August 11, 2025 • 24 mins
RW Bud Michels is the Secretary of Doric Lodge No. 30 in Millville, Delaware. Doric Lodge serves Southeastern Delaware, particularly, the Bethany Beach Resort area. He joins me for a conversation on Brotherhood and Fellowship. In this episode, we'll talk about how his Lodge strengthened the bonds of friendship and brotherhood that unite Masons, which spawned a unique club for Lodge members and Brothers.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Commons. Opinions and views shared during this program are
of those individual Freemasons and do not reflect the official
position of a Grand Lodge, concordant Body, a Pendant Body,
Masonic authority, or Craftsman Online dot Com.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Welcome back to the Craftsman Online Podcast, the only Masonic
podcast endorsed by the Grand Lodge of New York. I'm
your host Wright Worship for Brother Michael Arsa, and you've
joined us for an episode that's going to require a
little bit of a car ride. This was an awesome
trip that I got to make earlier this year. I
had the pleasure of traveling over the bridge, as we
like to say, and make a stop at the Bethany
Beach area, who beautiful resort community, to visit Doric Lodge
(00:53):
Number nineteen. I was part of a contingency of Masons
from the DC area who went to become fezzed and
become proud members of the Grand Hollow of the Burning
Tapers Collective. It was an awesome experience and something that
I think a lot of us experienced when we go
to a lodge that has a very strong culture, an
amazing tie to their community, and just that special thing
(01:17):
that you want so badly to be a part of
your lodge. To tell us more about that is right,
Worshipful Brother Bud Michaels, who's the secretary of Dork Lodge
of A nineteen and Millville, Delaware and past master of
Hiram Tacoma Lodge here in the nation's capital. Welcome to
the Craftsman Online Podcast, Brother Bud, thank you very much,
so good to see your brother. He's a by the beach.
(01:37):
She has me internally jealous. Lives in one of the
most pristine and lovely communities in the United States. For
those outside of our area or who may not be familiar,
where is Bethany Beach.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Bethany Beach is about two a little over two and
a half hours east of DC and just north of
Ocean City, Maryland, on the Eastern Shore.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Here's what I love about Doric Lodge. I lived on
the Eastern Shore on the Maryland side for about five years.
It was before I was a Freemason, so I didn't
know much about the fraternity and maybe had kind of
a passive interest at the time because I was really
into my career at that point and really wasn't thinking
much outside of that. Bubbles, family career, come back home, rents,
(02:18):
and repeat. But getting a chance to visit your lodge
really the opportunity to interact with those brothers, hear about
the history, the generational ties, the communal ties, that they
are a big part of the community there. The culture
of that lodge is really special, and it's something that
when an outsider comes in, I'm probably not the first
to say it, but they're like, man, I wish that
(02:39):
our lodge could be more like this lodge, but it's
impossible to copy that or maybe even take a piece
of it and bring it back home, because it's just
not going to work. Because it's the brothers that make
it unique that you have to have a little bit
of that before you can have anything else. What has
been your experience for visitors like me or even going
(03:01):
to other lodges and realizing like, yeah, we've got something
kind of special here at Dork Well.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
One thing that interesting about dork just because the quality
of the people that are there, their friendliness. You know,
inside a lodge, they work hard. Outside of lodge, they
have a lot of fun. They're very social, everything from
you know, home barbecues to just go not and having
a drink after lodge, you know, just kind of things
like that. When I finally decided to petition that lodge,
(03:30):
I already had been living here five years, and Master
at the time thought I was already a member. Nice
because I would go all the time and I would
do presentations. Because the one thing that really DC brought
what I brought from d C into this lodge. D
(03:50):
C is very central focus on tradition, history, and protocol.
My influence here was I'm more of a structure kind
of a person where I think it's better that if
everybody knows what's going on, and everybody knows that there's
going to be you know, a Masonic or some kind
(04:11):
of educational program at each meeting, it's going to influence
how we get attendance, how we get different kinds of
new members, and it's also going to allow us to
continue to grow. They do things with the community. They're
like just completely lockstep with the community.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
You have a city setting and then you have a
rural slash country setting, and there's differences there, but there's
also differences. Like I've seen your personality. You're a natural leader.
You're just a great guy. You're an awesome organizer, and
you're the kind of person who could befriend to anybody.
