, I understand Baptists area little more animated, right
Like they sing and they dance,but are we talking about the
snake handlers and stuff?
No, Okay.
Speaker 3 (43:53):
This was First Baptist Church of Swainsboro,
georgia.
So no, we didn't do any of that.
There was no talking in tongues, none of that.
But in theory you weren'tsupposed to drink or dance.
I'm not saying everybodyfollowed it very well.
And I was only 11.
(44:14):
So I was just observing whatwas going on.
But by the time I made it intocollege I'm thinking well, it
seems a little hypocritical.
They're teaching one thing onSunday, but they were doing it
all on Saturday, which is whatgot me to questioning.
So I did my research.
(44:36):
I figured out where I needed tobe.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
And you found your answers.
Speaker 3 (44:43):
I'm comfortable.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
Good.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
Number eight Banana, banana.
Speaker 3 (44:56):
I'm thinking fishing which is you don't bring bananas
on a boat.
It's not cool why you want toget.
It's a thing.
I never heard that before.
Take a fishing charter.
They got decals on there.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
Don't bring a banana on a boat.
Is it because you're going toslip on the peel?
Speaker 3 (45:19):
I don't know what it's about.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
I think it's a bad luck thing, if I remember right,
huh yeah, it's a bad luck thing.
Speaker 3 (45:26):
Yeah, now I don't know what banana boats do.
Okay, antibiotics do.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
Okay, number nine Field.
Speaker 3 (45:43):
Field.
Well, that word could have anynumber.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
Right.
Speaker 3 (45:55):
When I think of a field field I'm thinking about
my dog running around, chasing aball or having a good time so,
uh, just an open space yeah, orI love baseball.
I love baseball fields.
I just up, uh, I just went toTruist Park, up where the Braves
(46:16):
play, last week with mydaughter.
I've been to the other Bravesstadiums but I hadn't been to
that one and it's beautiful.
So if you ever get a chance, go.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
I haven't been there.
I will have to check it out.
Okay, last one, the pressure'soff, number 10.
Speaker 3 (46:36):
Home, home when the heart is and where my lovely
wife is and our two dogs.
You know, sarasota's home to me.
I was born in Florida.
I consider myself a Georgian aswell as a Floridian, but they
make me buy an out-of-state huntlicense, so I'm losing that
(46:59):
feeling that this is way offtopic, but for years when you
turn 65, right in Florida Idon't need to buy a hunting or
fishing license.
I'm 65.
And for years Florida would dothat for Georgians and Georgia
(47:20):
did that Floridians.
So for a couple of years aftermy dad turned 65, he didn't have
to buy a license in Georgia.
And then Florida put in asaltwater fishing license
requirement and Georgia wentscrew you, florida, you're going
to have to start buyinglicenses again.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
Like always, a couple of guys ruined it for everybody
.
Yeah just in time for me toturn 65,.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
I know, you know.
It's amazing to me that Godcreates all the animals, sets
them to be fruitful and multiply, and yet we have to ask our
government overlords if we canconsume them.
Speaker 3 (47:59):
I know.
But if you go back to the 1930s, white-tailed deer were almost
decimated in this country.
There were hardly any inGeorgia.
I grew up in Georgia and Istarted hunting in 1960 with my
dad and he didn't kill a deeruntil 1971.
(48:25):
So we weren't really good at it, but there just weren't that
many deer.
Now that, and when you buy alicense, when you buy camo, when
you buy ammo, there's a 10 Ithink it's 10 excise tax that
goes towards game management.
So it's the hunters that havebrought the game back and you do
(48:48):
have to manage the game.
You gotta, you gotta take out acertain number or the herd will
do it itself, the nature willdo it itself.
But we got more white-taileddeer in this country right now
than we've had maybe forever,certainly since the 1930s.
And that's all about thegovernment getting involved and
(49:11):
managing it.
Speaker 2 (49:12):
They do a good job.
What are your thoughts aboutthe elk that are migrating
further south?
I think they've been spottedover in West Tennessee.
Speaker 3 (49:20):
They were introduced.
Tennessee, north Carolina,virginia have introduced elk
herds.
Did they?
A couple of those statesactually have a very short
season, but they were introduced.
They did not migrate Okay, butthey were introduced.
They did not migrate okay, butthey were there a thousand years
ago yeah so it's a naturalhabitat.
(49:41):
They just got hunted out.
Uh that, and as a motorcyclist,you don't want to hit a deer.
You damn sure don't want to hitan elk oh no, that's a bad day.
Speaker 2 (49:52):
I mean.
It's kind.
It's kind of like the wholebison out west.
Bison out west, I mean theywere just by the thousands If
you rewind quite a few hundredyears ago.
And then they build the railwayand whenever they build the
railroads they're just shootingthem 30-30, slinging them out
the side of a rail car, justkilling as many of them as they
possibly can.
Speaker 3 (50:12):
It was millions there and as many of them as they
possibly can.
It was millions.
There was a lot of buffalo, anawful lot of buffalo, but again,
no game management so anybodycould shoot anything.
I mean, when I started huntingin Georgia in 1960, you couldn't
(50:33):
kill does, and I think you gotone buck tag In Georgia.
Now you get two buck tags and10 doe tags.
Wow, so it worked right.
They say there's 20 deer persquare mile in Georgia.
Wow, in the country, prettygood.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
You need some regulation and oversight in
everything.
But obviously that can go toofar right.
When it's someone's job toregulate, they're going to
over-regulate and the oversightmight get to be too much.
But I think when it's commonsense it's kind of, you know,
necessary.
Speaker 3 (51:18):
It's necessary and, matt, I understand your analogy,
which is more like the RobinHood analogy.
Right, the king went.
Well, this is my forest, thoseare my deer, yeah.
Well that ain't fair.
Speaker 1 (51:30):
It's too much?
Well, that ain't fair.
Speaker 3 (51:33):
Right, it's too much and to my knowledge the United
States doesn't have any placeswhere only United States
government employees can hunt.
They all have to go and there'sa problem with hunting,
especially in Florida.
It's all private land, sofinding a place to hunt and
(51:54):
there are some nice places GreenSwamp, there's some WMAs that
you can hunt but it's still gotto be managed and that's going
to cost some money.
Speaker 2 (52:08):
Which Green Swamp is huge.
I mean, I went out there.
My wife and I went out therebecause I only live about
probably 30, 40 minutes fromthere.
It's to the northeast fromwhere I'm at.
I went out there and so, chris,you're on this road, this
random road in the middle ofnowhere I think it's either Rock
Ridge or Dean Still and youturn left onto this dirt path
and you don't exit thatmanagement area for probably an
(52:33):
hour.
It takes about an hour to getacross it because you've got it,
you got to go slower.
There's people out there, stufflike that, but you know you're
driving and you, like you loseall cell phone reception.
I mean, you, all you see is justnothing but wildlife and it's
absolutely gorgeous, but I I wasmore coming at it from the,
from the saltwater perspective.
Um, so I'm a water bug.
You know.
(52:53):
I love the ocean, loveeverything about it.
Uh, what aggravates me is, yeah, we do have the management, but
there's also mismanagement thatcomes along with it.
Are you familiar with what'sgoing on in the water?
Uh, around big pine key rightnow no, what is, what is?
so if you look up, big pine, keyhawks channel, ramrod, summer,
that entire area right there, Ithink it's actually from
(53:15):
Marathon down to Summerlin, if Iremember right.
But what's going on is thewater is exceptionally warm.
Now I've been swimming in thatwater not an exaggeration since
I was maybe three or four yearsold that's how long I've been in
that area.
But essentially what happenedis they built the water dams up
in the everglades and after thatwe didn't get that flush out.
(53:36):
Whole ordeal.
Us right army corps of engineerscame in, built that we weren't
getting that whole flushflushing out, and so the water
kept getting warmer and stagnant, and more warm and more
stagnant.
And so now what do we have?
We have stronger hurricanes,but there's something going on
with the water that theuniversity of florida, a whole
bunch of colleges, are trying tofigure out where the fish are
acting weird.
(53:56):
So they're swimming in thislike vertical pattern.
