The North Carolina Mason

T h e m i s s i o n o f fr e e m a s o n r y i n no r T h Ca r o l i n a i s T o r a i s e T h e m o r a l, s o C i a l, i n T e l l e C T u a l, a n d s p i r i T u a l C o n s C i e n C e o f s o C i e T y b y T e a C h i n g T h e a n C i e n T a n d e n d u r i n g p h i l o s o p h i C a l TeneTs of broTherly love, relief, and TruTh, whiCh are expressed ouTwardly Through serviCe To god, family, CounTry, and self under The faTherhood of god wiThin The broTherhood of man. The Mason NORTH CAROLINA (USPS 598-260) is published bimonthly by e Grand Lodge of AF & AM of North Carolina, 2921 Glenwood Avenue, Raleigh, NC 27608. ird class postage paid at Oxford, NC 27565. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to e North Carolina Mason, School Of Graphic Arts, Masonic Home for Children, Oxford, NC 27565. Grand Master Dan C. Rice Board Of Publication John O. Newman Jr., Chairman Gary R. Ballance Don E. Bolden omas A. Pope Jr. Hugh K. Terrell Jr. Editor Ric Carter Good quality pictures, whether color or black and white, are essential for suitable reproduction. e right to reject any submission not suitable for use is reserved. Pictures will be returned to the sender only if accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Submissions and other correspondence should be sent to the editor at PO Box 6506, Raleigh, NC 27628 or rcarter@grandlodge-nc.org. Each North Carolina Mason is a subscriber to e North Carolina Mason. If you know a member who is not receiving the paper, please send us his full name, his complete address and the name and number of his lodge. Masonic widows receive e Mason free upon request. Subscriptions are available to others at a rate of five dollars per year. Subscription inquiries and address changes only should be sent to: e School of Graphic Arts, Masonic Home for Children, 600 College Street, Oxford, North Carolina 27565. Reproduction of articles by Masonic organiza- tions is permitted with proper credits. Opinions expressed are not necessar- ily those of The North Carolina Mason, the Grand Lodge, or Board of Publication. Page 2 The North Carolina Mason September/October 2009 We regret that e North Carolina Mason has insufficient space to print lodge officer pictures. We continue to receive many new officer photos despite the fact that the paper has not published any since 1998. Decisions on what to include and what to omit are necessary at all newspapers. e decisions are always difficult. Other events not carried in e Mason are raisings and 25-year awards. Unusual angles to such stories may call for exceptions. If you are in doubt about your specific case, send it for consideration. BOTTOMLINE, from page 1 chickens never touched the ground. First, we watered and fed the chickens. en we gathered the eggs and washed, graded, and crated them. en we got out our wheelbarrows and cleaned up the chicken pooh under the cages. I will never forget that each hen was in a separate cage and each cage had a small monthly chart that showed when she laid an egg. e farm manager used these charts to determine the productivity of each individual hen. What this really meant was that a hen that did not lay eggs regu- larly was just consuming food and provided no benefit. ese were the first hens that we killed for food. is was another life lesson for us orphans. My fourth job was office boy for the school. is was the easiest job I have ever had. Mr. Currin, the principal of our school, had an outside electric bell that he would alarm when he needed me. I was dispatched all over the school and the Orphanage to carry messages and documents. Most of the time, I really had nothing to do so I played baseball with Ricky Vick, the main building of- fice boy, who served in the same capacity except he worked for the Orphanage main building and not the school. I found myself just wandering around the school a lot. I made good friends with the school janitor, an elderly black man. He was not physically able to fill the coal bins for the school as his job required. I started help- ing him shovel the coal and with other parts of his job. He would reward me with home cooked food. He always had an extra ham sandwich or a piece of pie. He and I became good friends, and I developed a liking for his wife's pecan pie. I have been looking for a pecan pie that tasted like hers for the last 40 years. at poor old janitor may not have had any extra money, but he sure ate good food, and he always enjoyed every bite. My fifth job was in the Orphanage dairy. I think that the Or- phanage had a dairy just to get the teenage boys to stink so bad that girls would not get near them. ere is a smell on a dairy. When you got it on you, it would not wash off. I was assigned to work on the dairy just about the time I started liking girls. e Orphanage had a world-class herd of Holstein cows. ey usu- ally were milking almost a hundred cows at a time. ey also kept several grown bulls. My job on the dairy in the morning was to shovel fermented silage out of two upright silos onto the ground and then into the feed troughs. My job in the afternoon was to shovel up the silage that had gone through the cows. e dairy was fun because we were working around those giant beautiful creatures. We knew the cows by name, and we knew which ones were docile. We would ride the gentle old cows when no adults were around. We also tried our hand at riding the small young bulls. ey were not as easy to ride and were much more aggres- sive. e older Holstein bulls were giant and mean. None of us had the courage to attempt to ride them, even though we bragged we were going to. e dairy produced enough milk for everyone at the Orphanage plus we sold excess milk to Pine State Dairy. e dairy was an interesting place to work because we saw life