There's no secret to me. I find it. I found
it funny when you said, oh, the Master that I'd
been a member here for five years, because you just
(04:54):
you have that about you, right, and this lodge they
are a true band of brothers. All of these guys
grew up together, They've known each other and their families
for generations. Well, yeah, you have a little bit of
that outsider you're also bringing in an ingredient. They didn't
have the Masonic education, the quote unquote higher level of
degree knowledge that maybe they didn't get outside of the
(05:14):
Blue Lodge setting that they were in, so it was
a perfect match. I do want to talk about the
community part, because this is something that getting a chance
again to visit your lodge and even tasting some of
this food. When you said, yeah, our lodge has an
award winning barbecue team, I'm like, okay, and I'm thinking
little smoker. Couple guys just standing out there talking. Tell
(05:35):
us about the setup, the rig that you guys have.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Well, we actually have two rigs right now and we're
in the process. When I say we're it's mostly our
worshwell Master of this year Steve Mills, he's a five
time master, seemed to be six time master. He's looking
to build a thousand gallon smoker. Hmm, like going to
be huge. But right now, we basically have a rig
(05:58):
that's probably about as big as like a boat rig
as far as the trailer. And yeah, it's got the smoker,
it's got a margarita maker, it's got a couple of
things on it. And then we have another one that's
a smaller one that's on a old Remember in the
NFL they have those ambulances that are like golf parts
for the players that get injured. Well, Steve had bought
(06:22):
a old one of those from I think the Philadelphia Eagles.
It's called the Peach, which is named after one of
our brothers that passed away. And basically it's got a
smaller smoker, so that that'd be one that we could
just drive around and go anywhere with that. It's kind
of fun. But we always take two rigs down to
We put two rigs down to the down to Raleigh.
(06:42):
There's a big Masonic pigjig every year and which helps
the Oxford, North Carolina Masonic Children's Home that's still still
in place today. I think this year they raised forty
or fifty thousand for that that day. And there's everybody
from Blue Lodges, regular Blue Lodges to Prince Hall Lodges
to other Masonic bodies. They all can join in and
(07:04):
be participate in this. And we've won different categories, won
Best of Show, We've won first place, second place, third place,
and best sauce, the best dessert. I mean, they've won
all this stuff, and I think you might have seen
some of those trophies that we've had.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
And you guys win. That's the best part. You go
down there, and it's fair to say dominate, You dominate
down there.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
I saw the immediate past Grand Master at in DC
at the Grand Lodge Bank last year and I did
a selfie with them and then I told them who
I was. His smile went to like a straight line.
But now he really appreciates it because you go down
there and beat those boys up pretty good when it
comes to barbecuing. But long story short, it benefits the kids.
(07:48):
That's all they care about. You know. Yeah, we're disappointed
if we lose, but everybody eats, they have a good time.
We send about fifteen guys down there. Two rigs, two
separate teams open and they both they compete with everybody
else and it's a blind taste, so they don't know
who cooks the food or who does what.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Yeah, it's definitely something I'm adding to my bucket list
is a trip to North Carolina for the Masonic pig Jig.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
That's it's I'd never been because they keep telling me
it's three days and no sleep. But you have a
lot of fun and so you know if you want
to go next year. They're always looking for people to
come join the foray and have some fun, but fall
back on the community. About Doric Lodge. The interesting thing
about Doric the lodge itself was founded basically in nineteen
(08:38):
oh three. The building that you saw was built two
years later, and over the last i want to say,
three years, we probably put anywhere between fifty and sixty
thousand dollars of materials back into it. That doesn't even
include the labor of love that these guys volunteered to
do things. I mean a lot of these guys old
(09:00):
million dollar homes on the beach, or they do you know,
construction or roofing or they just good at using pools.
Everybody pitched in one way or the other, put new
fours in to put a new wallup, put all new
windows in. The windows that we got rid of. Those
windows were over one hundred and twenty years old and
were replaced all them by donations of the lodge, many
(09:23):
of whom are members that don't even come to lodge
because they either live far away or they can't drive
at night, although we've offered to pick them up. It's
just one of those things where their love, even though
they can't get around anymore, is still with the lodge,
and we still get a lot of donations through members
who make a difference.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Hey, it's right worship with Brother Michael RS. Before you
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(10:13):
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(10:55):
All right, let's make this happen. Listener might be thinking, Okay,
(11:17):
here's a lodge an a beach community. They like barbecue.
That must be the unique culture the history of this lodge.
