The North Carolina Mason

B rethren, as you know, Friday, April 30, is my last day as Grand Secretary. But it's a new chapter, not an ending. I look forward to catching up on some personal projects around my shop, beaming and bragging about my daughter's successes, and raising my new black Labrador puppy. But, like any good book, as I turn the page, I like to think for a moment over what I've already read. So, allow me to reflect for a moment on some previous chapters. All of this retire- ment stuff got me to thinking about my first job. When I was in junior high — age 11 or 12 — I took a job in Dr. Parker's dental office in Marion, North Carolina. My home, the funeral home my father worked in, and Dr. Parker's office were all on a three- way junction at Main and Crawford Street. I worked twice a week at Dr. Parker's office after school — taking out the trash, sweeping, mopping the floors, and anything else I was asked to do. Each time, usually Tuesdays and Fridays, Dr. Parker paid me a half-dollar for my labors (later raised to $1). His office was on the first floor of an old house with apartments upstairs and a huge lawn out back, which I mowed once a week for $3. I'd run the mop over the floor as WBRM-AM played soft "Shangri- la" tunes and as I listened to Dr. Parker's pneumatic drill as he plugged another filling in some poor soul. I'm sure the tenants could hear the drill as he fired it up. I remember the clink of the syringes hitting the sides of the glass cylinder where they were stored. Of course, in those days, they just rinsed the needles out and dropped them in the jar. And, they were dull. I remember asking Dr. Parker to skip the needle and just drill — it hurt less. It took me a long time to equate a dentist to much more than a glori- fied blacksmith. But, maybe he used the old ones because my check-ups were free. I still have anxiety about going to the dentist. ough I worked near the end of the day, I got to know Dr. Parker a little better, as well as his assistant Fannie Mae Snipes. Dr. Parker was a kind man with a high-pitched voice. I can still hear him say to his patients, "Spit it out, please!" I would snicker to myself every time he started concocting the amalgam for a filling and prepped his victim's mouth. He'd look up at Fannie, readying for the amalgam and yell, "Hit it, Fannie!" Fannie Mae was sweet, but a gossip. I remember her standing in the office door looking up and down the street to see if anyone would come by with any news, or to see if any new "tenants" were delivered to the funeral home. On the ride into school in the morning I would see her open the office, then trek out to the Winn-Dixie to buy day-old bread. She dressed in all white — white dress, white hose, and white shoes. And, those shoes aggravated the snot out of me. At least once a week she went back to the bathroom and sprayed white shoe polish on her shoes. Did she ever put a towel or piece of paper under her feet? No. I can still vividly see the outline of her soles, the tracked polish on that green linoleum floor, and me huffing at all the scrubbing it was going to take to clean it away. About 4 o'clock one day, I was across the street at my Dad's funeral home. I grabbed a pack of peanuts and a Coke and started munching away. Mid-chew and mouth full, Fannie Mae called Dad's office. "Walt," she said, "We've had a cancellation. Come get a cleaning." Dad motioned me on, and I tried to suck the peanut bits out from between my teeth. As I walked in, I saw Fannie Mae's white outlined footprints on the bathroom floor. I quit trying to clean my teeth and thought to myself, "Well, I'm gonna make them work for this." at's how careers go. A little money, a little music, some funny times, some errant shoe polish, and a stray peanut kernel here and there. You got to work for it, and you've got to work through it. When I was Master of my lodge, Mystic Tie #237 in Marion, I got a letter from the Grand Master that my lodge was chosen to host the Grand Master's District meeting. Like any Master that's told he's going to host the Grand Master, I sweated it. But, after that one call I never heard from the DDGM. He wasn't much of a DDGM. In fact, he was downright sorry, but his sorriness probably helped me get my job with the Grand Lodge. Once I calmed myself down and conferred with Dad, who was secre- tary of the lodge and had hosted the Grand Master seven years before me, I called the other lodges in the district, planned the meeting, arranged the RSVPs, strategized the meal, and organized the preparation of the lodge. I made sure the various Masters were going to be present and all the lodges represented. Our DDGM was a no-show, but the meeting went off like clockwork, I wound up receiving the Grand Master and introduced him to the brethren. I did not know it at the time, but Grand Secretary Pete Dudley was on the lookout for an assistant. He needed help planning and executing the Annual Communication and all the other things I've come to learn the Grand Lodge office handles. Apparently, the success of my district meeting brought my name to his attention, and within a couple weeks I received an invitation to meet him and the Grand Master in Raleigh. I made the long, long, long trek to Raleigh — there was no complete interstate section in those days, just old Highway 70 — in September 1979. I did not accept the position at first. I was recently married, had bought a house, and was newly employed in an oil delivery venture. Pete called me several times to ask if I had had made my mind up. I couldn't refuse. I promoted my Senior Warden and left for Raleigh that same month. I returned to the lodge only one more time that year to finish out my term as Master. e office was a little different at that time, but not unlike our opera- tions today. Everything was manual — typewriting, card filling, financial ledgers. Jean House held tenure over everyone in the office. She arrived with her uncle, Grand Secretary Bill McIver, in the mid-1950s. Pete and Joyce Watson, another secretary, arrived about the same time in the mid-1960s. Reynold Davenport doubled as Assistant to the Grand Secretary and editor of e North Carolina Mason — not unlike his nephew, Ric Carter. A young Australian lady named Suzanne Ray also worked in the office, but she left for California shortly after my arrival and Cornelia Doherty interviewed for her posi- tion. e rest, of course, is history. e office is like a family, some- times it functions, sometimes it argues, but to work here you always look out for each other — no excep- tions — and that is one of the great secrets that keeps it running so well. I think more than anything I want you to know what good hands your Grand Lodge office is in. You have the grandest of Grand Lodge employees anywhere — and it was truly my honor to work alongside them: Cornelia Doherty, Vicki Lam, Hayley Moll, Jonathan Underwood, and our most recent hire (though longtime volunteer) Matthew Robbins. Brethren, you will not be disap- pointed in their execution of the duties of the office, and they know better than most the attention to detail required to benefit this frater- nity and serve the brethren. I cannot convey what an honor it has been to serve you and this fraternity and work with so many competent and capable office staff and Grand Masters. Of course, like cleaning the peanuts out of your Page 6 The North Carolina Mason March/April 2021 Retirement just a new chapter in my story By Walt Clapp Grand Secretary ■ see STORY page 7

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