For most of his adult life my Dad was a member of a mystery religion. He was a Mason. Each Thursday he would put on his red jacket and his fez and head out for the Lodge. My mom encouraged him to join, hoping that he would somehow gain an advantage, but this task proved too great for the Masonic brotherhood. He remained pretty much in the same job throughout his life.
My knowledge of Masonry comes secondhand through observation. For a mystery religion, there is nothing mysterious to report. If there was some sort of hidden knowledge of the universe, I’m pretty sure the Masons don’t know it. Among the various Masonic paraphernalia I’m familiar with (pyramids, Egyptian hieroglyphics, assorted bake goods) none of them speaks to a purpose higher than that of a social club.
Trust me. When the anti-Christ arrives, he won’t be wearing a fez driving a midget car in the Thanksgiving Day parade.
However, Dad’s Masonic membership made me eligible for The Masonic Camp for Boys just off the shores of placid Lake Majestik in north east Ohio. Each summer, until I was seventeen, I could be safely locked away in a concrete block bunkhouse along with twenty or so campees.
MCB was a state within a state within a state, and a totalitarian state at that. No doubt there is a juvenile appeal to enforced order. Kids love parades and, if the newsreels of the 1930’s are any guide, totalitarianism provides for lots of marching opportunities.
And there was lots of marching a MCB.
We marched to breakfast. We marched to dinner. We marched to supper. We marched to the lake. We marched from the lake. We marched to our marching drills and marched back. The only individual who was exempt from this marching life-style was the Camp Director, Big Joe Tuck.
Big Joe tooled around the camp in his electric golf cart while holding a nine iron. The question was, did he golf? But then how could he? He was completely out of shape weighing well over three hundred pounds. This made for some interesting scenes. At any one time you could see Big Joe cruising along in the distance his golf cart engine straining to carry his mass.
Activates at the camp could be divided into two distinct categories.
Category One: Activities I Hated.
These included:
Archery: After the invention of gun powder, this became essentially pointless.
Horseback riding: We would ride around the nearby woods in a big circle while the horses tried to scrape up off every tree they passed. Frankly, the horses had my sympathy.
Capture the flag: an activity more stupid and confused than a political convention.
Category Two: Fun Activities That Were Made Hateful
These included:
Canoeing: All that water and no place to pee.
Swimming: We were forced to wear caps that designated our swimming ability. I was a perpetual red cap- a beginniner. I figure I was the most important person at the beach. The life guards needed someone to save. It was here that I discovered a brand new place to be humiliated- under water.
Crafts: possibly the most hateful of all- the weaving of lanyards from multi-colored flat plastic ribbons. If Solzhenitsyn had been forced to braid plastic in the Gulag, the Commies would have broken him.
On the last evening of camp each cabin would sleep under the stars, abandoning the discomfort of the cabin to sleep on the ground in our sleeping bags under the sky. For our retreat we put on our life jackets and paddled to the central island on Lake Majestic: Turtle Island. We built a fire, ate hot dogs, told ghost stories and laughed about nothing.
I actual found myself having a good time.
I woke up in the middle of the night and looked up at the cloudless, unblemished sky. The beauty of the stars scattered across the blackness is a memory I will keep for the rest of my life. The mysteries of world were forever around me and all I needed to do was to open my eyes.
That was August of 1963. The world I knew had but a few months left. And then everything would change.
Next: The Worst Job in World
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