But wait, as they like to say, there's more. One
of the rooms that we got to spend a significant
amount of time in was the cigar room that has
a humidor built into it. It's got nice couches, great
history that's behind frames, and that's where, at least for
(11:37):
our YouTube live streamer, you'll see one of these just
kind of sitting on a bookshelf, and they're like, what
is this, what is this all about? So how did
the Burning Tapers Collective come to be? And then tell
us how that led into the Grand Hollow.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
By the way, that's called the Fellowship Room because we
actually do close those doors and work with the brothers
that learned their catechisms and their other things that they
need to learn, So it's technically the fellowship room. However,
by chance, we do have a homemade humidor there. It's
about six foot tall, and we also have these nice
(12:14):
leather chairs and nice chairs, and all that was donated
by either members who were getting new furniture in their
law offices or whatever their offices are, or you know,
one of our brothers was getting ready to refurbish a
whole house and they were thrown all this stuff out
and we took the good stuff. It's not like, you know,
grandma's furniture that had plastic on it, but you're right,
(12:37):
it's pretty cool stuff. Burnie Taper's Collective kind of started
out where we're always were smoking outside in the winter
or whatever, and when we decided to build this fellowship
room or considering it, we wanted to make sure it
was a place that had air evacuation and things like that,
so all that's already built in. Amazon's great for supplying
(12:58):
that stuff for us. But they decided to make more
of a social organization. So it's not necessarily affiliated with
Masony because you don't have to be a Mason to join.
Just have to be somebody who can appreciate cigars if
you want. We actually have people that don't even smoke sgars.
We have people that smoke pipes, like Derek. It just
(13:19):
became kind of a social thing where we're doing it
all the time. We thought it would be kind of
fun to make it a more of a social a
more formal social club. And I'd say formal in the
sense of your induction is buying the fees. That's it.
So the fees is named. If you look at it again,
it's an otter. I don't know where it came up,
but Orshaw brother hud Athy came up with this and
(13:42):
he designed the whole logo. It's basically an otter. He
didn't see any other Masonic otters or paternal otters or
anywhere else in the world, so he decided to go
ahead and do that and designed himself and decided to
put a fez on it because he thought that was fun.
And basically, we really don't have Shriners down where we're at,
so it's not like we're mimicking them. I think they
have a Shriner's Club. But it kind of grew into
(14:04):
a bigger thing where we decided to call it Burning
Papers Collective, and we decided since we're the first one,
we are the grand Otters, the Grand Hollow, which where
Otters live of the universe. That's really as simple as
it is. The ritual was kind of put together based
off of probably a little bit of bourbon and some cigars,
(14:28):
and it's really just a fun organization. There's no science
behind it. But we do have a few events a year.
We actually participate with the Lodge on fundraising events, and
any money that we get out of that, we put
some of that back into the lodge itself. So even
(14:49):
as a club that's a fillit that's using the building
per se, the reality is is that it's just another
way to bring money in and put back into the
community and bring even a feeder system of potential new
members through a social organization that may you know, maybe
in free Masridano road.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
If I could talk a little bit about the fez
for our YouTube live streamer. This is beautiful. It's a
great quality texture. I love the otter on the front.
I am not a member of the shrine, so the
idea of having you know my own fez that this
is mine. I am a grand order myself. It's a
little personalized on the inside. And if you're wondering where
did they get this and where can I get one
(15:30):
from my group, here's the information right here. It's called
fez Orama fezorama dot com as a website. We'll make
sure it's in the link of the episode that you're
listening to right now on the Craftsman Online podcast. We're
not getting paid to talk about this at all. I
just thought i'd be a nice guy and share the news, right.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
But to get our fees, that's our design. You have
to become an order. You do.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
And I like the sea wave texture that comes with this,
like this is a very special uh probably one of
my favorite Massonical Massona collectibles that's unique to me that
I will. I have a dear place for this. You
can see it on the shelf behind me here in
my office at home, and every time I look at it,
I smile and I think of that was a really cool,
fun weekend because for myself as a Master Mason and
(16:14):
I've gone to the Comcordinate bodies, I've been a member
of those as well. You go through our degree systems,
they become very structured, very ritual. This was unique because
I was trying to figure out, like, where did they
come up with the idea for this? There is a
ritual for this, and part of it is you have
to have a cigar, obviously, and then there's the whole
command of you get the fez, you put the fees on.
(16:35):
There's a certain way that they do that, and everybody's
doing it together. You guys printed up these wonderful certificates
and it was just one of those things is we
were driving back to the DC area after our time
on the Eastern Shore. The brother that I had traveled
with we were talking about and we're like, geez, how
could we do something like this for our lodge here
in DC or any other lodge that you might be
(16:57):
a member of across the country. And that's when I said,
I'm like, you know, it's unique because you have to
have the right people that find this and make it special.