It's almost look like they'reeither drugged or high or
something along those lines, butthey have no clue.
What's going on?
And in my thought process iswell, if you'd have left it the
way that God created it, youwouldn't have had this problem,
for sure.
Speaker 3 (54:13):
Yeah, way that god created it, you wouldn't have
this problem, for sure.
Yeah, there's no question.
Uh, yeah, it's a problem overthere, big problem, and uh, I
mean red tide.
You didn't hear about red tide30 years ago.
Maybe we didn't know what itwas, but it certainly shows up a
lot more than it used toprobably weren't dumping toxic
chemicals into the Gulf 30 yearsago.
(54:37):
Well, I'm sure we were, but, butwe're definitely doing it now.
And yeah, that whole, thatwhole Everglades thing.
So how'd we get on this topicwith Blame, matt it's his fault.
Speaker 2 (54:50):
Look, I saw a rabbit.
I chased it and we ended uphere this podcast can go
anywhere.
Speaker 1 (54:57):
I told you that at the beginning.
I said, barry, is thereanything?
You don't want to talk about.
He's like, like what I'm like?
I don't know where we're goingto go, I have no idea where this
is going to go and, of course,barry's the type of man who said
well, I can't even think ofanything.
I'm like well, there you go, weshould yeah we've talked about
hunting, fishing and aliens, sowe're bringing this whole thing
full circle.
(55:17):
Indiana Jones came up multipletimes.
I mean, listen, this is thesecond time we recorded.
This is now going to be twofull episodes.
So you know, this justhopefully shows you how
impactful and important I thinkyou are to the fraternity, how
impactful and important I thinkyou are to the fraternity.
Barry is a true Mason, like whatMasons are supposed to be
(55:40):
Someone who's legitimatelytrying to become a better person
.
I've watched him make mistakes,recognize those mistakes,
apologize for those mistakes.
Not every Mason does that.
I've watched you try to listento somebody that you completely
disagree with, because you'reactually trying to understand
their position, not just waitingfor your turn to talk.
(56:01):
I've seen you give guidance topeople when they needed it.
You really are exactly what thefraternity needs and you're a
pillar in our lodge.
I feel guilty that I'm not thereto help you.
You know, continue on whatyou've been doing.
I do feel a amount of guilt forthat, but you know I'll do what
(56:22):
I can, always, from wherever Iam, honestly for that lodge and
to support those guys.
Of course I will, but I'll doanything I can.
But at the end of the day it'sgoing to be up to those guys and
I know you're of the same mind.
You can't do it for them.
They have to find their own way, and all we can do is support
them at the end of the day,because that's what good Masons
(56:44):
do.
So I'm really happy that youcould come on and spend this
time with us.
I feel like I learned a littlemore about you than I knew
before, and I'm hoping thatpeople that aren't even Masons
listen to this episode, becausethey'll get to see what really
goes on.
It really is real people herejust trying to do good.
You've lived a lifetime as aMason now, practically.
Speaker 3 (57:07):
I haven't even got that 40-year award.
Man, come on, really, I wasraised in 88.
Where's that put?
Speaker 1 (57:19):
2028 will be for you.
You're talking to Matt who'snot even got a year under his
belt.
I haven't even got five years,I think, under mine, maybe just
five.
Speaker 3 (57:30):
It'll be here before you know it.
Speaker 1 (57:32):
Enjoy every minute of it.
If enjoy every minute right, ifwe're lucky.
There's no guarantees.
And that's one thing I have tosay that I've always found Like
I look up to you because I feellike you're living your life to
the fullest.
You're always in the moment,wherever you are, and that's
something I really I really dolook up to and I want to.
I want to be more like that inmy life, just be present with
(57:56):
the people wherever you are andwhatever you're doing.
You're doing a great job ofthat and I don't know how long
it took you to get there, butyou're there and I think people
feel that when they talk to you,that even if they disagree with
you, you're looking at them asa human being and they're going
to be able to have aconversation with you, and
(58:17):
that's rare these days andreally necessary.
So you're really valuable tothe fraternity in our district,
especially Because I know you'renot just about one lodge.
You're really active in likefour lodges at least that I know
of, and you're probablyancillary active in nine to ten
lodges, uh, on a regular basis.
(58:39):
You are, uh, and you know.
The thing is, you're sevenyears old and you're not slowing
down.
This is the great.
This is our fraternity'sgreatness is that there is no
age limit.
Like you a warrior, you're agladiator out there in the field
, still doing the work, stillfighting, at 70 years old, and I
don't see you slowing downanytime soon.
(59:00):
So that's another thing.
I look up to you for that.
Speaker 3 (59:07):
Slowing down is not a good idea.
Speaker 1 (59:10):
Yeah.
You don't want to slow down.
Speaker 3 (59:12):
That's what I'm telling my friends.
My age is do not sit in frontof the TV and spend all your
time looking at Facebook.
It's not going to be good foryou.
Speaker 1 (59:24):
A lot of regrets.
That's what you're going tohave.
Speaker 3 (59:28):
Yeah Well, I don't know, what you're going to have.
If you're a friend of mine onFacebook and you never hear from
me, it's because I don'tFacebook.
I'm a friend of yours and Inever hear from you.
You won't Exactly right.
Every now and then I'll likesomething that's got a picture
of my grandkids in it, andthat's about it.
Speaker 2 (59:49):
Speaking of not sitting around and being
slothful, I just heard back fromone of the guys who are going
on that motorcycle ride.
It is the entire month ofAugust, it's from August 1st to
September 3rd and that's BrotherGeorge Maxwell.
He's a freshly raised MasterMason.
We'll be doing catechisms thisupcoming week for his Master
Mason gift back.
But yeah, so shout out toBrother Maxwellwell and, uh,
(01:00:14):
brother travis, two great, greatbrothers that's still gonna be
a trip.
Speaker 3 (01:00:17):
I did and uh, in 21 I did, uh, 9700 miles.
We went to california up thewest coast and back and uh, that
was 40 days, so to do that in30.
Of course, we got a friend,chris, who rode a bicycle from
(01:00:37):
California to Venice in 30 days.
A bicycle in 30 days, that'scrazy, that's insane.
Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
It is crazy, but he's in great shape, like I'd have a
heart attack 10 minutes in.
Speaker 3 (01:00:48):
He's a beast, he's younger than we are too.
Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
Yeah, we'll go with that, it's because he's younger
than we are too.
Yeah, we'll go with that.
It's because he's younger?
Yeah, that's what I'm goingwith.
That's brother Bob Gatins.
He's from Englewood Lodge andhe's an up-and-coming guy in
District 23.
I saw that the first time Ilaid eyes on him.
Speaker 3 (01:01:12):
I knew he was going to be a leader in the future.
Yes, he's a good man and a goodritualist.
Yeah, because he tries.
Yeah, he does, he takeseverything serious.
Hunter too, that guy goes out.
You don't see him when you'rehunting because he goes out in
the morning and doesn't come outuntil dark, so he likes it out
(01:01:32):
there.
Speaker 1 (01:01:33):
Well, thank you again , Ray Warshawar.
I always like to leave ourguests with the last word.
Is there anything you'd like tosay to the world, Mason?
Speaker 3 (01:01:48):
or non-Masons who might be listening to this
podcast.
No, there's nothing I need tosay to the world, but I do.
Chris, it's always a pleasuretalking with you and Matt Nice
to meet you.
I'd like to come up to yourlodge sometime.
Speaker 2 (01:01:59):
Please, you're always welcome.
Speaker 3 (01:02:05):
Okay, but thanks for what you do with masonry, Chris.
We got way off the subject ofmasonry in this thing, but it's
fun and anything I can do tohelp you guys y'all let me know.
Speaker 1 (01:02:16):
Fair enough.
Thank you, sir.
We'll look forward to seeingyou next time.
I'll see you at Grand Lodge.
Actually, we're bunking up.
We're sharing a room together.
I apologize for the snoringalready.
Speaker 3 (01:02:28):
Don't worry about it.
It'll be dueling snoring, sowe'll be fine.