If you tried to do a cigar club, and I
know many who have tried. Oh you had a couple
of guys that like to smoke cigars. But do you
have the special group the fellowship room of your own
to be able to do this? Do you do you
have people that are coming in who aren't Masons who
(17:18):
want to be a part of this. No, well, it
kind of helps to have that, like you have to
have that culture. And that's what I thought was so
special about Doric Lodge and the Otters. And that's why
I'm so glad that you came on to kind of
shed some light about this, because it is possible to
do these things in freemasonry. You just have to have
the right guys.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
That's true. And you know, hut Athy really put a
lot of thought into the design of that hat as well,
and we thought is this going to be a flash
in the pan kind of thing or are we going
to really do something with it? And we got to
the point where there's other lodges in our jurisdiction that
are interested in doing another one, so we may actually
have another one that we're going to christen that's further
(18:00):
north of us. They were in your class. Actually two
of those guys were in your class, your otter class.
They're actually interested in that too, so we may go
up and stand one up there. Of course, there's a
bunch from DC. We're looking to do that again next
year with Union six. Have them come out to Doric
and partake with Doric as well as the bet the
(18:22):
Burning Taper Collective which we'd call BTC. And yes, you
got to walk a fine line between hey, look a
lot of members don't like smoke, a lot of members
don't want to smoke in their building. You know, you
just got to be you got to figure out a
way to make that work. And we did. We have
these like literally like Air Force jet engines there that
stuck the air right out. If I had hair, it'd
(18:45):
probably go with it. But the point is that, uh,
you know, but consideration is a factor, and don't make
it so that you ruin it for everybody else and
everybody goes away having fun. And that's that's the important thing,
because then they're going to come back when you want
to do some serious like freemasonry or something like a degree.
(19:05):
They know that there's not just a there's not just
a serious side, there's also a very social side to do.
The personality the.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
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(20:20):
that's offered in our fraternity, those are the two key
draws for me, and I talk about that all the
time when people are like, oh, it's the benefit of
being a Freemason, Well, there's all of this, but for me,
these are the two things that I like to talk about.
And I'm sure that we have a listener who's sitting
here going, well, can't do the cigar club the barbecue
thing that would be cool, but I got to get
the right people for that. But I really want to
start something like this because I think it would just
(20:41):
be great. What advice can you share from a leadership
or organizational standpoint, like when it comes to interacting with
maybe the grand Lodge for example, or just the leadership
and the officer line of your lodge, Like what things
should you be open to or consider before starting to
(21:02):
do something like this.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
You got to get all your officers to swim in
the same direction. I mean, they all got to be
They all don't have to be one hundred percent participants,
but they can't really be. You really got to sway
them into not being against it. So we do have
people that are in our officer line that don't smoke cigars,
(21:23):
but they're certainly invited to come to any of the
events that we have, and they do come, especially they're
outside because they're outside, they're not in a room build
with smoke, not leaving anyone behind, I think is an
important thing. Figure out a way to incorporate them into
your social club, if you will. That's aside for freemasonry.
I meant, like as far as like a cigar club
(21:45):
or if you want to do a boating club, which
is you know, something that one of the brothers was
thinking about doing because you know, we live near the ocean.
We have a couple bays. We have as a Woman Bay,
which is an ocean city. We have Indian River Bay.
Somebody's thought about maybe doing a periodic you know, like
a boat club where we all just either rent boats
or bring our own boats and we all go out
(22:05):
at least once a month for a couple months while
the weather's good. So, I mean, there's a lot of
things you could do as far as like social clubs
are just happened to be that came out and it's
taken off. I mean, we've got thirty some members already
and it's only three years old. We have another twenty
or so beet up ready to do it whenever we're
going to do the next event, which maybe sometime this fall.
(22:26):
My advice would be is be inclusive where you can
and listen to people that don't want it and figure
out a way to make them work. And it might
be something where you don't want to alienate any of
these members. You just got to figure out the way
that they'll at least accept it or at least tolerate
it because not everybody will, especially when it comes to smoke. Now,
(22:47):
maybe a yacht club or a boat club, or you know,
maybe you know, somebody talked about doing a bicycle everybody
get together for health and meet up with bicycles and
just go around some part somewhere because there's a ton
of parks side here in Delaware. Some of you also
talked about just hiking, going to different lakes all over
(23:08):
over Delaware. There's a ton of lakes and just go
hiking and do a lunch thing for a day with
families and stuff. So there's it's not just a club.
It just involve people wherever you can and people that
come there, you know, make it fun and make them
want to do the next one.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Hey, if you'd like to learn more about dork Lodges
of our nineteen make sure to visit our show notes
for this episode. You'll find the link to visit their website.
I'm right workship for brother Michael Arsay. You could really
help us out on the podcast. This month, we are
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(23:47):
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but peace and harmony prevail.