I'll see you Sunday, all right,okay, thank y'all, see you.
you've reached the internet's home for all things
masonry.
Join on the level podcast as weplumb the depths of our ancient
craft and try to unlock themysteries, dispel the fallacies
and utilize the teachings offreemasonry to unlock the
greatness within each of us.
I have you now, and then I toldthem we were going to do this.
(00:39):
I wanted to do some rapid firequestions followed by a 10 word
association game.
If you're down, if you're okaywith it, all right, he's good,
we'll try.
Okay, what is your biggestfailure in Freemasonry?
Speaker 3 (00:59):
In Freemasonry, the fact that there are still some
brothers that apparently wecan't get along, and I don't
like that because I tried.
You know I don't have to agreewith anybody as long as we can
agree to disagree, but if you'renot even willing to shake my
(01:24):
hand and disagree, that's theproblem.
I don't think it's Masonic, andso the fact that I can't get
past those and there's not a lotof them, but there's a couple
it sticks with you.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
That's something that's in your mind.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
I don't think it's Masonic.
Yeah, and I don't feel it'sMasonic and I don't feel
comfortable being at odds.
You know we just you and Idon't have to agree on every
subject, to be friends or to atleast be cordial to each other
and be brothers.
I think that was the wholeMasonic concept.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
I'm pretty sure yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Abraham over there.
He's a good guy.
I know he's not a Christian,but he's got skills.
Why can't we have anorganization?
We both believe in the same God.
We could just ignore that partand utilize the rest of our
abilities.
I think that was the concept.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
I mean, you're building a much stronger society
if you can operate that way.
Right, I agree with you.
That's.
One of my biggest pet peeves ismasons that have no concept of
what masonry is.
There's too many masons thatdon't understand that masonry is
about setting aside ourdifferences and working together
.
At its core.
(02:39):
That's it, bottom line, at itsbasis.
That's what masonry is, and ifyou can't get past that, wow,
how are you going to go anyfurther?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Yeah, well, I've always thought the most unique
verbiage I've ever heard is bestwork and best degree.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Mm.
Hmm, exactly, yeah, that'sright.
With so many appended bodies,committees, district
opportunities, what advice wouldyou give a newly made master
mason like Matt Stone that islooking to get?
Speaker 3 (03:12):
more involved in Freemasonry.
Okay, so now you get to hearabout my amoeba theory.
You know amoebas, theySingle-celled organisms yeah but
they multiply by dividing.
So as soon as four amoebas gettogether, two of them are going
to go start another masonicgroup, right.
And then when they become four,two of those are going to go
(03:34):
start another.
And and people look at mywallet and go, man, you got a
lot of credit cards.
No, those are dues cards, man,those, those are dues cards.
You'll hear some guys go, look,man, just concentrate on
masonry, don't worry about theother stuff.
And others will go man, youneed to become a Shriner, you
(03:55):
need to become Scottish Rite,you become York Rite or Scottish
Rite or the Shrine is.
There's not as much heavylifting to join and you don't
have to jump in with both feetin the beginning.
There's nothing wrong withgetting exposed.
(04:17):
I mean, I was raised in 88.
I went through the ScottishRite in 88.
I joined the Shrine in 88.
Scottish Rite in 88.
I joined the Shrine in 88.
And there's been with theexception of Scottish Rite
probably there's been yearswhere I didn't go into either
one of those buildings.
But eventually I came back andso you can join them.
(04:39):
But enjoy your Masonicexperience and get what you can
out of that and then do theother things when you feel like
it's your time.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Wow, great advice.
I love it.
Okay, what people had thebiggest impact on your Masonic
career and why?
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Well, I'll start with my dad, because he's the one
that told me to show up at thatbuilding you wouldn't even have
been a Mason if he didn't makeyou do it.
Well, I probably would havewound up there eventually anyway
.
Okay, I mean, he was a Masonand all of those other guys who
I've known pretty well for yearsand years and years, so I
(05:25):
probably would have wound upthere anyway.
So him, jerry Goetjer Wright,worshipful Jerry Goetjer taught
me more about ritual and thananybody he was was a great
(05:45):
teacher.
I learned a lot from him.
He's a good ritualist and I owehim an awful lot and I
appreciate it.
Guys like Rusty Glendening, edJordan's a past master of
Sarasota Lodge.
I picked his brain an awful lot.
(06:07):
Sarasota has had some reallygood masters over the years.
And then I joined Venice RockyKearney.
Where's Rocky Kearney?
Kearney, kearney, k-e-a-r-n-e-y.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Don't they call him Kearney?
Isn't that his name?
Speaker 3 (06:23):
No, no, they call him Rocky.
You're thinking of Les, ahyou're right.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Yes, yes, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
But Rocky put me in line at Venice in 2008 as senior
deacon and that started where Iam now.
So Bill Burris was a greatinstructor.
He helped me with learning someof my lectures and did a great
(06:56):
job.
He would have been yoursecretary also, right when you
were master he was secretary ofour lodge for a long time, yeah,
and was zone six chaircommittee on work for a while.
So I think when I got my firstor second blue orange card for
the lectures and I know I'mleaving some guys out, but uh,
(07:21):
that's okay, it's who comes toyour mind.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
So I wasn't raised at Sarasota Lodge, I was raised in
a lodge near there and I heardthe name Jerry Gocher.
Enough to know, when I got toSarasota Lodge, fear this man.
And when I met him, what Ilearned is there's there's a
little bit of truth ineverything.
What I learned is there's alittle bit of truth in
everything.
Jerry Goetjer is a man to befeared because Jerry Wright,
(07:48):
worshipful Goetjer, was adistrict instructor for more
than one year I think threeyears or something, yeah, and so
he knows the work.
He also doesn't know how totell you this properly.
So he's right 100% of the time,but the way he tells you makes
(08:11):
you not want to listen.
100% of the time.
He has a bit of an attitude,and so I see why he has the
reputation outside the lodgethat he has.
But what they're failing to seeis he's right.
Almost always he's right.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
He was a band director.
I think he acted just like aband director and were you in
the band?
No band directors have a lot ontheir hands.
Man right, they got 25, 50people out there with different
instruments and you're trying toget them to do all this every.
They'll all come together andwork on one thing at the same
(08:45):
time.
And you're trying to get themto do all this and they'll all
come together and work on onething at the same time and
you're not doing that withkumbaya songs.
You're doing it by cracking thewhip well, right, you got to
kind of snap your fingers andget things going.
When you get to a volunteerorganization, that seems a
little pushy.
Yeah, it did bother me for acouple of reasons.
(09:07):
One is I had been a mason along time and unfortunately new
masons come into masonrythinking all I got to do is make
one little mistake and thenthey're going to kick me out
forever.
It's going to have to be areally, really really big
(09:27):
mistake for that to happen.
Yeah, but you know, differentpeople have different demeanors.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
No, I'm with you because face-to-face I actually
wanted all of his criticism andcritiques and he did it properly
in my mind.
He took me aside after meetingsand would say, hey, you might
want to turn this way and maybehold the staff this way better.
And I was soaking that in.
I loved it, because most peopledon't do that.
They just pat you on the backand tell you what a great job
you're doing and you're likewell, thanks, that doesn't help
(10:00):
me get better, but thanks, Iappreciate it, whereas Jerry,
that doesn't help me get better,but thanks, I appreciate it,
whereas Jerry, he actually istrying to help you get better.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
When I was master he was my lodge instructor and
after the second degree that wedid, I took him to lunch and I'm
going, jerry, I know you meanwell man, but on degree night I
don't care how bad my guys screwup, I want you to go shake
(10:29):
their hand, pat them on the backand tell them they did a great
job At the next practice, ripthem a new one.
But they worked their ass offand they didn't screw up on
purpose.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Yeah, let them go home and sleep good.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Right, exactly, and then we can get to it the next
time.
And he knew and I'm going.
I thought you'd understandbecause you're a band director
and he goes.
The problem is, when I was aband director, I was in, I was
part of the band, I'm leadingthe band.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Ah, yes.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
So now I'm sitting over there on the sidelines
sitting on my hands.
That's tough with with nothingto do right and I'm going.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
I gotta understand all that knowledge and
experience in your head and yousee these young people out there
and you're like no, come on, Iknow.
No, I get you know I had anexperience like that recently.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
It was just one of those nights.
It was our uh state ofcommunication and it was just
one of those nights where it'slike, man, everybody screwed up,
screwed up, Everybody didsomething wrong.
You know it was.
It was rough.
And so finally we had a brotherI believe it was David Wenzel
visiting from Brandon, who is aphenomenal guy.
I've worked degrees with himbefore.
He's awesome.
He looks at me, he goes and I'mjunior deacon and he goes.
(11:43):
Hey, are you going to besitting over there next year?
I said I don't know, sir, We'llsee where things go when you
carry the flag, and just wentoff about how our guy had done
the flag wrong at the flagceremony and he's like it's a
hand on the hilt at 90 degrees,upright, free and aloft, and I
was like, yes, sir, Thank you, Iappreciate it everyone has
(12:04):
their pet bees.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Everyone does, but I think we voted on that a couple
years ago at grand lodge thatyou there's more than one way
yeah oh, really, yes.
Uh, because for years the booksaid 20 degree angle and then
and I think it was basicallyveterans were going well, well,
(12:25):
that's improper.
But I don't think they eversaid it has to be at 90 degrees
or 20 degrees.
I think it just said the lodgecan decide.
Is that right?
Do you remember?
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Well, the current combined floor workbook says 45
degree angle and it says to holdthe flag at ease, I believe, as
the prayers are given, but itdoesn't.
What does that mean at easeisn't really spelled out, so I
think they left that open tointerpretation.
As to what at ease is with theflag, you're right, it doesn't
(13:00):
really specify.
It could be straight up anddown, it could be 20 degrees, it
could be 45 degrees.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Well, for years that 45 degrees was it.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
And every meeting we had a past district deputy who's
also a Marine and he would givethat poor guy, the, the senior
deacon, crap every time.
And I'm a master going.
This is what the book says.
All right, so you carry it at45.
(13:34):
One of the reasons this is in alot of lodges.
If you don't get it that low,it's going to hit a fan.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Yeah, I've seen it.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
So you've got to be able to bend a little bit, but
again jumping on a guy.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Yeah, that's not Masonic, right, it's not.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Yeah, if I'm going to do it and I don't do it on
degree nights at all, but onjust a meeting night and I know
a guy's relatively new I'll comeup afterwards and go look, I'm
not criticizing and if you wantI'll just shut up.
But if you did this it would becorrect, right, but I don't
(14:17):
want anybody to feel like theydidn't try, because I've seen
guys that come in and obviouslydidn't try.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
But most of our guys are trying but they have other
lives and they got jobs andbosses that they might not like
and there's kids and wives andstuff at home and you got.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
You know you can't be perfect every time and I can
tell you, as somebody that knowsthis stuff, the pressure and
the fear gets to you.
Even if you do know the stuffand you tried really hard, you
still might freak out and makemistakes.
So you're going to makemistakes.
There's no way around it.
Everybody makes mistakes, eventhe best of us.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
It's the best way to learn making mistakes you know,
I really appreciate the factthat we've got a boomer, a Gen
Xer and a millennial masons allsitting down in one room,
essentially Because I guess I'mstill full of piss and vinegar,
like I get ticked whenever I seesome of that stuff go off and
I'm not perfect at all at myrole.
(15:20):
But I think it was that samelodge night I had to drive the
senior warden home.
He didn't have a ride and so helooks over at me and he was
riding in my truck and he goes.
You know, matt, I think we dida really good job tonight.
You know, what do you think?
Speaker 1 (15:34):
no, we did not really good really good.
You thought that was good, thatthat is a problem.
Though if you can't recognizethe issues, then that is a
problem.
Because when I have you can'trecognize the issues, then that
is a problem.
Because when I have a bad nightand Barry comes up to me, my
first words are going to be Imissed this line, that line, I
screwed that up Like I know whatwasn't good.
(15:56):
And if you can't even tell thatit wasn't good, that's a
problem.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Yeah yeah, they were either taught wrong or they just
learned to accept to have a lowexpectation of what they're
trying to do.
So if you weren't taught wrong,you're not going to know any
better anyway.
Or if you're in a lodge that'salways undermanned understudy
(16:22):
and they've just learned toaccept a mediocre presentation,
then that's what they're goingto say.
Yeah, so with that, as you comein, try to get some new guys in
, get the you know, show themhow it should be done.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Again, it falls on you to change things.
Sorry, yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Still the 20% rule.
Sorry for that.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Come on, gen Xer, you got all the piss and vinegar.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
You can do it when I got to Venice Lodge and I'm not
being critical of Venice at all,but the very first time I sat
in that senior deacon chair,they, I didn't realize this is
when the worshipful master, youknow.
They, I didn't realize this iswhen the worshipful master, you
(17:07):
know, asks if everybody's amaster mason.
They always challenged it 100%of the time, which is clearly
optional in the ritual.
And it took me two and a halfyears to change that, because
(17:32):
you can't change it as thesenior deacon.
That's right.
You just got to work on theworship of a master and go
optional, optional, it saysoptional, it says optional.
And I finally got there and inthe meantime I embarrassed the
crap out of myself because I hadno idea what I was doing.
Which means, if you'relistening to this and you're
studying ritual, when you get tothe optional part I'm not
talking about in the, in thelectures, but in the uh, the
(17:55):
rest of the work you should befamiliar with it.
Yeah, even though it saysoptional, be familiar with it.
I mean.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
I mean we dealt with that at Sarasota Lodge.
I mean when I first got there Isaw them.
The chaplain thought he had togo to the altar to pray, thought
it was part of the ritual, andit was perpetuated year after
year after year.
He was taught that, yes, yes,he was taught that.
And it's not obviously Notnecessarily and it did
(18:23):
eventually, but it took wouldstop that.
And it's not obviously notnecessarily and it did
eventually, but it took yearsfor that to get fixed.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Yeah, but it can be done.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
So so that same senior warden that I referenced
earlier.
I think it was one of our firstmeetings.
We had people visiting, we hada lot of visitors and everything
you know.
Of course there's a question iseverybody present?
Master Mason's?
And I see him stand up and hegets a look on his face and
because he'd been wanting to doit and and we hadn't practiced
it at all, so like we didn'tknow how to do it, and so he
(18:55):
gets this kind of smile on hisface, starts to look around and
the junior warden goes don don'tyou dare.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
I love it, I think avery's eyes should do it once a
year.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Yes, just to prove you can do it At the least
attended meeting of the year.
Sure, I agree.
So what would you say is yourgreatest success in Freemasonry?
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Success, success.
When I was district deputy, wegot two people into the Masonic
home and that was great.
You know, being able to helppeople get into a situation
(19:39):
where they're going to be takencare of was a lot of work a fair
amount of work involved in that, but it was nice to be able to
get that done and know thatthose people are being taken
care of.
So there's that.
Raising both of my sons waspretty darn cool.
Oh, you got to raise both ofthem.
(20:01):
I raised both, one as worshipfulmaster and I was worshipful
master in Venice when Cary wasraised, my youngest son.
It literally brought him to theEast for his catechism and did
the questions myself.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Wow, that is special yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
That is special, yeah so.
But other than that, I mean Idon't know.
I look at Mace Read definitelyhas had a large impact on my
life, but and I think about itevery day, but I've been doing
it for so long, I think that alot of that's just internalized.
(20:47):
I do think it's had a bigeffect on my attitudes towards
life and other people.
That I don't know how toverbalize, but I try to live it
every day.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
I think that's what makes you special, because not
all masons do.
And that leads to my nextquestion what motivates you to
keep showing up for Freemasonryafter all these years?
Speaker 3 (21:18):
I like the brothers and I like the ritual.
And I think you know I get thesame reaction from people when I
tell them I go deer hunting andI keep a diary.
I've been keeping the diary for30 years, so I know exactly how
long.
Well, I could know exactly howmany hours I've spent in a deer
(21:39):
stand.
Where was I going with that?