The Commons. Opinions and views shared during this program are
of those individual Freemasons and do not reflect the official
position of a Grand Lodge, concordant Body, a Pendant Body,
Masonic authority, or Craftsman Online dot Com.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Welcome back to the Craftsman Online Podcast, the only Masonic
podcast endorsed by the Grand Lodge of New York. I'm
your host Wright Worship for Brother Michael Arsa, and you've
joined us for an episode that's going to require a
little bit of a car ride. This was an awesome
trip that I got to make earlier this year. I
had the pleasure of traveling over the bridge, as we
like to say, and make a stop at the Bethany
Beach area, who beautiful resort community, to visit Doric Lodge
(00:53):
Number nineteen. I was part of a contingency of Masons
from the DC area who went to become fezzed and
become proud members of the Grand Hollow of the Burning
Tapers Collective. It was an awesome experience and something that
I think a lot of us experienced when we go
to a lodge that has a very strong culture, an
amazing tie to their community, and just that special thing
(01:17):
that you want so badly to be a part of
your lodge. To tell us more about that is right,
Worshipful Brother Bud Michaels, who's the secretary of Dork Lodge
of A nineteen and Millville, Delaware and past master of
Hiram Tacoma Lodge here in the nation's capital. Welcome to
the Craftsman Online Podcast, Brother Bud, thank you very much,
so good to see your brother. He's a by the beach.
(01:37):
She has me internally jealous. Lives in one of the
most pristine and lovely communities in the United States. For
those outside of our area or who may not be familiar,
where is Bethany Beach.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Bethany Beach is about two a little over two and
a half hours east of DC and just north of
Ocean City, Maryland, on the Eastern Shore.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Here's what I love about Doric Lodge. I lived on
the Eastern Shore on the Maryland side for about five years.
It was before I was a Freemason, so I didn't
know much about the fraternity and maybe had kind of
a passive interest at the time because I was really
into my career at that point and really wasn't thinking
much outside of that. Bubbles, family career, come back home, rents,
(02:18):
and repeat. But getting a chance to visit your lodge
really the opportunity to interact with those brothers, hear about
the history, the generational ties, the communal ties, that they
are a big part of the community there. The culture
of that lodge is really special, and it's something that
when an outsider comes in, I'm probably not the first
to say it, but they're like, man, I wish that
(02:39):
our lodge could be more like this lodge, but it's
impossible to copy that or maybe even take a piece
of it and bring it back home, because it's just
not going to work. Because it's the brothers that make
it unique that you have to have a little bit
of that before you can have anything else. What has
been your experience for visitors like me or even going
(03:01):
to other lodges and realizing like, yeah, we've got something
kind of special here at Dork Well.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
One thing that interesting about dork just because the quality
of the people that are there, their friendliness. You know,
inside a lodge, they work hard. Outside of lodge, they
have a lot of fun. They're very social, everything from
you know, home barbecues to just go not and having
a drink after lodge, you know, just kind of things
like that. When I finally decided to petition that lodge,
(03:30):
I already had been living here five years, and Master
at the time thought I was already a member. Nice
because I would go all the time and I would
do presentations. Because the one thing that really DC brought
what I brought from d C into this lodge. D
(03:50):
C is very central focus on tradition, history, and protocol.
My influence here was I'm more of a structure kind
of a person where I think it's better that if
everybody knows what's going on, and everybody knows that there's
going to be you know, a Masonic or some kind
(04:11):
of educational program at each meeting, it's going to influence
how we get attendance, how we get different kinds of
new members, and it's also going to allow us to
continue to grow. They do things with the community. They're
like just completely lockstep with the community.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
You have a city setting and then you have a
rural slash country setting, and there's differences there, but there's
also differences. Like I've seen your personality. You're a natural leader.
You're just a great guy. You're an awesome organizer, and
you're the kind of person who could befriend to anybody.
There's no secret to me. I find it. I found
it funny when you said, oh, the Master that I'd
been a member here for five years, because you just
(04:54):
you have that about you, right, and this lodge they
are a true band of brothers. All of these guys
grew up together, They've known each other and their families
for generations. Well, yeah, you have a little bit of
that outsider you're also bringing in an ingredient. They didn't
have the Masonic education, the quote unquote higher level of
degree knowledge that maybe they didn't get outside of the
(05:14):
Blue Lodge setting that they were in, so it was
a perfect match. I do want to talk about the
community part, because this is something that getting a chance
again to visit your lodge and even tasting some of
this food. When you said, yeah, our lodge has an
award winning barbecue team, I'm like, okay, and I'm thinking
little smoker. Couple guys just standing out there talking. Tell
(05:35):
us about the setup, the rig that you guys have.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Well, we actually have two rigs right now and we're
in the process. When I say we're it's mostly our
worshwell Master of this year Steve Mills, he's a five
time master, seemed to be six time master. He's looking
to build a thousand gallon smoker. Hmm, like going to
be huge. But right now, we basically have a rig
(05:58):
that's probably about as big as like a boat rig
as far as the trailer. And yeah, it's got the smoker,
it's got a margarita maker, it's got a couple of
things on it. And then we have another one that's
a smaller one that's on a old Remember in the
NFL they have those ambulances that are like golf parts
for the players that get injured. Well, Steve had bought
(06:22):
a old one of those from I think the Philadelphia Eagles.