Don't worry, I can edit this.
No, no, but people go.
Man, I cannot believe you canjust sit in a stand for five
hours.
What do you do?
And I go.
Well, I think I get to watchnature.
(22:00):
I've got you know it's fun tome.
It might not be fun to you, butI don't mind being by myself
with my thoughts, whichtranslates into I like ritual.
I think some guys don't likethe ritual.
They think it's boring and theydon't.
(22:23):
So I like the ritual in itselfand then I like to see how
people are working with it.
So this is what brings me tolife getting to see the brothers
, seeing what's going on in thedistrict and in Freemasonry and
seeing how the new guys areadapting to it, and that's
entertaining to me.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
To me, I have to say, say like I've become a
beekeeper since I live in southcarolina and I I you're kind of
like the beekeeper.
Right, there's all these beesand they're doing their thing
and it's working the way it'ssupposed to work.
But none of it would workwithout an overseer, kind of
checking in once in a while,just making sure everything's
proper.
Do you need a little food?
(23:04):
You're good and let them dotheir thing.
You're kind of like a Masonicbeekeeper and all the bees are
out there doing their business.
It's a beautiful system whenyou look at it that way.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
It is.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
I don't think I'm the keeper, though those are my
words, not yours, okay, lastquestion what do you think are
the biggest challenges thatFreemasonry faces today?
Speaker 3 (23:33):
Uh, they're the same ones we've had all along, which
is, everybody worries aboutmembership, but I think that the
(23:55):
lodges, like Sarasota, areactually showing that that might
not be the end of the world.
Right, we're getting newmembers, so we got to keep that
going.
We're going to have to getthrough this next couple of
years.
I think our country is goingthrough some stuff, man, and it
(24:20):
may have an impact on thefraternity at some point, and I
hope that it doesn't, and I alsohope that our fraternity does
what we've all obligatedourselves to do, which is, no
matter what's going onpolitically in this country,
that we remain committed to eachother, regardless of which side
(24:41):
of the political spectrum thatyou're on.
I don't know if that'll happen,but, yeah, at the end of the
day, we got to have membershipand not change our values, and I
don't.
The beauty of Freemasonry is Idon't think that we can.
I'm seeing in some appendantbodies that some of those guys
(25:03):
are getting desperate enough formembers that they're willing to
change their core values, and Idon't think that that's going
to work.
I just don't think it's goingto work.
If we're going to survive, wekind of need to keep doing what
we're doing?
Yeah, just do more of it.
My dad said what this countryneeds is a good depression.
(25:24):
Right, we kind of need to keepdoing what we're doing.
Yeah, just do more of it, mydad said what this country needs
is a good depression, right?
People need to learn to count oneach other again.
That's true, which washappening in the 1930s, when he
was born, and I'm not sure thatI don't want our country to go
into a depression.
But look, we can sit here on acomputer.
Never leave the house.
You got 550 channels on TV.
(25:45):
You got a computer.
That'll get you into moretrouble than you need to be in.
You don't need to leave thehouse.
You don't need friends.
I think people need them, but Ido think that there's a fair
amount of people that are livingin their own world and not
living in the world.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Yeah, and if the internet went away tomorrow,
that would change, changeeverything.
We'd all be in trouble, some ofus more than others.
I mean, I definitely want tocome to you when I need to eat.
You're going to have all thedeer meat in the world.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
I'm going to be over here eating my turnips I think
that I think the funniest partis, if we were to lose internet
tomorrow, just how many peoplewould be lost because they've
never even seen a map book yeahright, I know they couldn't
navigate they, oh man, it'd behorrible.
We'd be mass extinction ofpeople yeah, I'd be like all
(26:39):
right, you need to go north.
Is that up or down?
Speaker 1 (26:42):
it's me the burger king right, and I gotta go to
burger king, is what you'resaying.
And then keep going yep, go toburger king.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Turn left I miss maps , you know, uh, when I'm
traveling, like on my motorcycle, sometimes you just can't beat
a map with With phones or iPadsor any GPS, you get too big and
you can't see what I want to see, which is the small stuff, the
little roads, you know, whichyou're going to find on a map.
(27:10):
So I rode to Laconia in Mainelast year on my bike and I took
maps, I used my phone and my GPS, but there were times when you
break out that map because youwant to see everything at once
you have driven all over thiscountry on your motorcycle
Practically.
(27:32):
I'm short.
Four states Michigan, wisconsin, minnesota and Alaska, and I'm
hoping to get those done thissummer.
I got a nephew in Anchorage sohe says we can ride in August.
So I'm going to fly up thereand rent one, which is what I
did in Hawaii, and then I'mgoing to ride up or maybe
(27:54):
trailer.
You know, last year at GrandLodge my wife got me a puppy
that I didn't ask for that.
I love Link, yeah, link, but hemakes motorcycling a little
difficult.
You know, I can't just put himon the back.
I'm working on it but, I, justdon't know if it's going to work
(28:16):
.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
You know I'm actually part of Zendigrado here in
Plant City.
Our guys I think it's in Augustactually but our guys are
actually doing a charity ridefrom Zendigrado here in Plant
City, florida, all the way up toAnchorage, alaska, and back.
So they're actually going to bedoing a long fundraising.
They're going to stop at thedifferent grottos along the
(28:38):
route to raise funds forHumanitarian Foundation and
Miles for Special Smiles.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
How long is that going to take?
Speaker 2 (28:48):
I'd have to call Travis or George and ask them.
I think they're going to begone for quite some time.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
this is way off the subject, but about 10, probably
10 years ago there was an Indiantribe in Florida that put up a
million dollar prize and theseguys had to ride a motorcycle
from Key West to Alaska, to thefarthest point north.
(29:16):
Winner got a million dollarsand every day they left from one
spot and were given the nextdestination.
It wasn't like they had it allplanned out ahead of time,
because otherwise these guyswould have mechanic trucks set
up, so every day they found outwhere they had to check in the
next day.
I think the winter made it infive days.
(29:38):
Wow, five days from Key West tothat's crazy stuff.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
That must have been painful.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
Three or four guys died.
I mean that's just, there's nosleep involved to be able to do
that, or very little sleepinvolved to be able to get those
two points in that little bitof time.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Yeah, that's not an enjoyable trip, not in that time
frame.
Million dollars, yeah, I guess.
For a million dollars, I meanI'm okay with not being a
millionaire personally.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
I think it would have been exciting.
The guy that owns PrecisionCycle here in Sarasota, ron him
and his brother wrote it I thinkthey were fifth and sixth and
he said he crashed, slept forlike 24 hours and then called an
Uber or taxi driver and saidwe're going to hit every bar in
(30:37):
this town, which was probablyonly five, right, because it's
the middle of nowhere, alaska,but pretty funny.
Okay, so I belong to some moregrottos.
Find out how long that's goingto take, maybe.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
I'll jump in.
Oh yes, sir, I just text one ofthe guys.
If you text back while we'restreaming, I'll tell you.
All right, cool.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
That would be fun.
So we're now an hour and 46.
This is going to be.
I'm going to split this intotwo separate episodes.
We're going to do the generalconversation in this Masonic
question and answer.
Probably is another episode,but I do.
I've never done this before andI've seen it done and I love
the idea of it.
Word association You'refamiliar, okay, yeah, and so I
(31:25):
have 10 words and I'm reallyexcited to say them, and then
you, just as quick as you can,let me know the first thing that
pops into your head and maybewe'll talk about it, maybe we
won't.
You ready?
Speaker 3 (31:39):
I'm not sure.
Let's see Number one.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Gringo.
Gringo Friend All right, allright, because you're trying to
learn Spanish.
You've been trying for likeyears now, so that's one of the
first ones us white boys learn.
When you're trying to learnSpanish because you want to know
who's talking about you.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Yeah, friend.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
That's talking about you.
Yeah, friend, that'sinteresting.
Two Feather.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
Turkey.
I'm into turkey right now, okay.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Number three Trust.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
My wife trust.
Uh, my wife.
Okay, word association, so I'mjust going with it.
Number four love again my wifelove it family I think, yeah,
number five aliens.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Uh it family, yeah, number five aliens uh wow, wow,
okay, wow is a word we'll takethat.
Yeah, we're gonna have to getwith now.
We said we could talk aboutthem.
Where are you at with what'sgoing on in the world, with
(33:01):
disclosure, the changing of UFOto UAP, the idea that the
government does have a program,and they lied and said they
didn't Like, where do you fallon all that stuff?
Because you're one of thesmartest people I know and I'm
really curious where you standon this.
And if you don't want to talkabout it, I get it.
(33:22):
You don't have to.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
I was just reading something about this recently,
about why we haven't found alienlife, and one of the first
reasons is because it's hard,they're a long way away and they
(33:45):
don't have the technology, justlike we don't, right, I mean,
we sent a record out in aspaceship.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Sure, if you've got a record player, you'll be able
to.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
I know, yeah, exactly right.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
It's meaningless what we're sending out Meaningless.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
I guess it just shows that there's some kind of
advanced form or what we thinkis advanced.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
And if they found it in their advanced that they
would figure out the technologyto be able to read it.
The down and dirty answer is ifit's an unlimited amount of
time and space, then we can't bethe only sentient beings right.
Highly improbable.
Yes.
Then the question becomes well,how the hell are they going to
(34:31):
get there?
So how are they getting here?
And if they are here, whyhaven't they shown themselves?
Are here, why haven't theyshown themselves?
So I got big questions aboutwhether we've actually contacted
anybody.
And you know, going back to thearchaeology thing, one of the
first things, my firstarchaeology class, our teacher
(34:55):
had us buy this paperback bookand the premise was that humans
were put here on earth by alienlife.
And I'm going.
Why the hell are we readingthis book in an archeology class
?
And the reason was she wasteaching us about how science
(35:18):
works.
Because what that book did isit looked at all kinds of
evidence and picked anythingthat fit their theory and
ignored the rest.
So they just cherry picked.
This is the same thing thatcreationists do.
Creationists believe that theworld is only as old as what the
(35:39):
Bible explains so it'd be 5,500, 6,000 years old and that
fossils were created by thedevil to make us believe, not
believe, the Bible.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
I haven't heard that one.
That's fascinating.
Oh, we need to have aconversation sir.
Are you?
A creationist that believes theworld's only 6,000 years old.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
No, but I was raised and educated by them.
Okay, I was able to logicallydeduce that they're full of crap
.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
I mean, there's ways that you know, you can still
believe in Genesis, because Goddidn't create light until what,
the sixth day, we measure timeby revolutions of our Earth
around the sun, which is gettingshorter and shorter over time.
(36:30):
But if there's no sun, how arewe measuring our time?
I think there's probably alienlife and I doubt seriously that
we found it.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
That's my theory okay I could be wrong.
Well, um I.
There's a lot going on likefast.
Information is coming fastthese days, because when I in
the 80s you would hear storiesof like area 51 and groom lake
and all these things right andit, and it was just you were
crazy if you listened to theradio stations that talked about
(37:05):
it.
And now it's mainstream.
It's like generally known thatthese things are out there, so
obviously we don't know.
But I think that's the beautyof it.
Anyone that says they knowanything for sure is full of
shit, because nobody knowsanything for sure, nobody.
You can choose to believethings, but that doesn't mean
you know it to be true inreality and what you choose to
(37:29):
believe is your choice andthat's for you.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
And I haven't seen anything concrete enough to make
me I mean again, it's probablethat there's alien life.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Well, I don't know if you saw it.
They just did a little analysisof like a tiny little .001
milligram of our brain tissueand have you seen what they
found in there?
No Billions of synapses, andthe visualization looks like a
(38:05):
universe, an entire universe,inside a tiny, tiny piece of our
own brains.
It's mind-numbing the fact thatwe know almost nothing about
the world we live in.
So I'm fascinated by whatpeople believe about this stuff
world we live in.
So I'm fascinated by whatpeople believe about this stuff.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
So, since, since we're on the topic, uh, chris
and I'll send you some articleson it, but the the favorite
thing, my favorite thing aboutthe aliens has come out recently
is, uh, they don't believe thatthe aliens are coming to us,
but that they've always beenhere and they're just hidden.
You know so nasa started out asan underwater exploration and
then they found something andsaid we need to get the heck off
(38:44):
the planet.
Yeah, um, you know so thosesorts of things, or, especially
if you go in the christian realm, you know there's a, there's a
whole group of christianconspiracy theorists that are
like no, these, you know thiswas described in books of the
bible uh, multiple books of thebible that that there were
flying wheels of fire that wereset up in the sky, and so the
(39:05):
thought is that the aliens areknown as the greys, which are
actually demons.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
See, I saw on a documentary a Christian family
and the father's teaching hischildren that it's all part of
the Bible.
Teaching his children that it'sall part of the Bible.
All those stories are alienideas, Angels from heaven.
You know they're alien entities.
So he's literally teaching hischildren scripture, but from the
perspective that it's all alien, it's crazy.
(39:33):
It's crazy what's happening.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
Doesn't all of that negate the Adam and Eve story?
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Well, no, not necessarily, because they
believe that the aliens are.
It's like a zoo, basically,right.
So they populated the planetwith people, um, for whatever
purposes.
Uh, you know slave labor, orwhatever you want to call it.
Um, so I've heard latelythere's this theory that they're
vessels for souls and that'swhat they consume are the souls
(40:01):
of people, and so we're all justcontainers carrying around
their food, which is our soul.
You haven't heard that one?
Speaker 2 (40:09):
No, oh man, there's so many fascinating crazy
theories out.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
And then the Pope just made an announcement like
two days ago, I think, he cameout and gave new guidance on
spirituality and, uh,spiritualism and UFOs and all
this stuff.
He actually made comments aboutit and they're starting to
class.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
I heard he came out with an announcement, but I
haven't read it yet.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Yeah, it's basically the Catholic church trying to
classify, like how to deal withreports of abduction, or like
seeing orbs, like is it aspiritual thing that the priest
should be involved in or is itbasically something that is
against the faith that they needto counsel them on how to deal
with the idea of the experiencethey had.
(40:51):
So it's giving some guidance asto how the church should deal
with this stuff.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
I just want to be clear.
This is the same organizationthat's been forcibly casting out
demons for like hundreds ofyears.
Right, you mean exorcisms?
Yeah, yeah, that's the same one.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
Seems reasonable.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
Okay, we went way off topic.
We're only five in Number.
Six you ready to get back inthe zone?
Speaker 3 (41:19):
Yeah, okay, I don't think I was ever in the zone
here number six honor uh, man,you want one word, I know it's
hard yeah, it is very hard, yousurely get a vision in your mind
(41:40):
of something.
Honestly, I think the visionwas Arlington.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Cemetery.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
That was the vision, that was what popped into my
head, dead soldiers who foughtfor their country, yeah, honor.
Well, they honored our country,paid their ultimate sacrifice.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Yeah, number seven, faith.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
Faith, something everybody should have.
You need to have faith insomething.
I don't know what that is, Ithink it's different for
everybody, but yes, and I thinka lot of people come into
Masonry trying to figure outwhat that's about.
(42:35):
Right, they come, they may.
I mean, none of us are atheists, so we all have some kind of a
religious background, I guess.
But I think we all need to atsome point become comfortable in
our own skin and what webelieve, and it doesn't have to
match what everybody elsebelieves.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Right.
Speaker 3 (42:59):
And I think that's one of the reasons we don't
discuss religion.
That's right.
In Lodge is well.
If we just keep that subjectout of here and get around, get
along on the rest of it, weought to be able to do great
things.
But you need to figure out whatyou believe.
That's what I think.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
It took me a while Figure out what you believe and
why you believe it.
Fred used to say that all thetime.
Speaker 3 (43:25):
It's honestly how I wound up in anthropology.
Is I took religious coursestrying to figure out?
Is I took religious coursestrying to figure out?
Because you know, I was raisedin a First Baptist church.
I was baptized when I was 11.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
Now wait what kind of church is that?