It's called the Peach, which is named after one of
our brothers that passed away. And basically it's got a
smaller smoker, so that that'd be one that we could
just drive around and go anywhere with that. It's kind
of fun. But we always take two rigs down to
We put two rigs down to the down to Raleigh.
(06:42):
There's a big Masonic pigjig every year and which helps
the Oxford, North Carolina Masonic Children's Home that's still still
in place today. I think this year they raised forty
or fifty thousand for that that day. And there's everybody
from Blue Lodges, regular Blue Lodges to Prince Hall Lodges
to other Masonic bodies. They all can join in and
(07:04):
be participate in this. And we've won different categories, won
Best of Show, We've won first place, second place, third place,
and best sauce, the best dessert. I mean, they've won
all this stuff, and I think you might have seen
some of those trophies that we've had.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
And you guys win. That's the best part. You go
down there, and it's fair to say dominate, You dominate
down there.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
I saw the immediate past Grand Master at in DC
at the Grand Lodge Bank last year and I did
a selfie with them and then I told them who
I was. His smile went to like a straight line.
But now he really appreciates it because you go down
there and beat those boys up pretty good when it
comes to barbecuing. But long story short, it benefits the kids.
(07:48):
That's all they care about. You know. Yeah, we're disappointed
if we lose, but everybody eats, they have a good time.
We send about fifteen guys down there. Two rigs, two
separate teams open and they both they compete with everybody
else and it's a blind taste, so they don't know
who cooks the food or who does what.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Yeah, it's definitely something I'm adding to my bucket list
is a trip to North Carolina for the Masonic pig Jig.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
That's it's I'd never been because they keep telling me
it's three days and no sleep. But you have a
lot of fun and so you know if you want
to go next year. They're always looking for people to
come join the foray and have some fun, but fall
back on the community. About Doric Lodge. The interesting thing
about Doric the lodge itself was founded basically in nineteen
(08:38):
oh three. The building that you saw was built two
years later, and over the last i want to say,
three years, we probably put anywhere between fifty and sixty
thousand dollars of materials back into it. That doesn't even
include the labor of love that these guys volunteered to
do things. I mean a lot of these guys old
(09:00):
million dollar homes on the beach, or they do you know,
construction or roofing or they just good at using pools.
Everybody pitched in one way or the other, put new
fours in to put a new wallup, put all new
windows in. The windows that we got rid of. Those
windows were over one hundred and twenty years old and
were replaced all them by donations of the lodge, many
(09:23):
of whom are members that don't even come to lodge
because they either live far away or they can't drive
at night, although we've offered to pick them up. It's
just one of those things where their love, even though
they can't get around anymore, is still with the lodge,
and we still get a lot of donations through members
who make a difference.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Hey, it's right worship with Brother Michael RS. Before you
hit skip, please hear me out. I do get commercial
about not wanting to do commercials any more, and this
is where I need your help. Not sure if you
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(10:13):
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(10:33):
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(10:55):
All right, let's make this happen. Listener might be thinking, Okay,
(11:17):
here's a lodge an a beach community. They like barbecue.
That must be the unique culture the history of this lodge.
But wait, as they like to say, there's more. One
of the rooms that we got to spend a significant
amount of time in was the cigar room that has
a humidor built into it. It's got nice couches, great
history that's behind frames, and that's where, at least for
(11:37):
our YouTube live streamer, you'll see one of these just
kind of sitting on a bookshelf, and they're like, what
is this, what is this all about? So how did
the Burning Tapers Collective come to be? And then tell
us how that led into the Grand Hollow.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
By the way, that's called the Fellowship Room because we
actually do close those doors and work with the brothers
that learned their catechisms and their other things that they
need to learn, So it's technically the fellowship room. However,
by chance, we do have a homemade humidor there. It's
about six foot tall, and we also have these nice
(12:14):
leather chairs and nice chairs, and all that was donated
by either members who were getting new furniture in their
law offices or whatever their offices are, or you know,
one of our brothers was getting ready to refurbish a
whole house and they were thrown all this stuff out
and we took the good stuff. It's not like, you know,
grandma's furniture that had plastic on it, but you're right,
(12:37):
it's pretty cool stuff. Burnie Taper's Collective kind of started
out where we're always were smoking outside in the winter
or whatever, and when we decided to build this fellowship
room or considering it, we wanted to make sure it
was a place that had air evacuation and things like that,
so all that's already built in. Amazon's great for supplying
(12:58):
that stuff for us. But they decided to make more
of a social organization. So it's not necessarily affiliated with
Masony because you don't have to be a Mason to join.