Now, I understand Baptists area little more animated, right
Like they sing and they dance,but are we talking about the
snake handlers and stuff?
No, Okay.
Speaker 3 (43:53):
This was First Baptist Church of Swainsboro,
georgia.
So no, we didn't do any of that.
There was no talking in tongues, none of that.
But in theory you weren'tsupposed to drink or dance.
I'm not saying everybodyfollowed it very well.
And I was only 11.
(44:14):
So I was just observing whatwas going on.
But by the time I made it intocollege I'm thinking well, it
seems a little hypocritical.
They're teaching one thing onSunday, but they were doing it
all on Saturday, which is whatgot me to questioning.
So I did my research.
(44:36):
I figured out where I needed tobe.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
And you found your answers.
Speaker 3 (44:43):
I'm comfortable.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
Good.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
Number eight Banana, banana.
Speaker 3 (44:56):
I'm thinking fishing which is you don't bring bananas
on a boat.
It's not cool why you want toget.
It's a thing.
I never heard that before.
Take a fishing charter.
They got decals on there.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
Don't bring a banana on a boat.
Is it because you're going toslip on the peel?
Speaker 3 (45:19):
I don't know what it's about.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
I think it's a bad luck thing, if I remember right,
huh yeah, it's a bad luck thing.
Speaker 3 (45:26):
Yeah, now I don't know what banana boats do.
Okay, antibiotics do.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
Okay, number nine Field.
Speaker 3 (45:43):
Field.
Well, that word could have anynumber.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
Right.
Speaker 3 (45:55):
When I think of a field field I'm thinking about
my dog running around, chasing aball or having a good time so,
uh, just an open space yeah, orI love baseball.
I love baseball fields.
I just up, uh, I just went toTruist Park, up where the Braves
(46:16):
play, last week with mydaughter.
I've been to the other Bravesstadiums but I hadn't been to
that one and it's beautiful.
So if you ever get a chance, go.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
I haven't been there.
I will have to check it out.
Okay, last one, the pressure'soff, number 10.
Speaker 3 (46:36):
Home, home when the heart is and where my lovely
wife is and our two dogs.
You know, sarasota's home to me.
I was born in Florida.
I consider myself a Georgian aswell as a Floridian, but they
make me buy an out-of-state huntlicense, so I'm losing that
(46:59):
feeling that this is way offtopic, but for years when you
turn 65, right in Florida Idon't need to buy a hunting or
fishing license.
I'm 65.
And for years Florida would dothat for Georgians and Georgia
(47:20):
did that Floridians.
So for a couple of years aftermy dad turned 65, he didn't have
to buy a license in Georgia.
And then Florida put in asaltwater fishing license
requirement and Georgia wentscrew you, florida, you're going
to have to start buyinglicenses again.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
Like always, a couple of guys ruined it for everybody
.
Yeah just in time for me toturn 65,.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
I know, you know.
It's amazing to me that Godcreates all the animals, sets
them to be fruitful and multiply, and yet we have to ask our
government overlords if we canconsume them.
Speaker 3 (47:59):
I know.
But if you go back to the 1930s, white-tailed deer were almost
decimated in this country.
There were hardly any inGeorgia.
I grew up in Georgia and Istarted hunting in 1960 with my
dad and he didn't kill a deeruntil 1971.
(48:25):
So we weren't really good at it, but there just weren't that
many deer.
Now that, and when you buy alicense, when you buy camo, when
you buy ammo, there's a 10 Ithink it's 10 excise tax that
goes towards game management.
So it's the hunters that havebrought the game back and you do
(48:48):
have to manage the game.
You gotta, you gotta take out acertain number or the herd will
do it itself, the nature willdo it itself.
But we got more white-taileddeer in this country right now
than we've had maybe forever,certainly since the 1930s.
And that's all about thegovernment getting involved and
(49:11):
managing it.
Speaker 2 (49:12):
They do a good job.
What are your thoughts aboutthe elk that are migrating
further south?
I think they've been spottedover in West Tennessee.
Speaker 3 (49:20):
They were introduced.
Tennessee, north Carolina,virginia have introduced elk
herds.
Did they?
A couple of those statesactually have a very short
season, but they were introduced.
They did not migrate Okay, butthey were introduced.
They did not migrate okay, butthey were there a thousand years
ago yeah so it's a naturalhabitat.
(49:41):
They just got hunted out.
Uh that, and as a motorcyclist,you don't want to hit a deer.
You damn sure don't want to hitan elk oh no, that's a bad day.
Speaker 2 (49:52):
I mean.
It's kind.
It's kind of like the wholebison out west.
Bison out west, I mean theywere just by the thousands If
you rewind quite a few hundredyears ago.
And then they build the railwayand whenever they build the
railroads they're just shootingthem 30-30, slinging them out
the side of a rail car, justkilling as many of them as they
possibly can.
Speaker 3 (50:12):
It was millions there and as many of them as they
possibly can.
It was millions.
There was a lot of buffalo, anawful lot of buffalo, but again,
no game management so anybodycould shoot anything.
I mean, when I started huntingin Georgia in 1960, you couldn't
(50:33):
kill does, and I think you gotone buck tag In Georgia.
Now you get two buck tags and10 doe tags.
Wow, so it worked right.
They say there's 20 deer persquare mile in Georgia.
Wow, in the country, prettygood.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
You need some regulation and oversight in
everything.
But obviously that can go toofar right.
When it's someone's job toregulate, they're going to
over-regulate and the oversightmight get to be too much.
But I think when it's commonsense it's kind of, you know,
necessary.
Speaker 3 (51:18):
It's necessary and, matt, I understand your analogy,
which is more like the RobinHood analogy.
Right, the king went.
Well, this is my forest, thoseare my deer, yeah.
Well that ain't fair.
Speaker 1 (51:30):
It's too much?
Well, that ain't fair.
Speaker 3 (51:33):
Right, it's too much and to my knowledge the United
States doesn't have any placeswhere only United States
government employees can hunt.
They all have to go and there'sa problem with hunting,
especially in Florida.
It's all private land, sofinding a place to hunt and
(51:54):
there are some nice places GreenSwamp, there's some WMAs that
you can hunt but it's still gotto be managed and that's going
to cost some money.
Speaker 2 (52:08):
Which Green Swamp is huge.
I mean, I went out there.
My wife and I went out therebecause I only live about
probably 30, 40 minutes fromthere.
It's to the northeast fromwhere I'm at.
I went out there and so, chris,you're on this road, this
random road in the middle ofnowhere I think it's either Rock
Ridge or Dean Still and youturn left onto this dirt path
and you don't exit thatmanagement area for probably an
(52:33):
hour.
It takes about an hour to getacross it because you've got it,
you got to go slower.
There's people out there, stufflike that, but you know you're
driving and you, like you loseall cell phone reception.
I mean, you, all you see is justnothing but wildlife and it's
absolutely gorgeous, but I I wasmore coming at it from the,
from the saltwater perspective.
Um, so I'm a water bug.
You know.
(52:53):
I love the ocean, loveeverything about it.
Uh, what aggravates me is, yeah, we do have the management, but
there's also mismanagement thatcomes along with it.
Are you familiar with what'sgoing on in the water?
Uh, around big pine key rightnow no, what is, what is?
so if you look up, big pine, keyhawks channel, ramrod, summer,
that entire area right there, Ithink it's actually from
(53:15):
Marathon down to Summerlin, if Iremember right.
But what's going on is thewater is exceptionally warm.
Now I've been swimming in thatwater not an exaggeration since
I was maybe three or four yearsold that's how long I've been in
that area.
But essentially what happenedis they built the water dams up
in the everglades and after thatwe didn't get that flush out.
(53:36):
Whole ordeal.
Us right army corps of engineerscame in, built that we weren't
getting that whole flushflushing out, and so the water
kept getting warmer and stagnant, and more warm and more
stagnant.
And so now what do we have?
We have stronger hurricanes,but there's something going on
with the water that theuniversity of florida, a whole
bunch of colleges, are trying tofigure out where the fish are
acting weird.
(53:56):
So they're swimming in thislike vertical pattern.
It's almost look like they'reeither drugged or high or
something along those lines, butthey have no clue.
What's going on?
And in my thought process iswell, if you'd have left it the
way that God created it, youwouldn't have had this problem,
for sure.
Speaker 3 (54:13):
Yeah, way that god created it, you wouldn't have
this problem, for sure.
Yeah, there's no question.
Uh, yeah, it's a problem overthere, big problem, and uh, I
mean red tide.
You didn't hear about red tide30 years ago.
Maybe we didn't know what itwas, but it certainly shows up a
lot more than it used toprobably weren't dumping toxic
chemicals into the Gulf 30 yearsago.
(54:37):
Well, I'm sure we were, but, butwe're definitely doing it now.
And yeah, that whole, thatwhole Everglades thing.
So how'd we get on this topicwith Blame, matt it's his fault.
Speaker 2 (54:50):
Look, I saw a rabbit.
I chased it and we ended uphere this podcast can go
anywhere.
Speaker 1 (54:57):
I told you that at the beginning.
I said, barry, is thereanything?
You don't want to talk about.
He's like, like what I'm like?
I don't know where we're goingto go, I have no idea where this
is going to go and, of course,barry's the type of man who said
well, I can't even think ofanything.
I'm like well, there you go, weshould yeah we've talked about
hunting, fishing and aliens, sowe're bringing this whole thing
full circle.
(55:17):
Indiana Jones came up multipletimes.
I mean, listen, this is thesecond time we recorded.
This is now going to be twofull episodes.
So you know, this justhopefully shows you how
impactful and important I thinkyou are to the fraternity, how
impactful and important I thinkyou are to the fraternity.
Barry is a true Mason, like whatMasons are supposed to be
(55:40):
Someone who's legitimatelytrying to become a better person
.
I've watched him make mistakes,recognize those mistakes,
apologize for those mistakes.
Not every Mason does that.
I've watched you try to listento somebody that you completely
disagree with, because you'reactually trying to understand
their position, not just waitingfor your turn to talk.
(56:01):
I've seen you give guidance topeople when they needed it.
You really are exactly what thefraternity needs and you're a
pillar in our lodge.
I feel guilty that I'm not thereto help you.
You know, continue on whatyou've been doing.
I do feel a amount of guilt forthat, but you know I'll do what
(56:22):
I can, always, from wherever Iam, honestly for that lodge and
to support those guys.
Of course I will, but I'll doanything I can.
But at the end of the day it'sgoing to be up to those guys and
I know you're of the same mind.
You can't do it for them.
They have to find their own way, and all we can do is support
them at the end of the day,because that's what good Masons
(56:44):
do.
So I'm really happy that youcould come on and spend this
time with us.
I feel like I learned a littlemore about you than I knew
before, and I'm hoping thatpeople that aren't even Masons
listen to this episode, becausethey'll get to see what really
goes on.
It really is real people herejust trying to do good.
You've lived a lifetime as aMason now, practically.
Speaker 3 (57:07):
I haven't even got that 40-year award.
Man, come on, really, I wasraised in 88.
Where's that put?
Speaker 1 (57:19):
2028 will be for you.
You're talking to Matt who'snot even got a year under his
belt.
I haven't even got five years,I think, under mine, maybe just
five.
Speaker 3 (57:30):
It'll be here before you know it.
Speaker 1 (57:32):
Enjoy every minute of it.
If enjoy every minute right, ifwe're lucky.
There's no guarantees.
And that's one thing I have tosay that I've always found Like
I look up to you because I feellike you're living your life to
the fullest.
You're always in the moment,wherever you are, and that's
something I really I really dolook up to and I want to.
I want to be more like that inmy life, just be present with
(57:56):
the people wherever you are andwhatever you're doing.
You're doing a great job ofthat and I don't know how long
it took you to get there, butyou're there and I think people
feel that when they talk to you,that even if they disagree with
you, you're looking at them asa human being and they're going
to be able to have aconversation with you, and
(58:17):
that's rare these days andreally necessary.
So you're really valuable tothe fraternity in our district,
especially Because I know you'renot just about one lodge.
You're really active in likefour lodges at least that I know
of, and you're probablyancillary active in nine to ten
lodges, uh, on a regular basis.
(58:39):
You are, uh, and you know.
The thing is, you're sevenyears old and you're not slowing
down.
This is the great.
This is our fraternity'sgreatness is that there is no
age limit.
Like you a warrior, you're agladiator out there in the field
, still doing the work, stillfighting, at 70 years old, and I
don't see you slowing downanytime soon.
(59:00):
So that's another thing.
I look up to you for that.
Speaker 3 (59:07):
Slowing down is not a good idea.
Speaker 1 (59:10):
Yeah.
You don't want to slow down.
Speaker 3 (59:12):
That's what I'm telling my friends.
My age is do not sit in frontof the TV and spend all your
time looking at Facebook.
It's not going to be good foryou.
Speaker 1 (59:24):
A lot of regrets.
That's what you're going tohave.
Speaker 3 (59:28):
Yeah Well, I don't know, what you're going to have.
If you're a friend of mine onFacebook and you never hear from
me, it's because I don'tFacebook.
I'm a friend of yours and Inever hear from you.
You won't Exactly right.
Every now and then I'll likesomething that's got a picture
of my grandkids in it, andthat's about it.
Speaker 2 (59:49):
Speaking of not sitting around and being
slothful, I just heard back fromone of the guys who are going
on that motorcycle ride.
It is the entire month ofAugust, it's from August 1st to
September 3rd and that's BrotherGeorge Maxwell.
He's a freshly raised MasterMason.
We'll be doing catechisms thisupcoming week for his Master
Mason gift back.
But yeah, so shout out toBrother Maxwellwell and, uh,
(01:00:14):
brother travis, two great, greatbrothers that's still gonna be
a trip.
Speaker 3 (01:00:17):
I did and uh, in 21 I did, uh, 9700 miles.
We went to california up thewest coast and back and uh, that
was 40 days, so to do that in30.
Of course, we got a friend,chris, who rode a bicycle from
(01:00:37):
California to Venice in 30 days.
A bicycle in 30 days, that'scrazy, that's insane.
Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
It is crazy, but he's in great shape, like I'd have a
heart attack 10 minutes in.
Speaker 3 (01:00:48):
He's a beast, he's younger than we are too.
Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
Yeah, we'll go with that, it's because he's younger
than we are too.
Yeah, we'll go with that.
It's because he's younger?
Yeah, that's what I'm goingwith.
That's brother Bob Gatins.
He's from Englewood Lodge andhe's an up-and-coming guy in
District 23.
I saw that the first time Ilaid eyes on him.
Speaker 3 (01:01:12):
I knew he was going to be a leader in the future.
Yes, he's a good man and a goodritualist.
Yeah, because he tries.
Yeah, he does, he takeseverything serious.
Hunter too, that guy goes out.
You don't see him when you'rehunting because he goes out in
the morning and doesn't come outuntil dark, so he likes it out
(01:01:32):
there.
Speaker 1 (01:01:33):
Well, thank you again , Ray Warshawar.
I always like to leave ourguests with the last word.
Is there anything you'd like tosay to the world, Mason?
Speaker 3 (01:01:48):
or non-Masons who might be listening to this
podcast.
No, there's nothing I need tosay to the world, but I do.
Chris, it's always a pleasuretalking with you and Matt Nice
to meet you.
I'd like to come up to yourlodge sometime.
Speaker 2 (01:01:59):
Please, you're always welcome.
Speaker 3 (01:02:05):
Okay, but thanks for what you do with masonry, Chris.
We got way off the subject ofmasonry in this thing, but it's
fun and anything I can do tohelp you guys y'all let me know.
Speaker 1 (01:02:16):
Fair enough.
Thank you, sir.
We'll look forward to seeingyou next time.
I'll see you at Grand Lodge.
Actually, we're bunking up.
We're sharing a room together.
I apologize for the snoringalready.
Speaker 3 (01:02:28):
Don't worry about it.
It'll be dueling snoring, sowe'll be fine.
I'll see you Sunday, all right,okay, thank y'all, see you.
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