Just have to be somebody who can appreciate cigars if
you want. We actually have people that don't even smoke sgars.
We have people that smoke pipes, like Derek. It just
(13:19):
became kind of a social thing where we're doing it
all the time. We thought it would be kind of
fun to make it a more of a social a
more formal social club. And I'd say formal in the
sense of your induction is buying the fees. That's it.
So the fees is named. If you look at it again,
it's an otter. I don't know where it came up,
but Orshaw brother hud Athy came up with this and
(13:42):
he designed the whole logo. It's basically an otter. He
didn't see any other Masonic otters or paternal otters or
anywhere else in the world, so he decided to go
ahead and do that and designed himself and decided to
put a fez on it because he thought that was fun.
And basically, we really don't have Shriners down where we're at,
so it's not like we're mimicking them. I think they
have a Shriner's Club. But it kind of grew into
(14:04):
a bigger thing where we decided to call it Burning
Papers Collective, and we decided since we're the first one,
we are the grand Otters, the Grand Hollow, which where
Otters live of the universe. That's really as simple as
it is. The ritual was kind of put together based
off of probably a little bit of bourbon and some cigars,
(14:28):
and it's really just a fun organization. There's no science
behind it. But we do have a few events a year.
We actually participate with the Lodge on fundraising events, and
any money that we get out of that, we put
some of that back into the lodge itself. So even
(14:49):
as a club that's a fillit that's using the building
per se, the reality is is that it's just another
way to bring money in and put back into the
community and bring even a feeder system of potential new
members through a social organization that may you know, maybe
in free Masridano road.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
If I could talk a little bit about the fez
for our YouTube live streamer. This is beautiful. It's a
great quality texture. I love the otter on the front.
I am not a member of the shrine, so the
idea of having you know my own fez that this
is mine. I am a grand order myself. It's a
little personalized on the inside. And if you're wondering where
did they get this and where can I get one
(15:30):
from my group, here's the information right here. It's called
fez Orama fezorama dot com as a website. We'll make
sure it's in the link of the episode that you're
listening to right now on the Craftsman Online podcast. We're
not getting paid to talk about this at all. I
just thought i'd be a nice guy and share the news, right.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
But to get our fees, that's our design. You have
to become an order. You do.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
And I like the sea wave texture that comes with this,
like this is a very special uh probably one of
my favorite Massonical Massona collectibles that's unique to me that
I will. I have a dear place for this. You
can see it on the shelf behind me here in
my office at home, and every time I look at it,
I smile and I think of that was a really cool,
fun weekend because for myself as a Master Mason and
(16:14):
I've gone to the Comcordinate bodies, I've been a member
of those as well. You go through our degree systems,
they become very structured, very ritual. This was unique because
I was trying to figure out, like, where did they
come up with the idea for this? There is a
ritual for this, and part of it is you have
to have a cigar, obviously, and then there's the whole
command of you get the fez, you put the fees on.
(16:35):
There's a certain way that they do that, and everybody's
doing it together. You guys printed up these wonderful certificates
and it was just one of those things is we
were driving back to the DC area after our time
on the Eastern Shore. The brother that I had traveled
with we were talking about and we're like, geez, how
could we do something like this for our lodge here
in DC or any other lodge that you might be
(16:57):
a member of across the country. And that's when I said,
I'm like, you know, it's unique because you have to
have the right people that find this and make it special.
If you tried to do a cigar club, and I
know many who have tried. Oh you had a couple
of guys that like to smoke cigars. But do you
have the special group the fellowship room of your own
to be able to do this? Do you do you
have people that are coming in who aren't Masons who
(17:18):
want to be a part of this. No, well, it
kind of helps to have that, like you have to
have that culture. And that's what I thought was so
special about Doric Lodge and the Otters. And that's why
I'm so glad that you came on to kind of
shed some light about this, because it is possible to
do these things in freemasonry. You just have to have
the right guys.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
That's true. And you know, hut Athy really put a
lot of thought into the design of that hat as well,
and we thought is this going to be a flash
in the pan kind of thing or are we going
to really do something with it? And we got to
the point where there's other lodges in our jurisdiction that
are interested in doing another one, so we may actually
have another one that we're going to christen that's further
(18:00):
north of us. They were in your class. Actually two
of those guys were in your class, your otter class.
They're actually interested in that too, so we may go
up and stand one up there. Of course, there's a
bunch from DC. We're looking to do that again next
year with Union six. Have them come out to Doric
and partake with Doric as well as the bet the
(18:22):
Burning Taper Collective which we'd call BTC. And yes, you
got to walk a fine line between hey, look a
lot of members don't like smoke, a lot of members
don't want to smoke in their building. You know, you
just got to be you got to figure out a
way to make that work. And we did. We have
these like literally like Air Force jet engines there that
stuck the air right out. If I had hair, it'd
(18:45):
probably go with it. But the point is that, uh,
you know, but consideration is a factor, and don't make
it so that you ruin it for everybody else and
everybody goes away having fun. And that's that's the important thing,
because then they're going to come back when you want
to do some serious like freemasonry or something like a degree.
(19:05):
They know that there's not just a there's not just
a serious side, there's also a very social side to do.
The personality the.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Ring ing ding ding, the craftsman on my podcast is
probably sponsored by bricks Masons, and the ring ding ding
ding is to let you know that there's twenty percent
off sale right now on their rings at bricksmasons dot com.
I will say this excludes the gold rings. However, everything
else fair game and all new at bricks Mason's. You
don't need a coupon code anymore. Just drop the ring
(19:44):
that you want in your shopping cart. Twenty percent off
automatically applied at checkout. Prices start at just ten dollars
for a timeless deal. Everything except gold rings on sale
at bricksmasons dot com. To me, the brotherhood and fellowship
(20:20):
that's offered in our fraternity, those are the two key
draws for me, and I talk about that all the
time when people are like, oh, it's the benefit of
being a Freemason, Well, there's all of this, but for me,
these are the two things that I like to talk about.
And I'm sure that we have a listener who's sitting
here going, well, can't do the cigar club the barbecue
thing that would be cool, but I got to get
the right people for that. But I really want to
start something like this because I think it would just
(20:41):
be great. What advice can you share from a leadership
or organizational standpoint, like when it comes to interacting with
maybe the grand Lodge for example, or just the leadership
and the officer line of your lodge, Like what things
should you be open to or consider before starting to
(21:02):
do something like this.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
You got to get all your officers to swim in
the same direction. I mean, they all got to be
They all don't have to be one hundred percent participants,
but they can't really be. You really got to sway
them into not being against it. So we do have
people that are in our officer line that don't smoke cigars,
(21:23):
but they're certainly invited to come to any of the
events that we have, and they do come, especially they're
outside because they're outside, they're not in a room build
with smoke, not leaving anyone behind, I think is an
important thing. Figure out a way to incorporate them into
your social club, if you will. That's aside for freemasonry.
I meant, like as far as like a cigar club
(21:45):
or if you want to do a boating club, which
is you know, something that one of the brothers was
thinking about doing because you know, we live near the ocean.
We have a couple bays. We have as a Woman Bay,
which is an ocean city. We have Indian River Bay.
Somebody's thought about maybe doing a periodic you know, like
a boat club where we all just either rent boats
or bring our own boats and we all go out
(22:05):
at least once a month for a couple months while
the weather's good. So, I mean, there's a lot of
things you could do as far as like social clubs
are just happened to be that came out and it's
taken off. I mean, we've got thirty some members already
and it's only three years old. We have another twenty
or so beet up ready to do it whenever we're
going to do the next event, which maybe sometime this fall.
(22:26):
My advice would be is be inclusive where you can
and listen to people that don't want it and figure
out a way to make them work. And it might
be something where you don't want to alienate any of
these members. You just got to figure out the way
that they'll at least accept it or at least tolerate
it because not everybody will, especially when it comes to smoke. Now,
(22:47):
maybe a yacht club or a boat club, or you know,
maybe you know, somebody talked about doing a bicycle everybody
get together for health and meet up with bicycles and
just go around some part somewhere because there's a ton
of parks side here in Delaware. Some of you also
talked about just hiking, going to different lakes all over
(23:08):
over Delaware. There's a ton of lakes and just go
hiking and do a lunch thing for a day with
families and stuff. So there's it's not just a club.
It just involve people wherever you can and people that
come there, you know, make it fun and make them
want to do the next one.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Hey, if you'd like to learn more about dork Lodges
of our nineteen make sure to visit our show notes
for this episode. You'll find the link to visit their website.
I'm right workship for brother Michael Arsay. You could really
help us out on the podcast. This month, we are
trying to hit twenty Patreon subscribers so I don't have
to do any more commercials. Get your seven day free
trial to see all the benefits add free access to
(23:47):
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Patreon Craftsman Online, we thank you so much. Until next time,
but peace and harmony prevail.
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