and death in action. When a world-class cow got too old to breed and too old to produce milk, she was carried to the market. at seems cold and hard, but the dairy was not run for the cows. It was run to produce milk for the children and income for the Orphanage. A cow that had produced for many, many years and then got old was sold for beef. Every one of us boys on the dairy celebrated the birth of a new calf and despaired when we lost a cow either to the market or to death. Life on the Orphanage dairy was long and hard, but everything came into perspective when you held a newborn calf in your arms. My last job at the Orphanage was working in the Print Shop. is job was supposed to teach me a trade that would equip me to make a living when I left the Orphanage. It was not a physically hard job, but was one that required concentration and aptitude. ere was a lot of stuff to remember. e print shop was a busi- ness that did a lot of work for the general public and with a bunch of Masonic entities. I was a linotype operator most of the time, but I also did a bunch of other stuff. As you learned how to do more tasks and earned the respect of your boss, you were put in charge of different jobs. You learned about quality products and on time delivery. You also learned about customer satisfaction, pricing, profit, and integrity. ese all became life lessons. e Orphanage taught me how to work hard and how to do it with enthusiasm. I learned about the relationship between hard work and food at the Orphanage farm. I learned that I was not too good for any job when I shoveled coal, hog manure, chicken manure, fermented rotten silage, and cow manure. I learned not to try and show off my physical prowess, when old Doc Laws was smart enough to get a medium sized coal shovel, and I picked a large shovel only to find I could not handle a large shovel. I learned that a business cannot keep people who are not produc- tive by working at the chicken house and watching the hens that were not producing be butchered for that lack of productivity. I learned that life is short by watching calves be born and older cows die at the dairy. I also learned that some things should not be tackled even if you have bragged you were going to do it, like trying to ride a two-thousand-pound Holstein bull. Today's world is full of entitlements and stimulus packages. ese all seem to run contrary to all my life lessons I learned at Oxford. ere is no call for people to make their way in life with hard work and personal responsibility. e Orphanage taught me that I was not too good for any job and that I should always do my best regardless of what was required of me. I struggle to keep up with the world's thinking on many things. For instance, I have spent my whole life trying to get away from clothes with holes in them. People are actually buying new blue jeans with holes already in them. In the past, I have had to reluc- tantly wear clothes that were wrinkled or faded. Now, people are buying clothes that are faded and wrinkled on purpose. Some- times, I just do not get it. e cash for clunkers car program has recently spent several billion dollars of our money. I found that I wasn't entitled to this program because my clunker was just barely worth more than the program would pay. I have worked hard to have a nice clunker. is time I blew it and I missed the boat on the cash for clunkers. It seems that almost everyone except me is entitled to some government give away program. I keep waiting on a government program that I qualify for in some way. So far, it seems that I am participating in all of these programs, but it is only to help pay for them. It would be very easy to sit back and just complain. Instead, I think I should take the time to be thankful for what I have. To live in this great country is truly a blessing. To be able to worship freely in the house of worship of my choice is amazing. To have enough food not to be hungry and to have a safe place to sleep is wonderful. To be able to take our sick children to a doctor when we need one is a rare thing in this world. e list just goes on and on for things we need to be thankful for. One of the things, I am most grateful for is the fact that I lived at Oxford Orphanage for those ten years. e work experiences and life lessons I learned have proved to be invaluable. I am also extremely thankful to the Masons of North Carolina for always providing for the children at Oxford. In my heart, I will always be just an Orphanage farm boy that will shovel anything for my upkeep. Experience is a hard teach- er, but the lessons I learned by actual experience are much more lasting than any others. God must be laughing about taking that young man from the Orphanage farm and allowing him the great honor and privilege of serving as grand master fifty years later. God bless each of you and your families! I agree with the recent editorial appearing here that the Prince Hall dress was impressive. I have been in lodges where all the officers wore a tie and jacket. I have talked to others where the officers wear tuxedos. If this is the rule of the lodge, it should be followed, but I disagree that the way a man is dressed makes a state- ment as to who he is. As a child I was looked down on because I wore hand-me-down, worn out clothes and shoes to school. It was hard to understand at the time, but my parents told me that the only thing that mattered was the person in the clothes. As an adult, father, and Mason, I understand what my parents was trying to teach me. Possessions and looks do not determine who we are. We make that choice and show it in our daily lives. During our degrees, we are admitted and ac- cepted because of who we are and what we be- lieve, not for what we are wear. My lodge, as many other lodges, have broth- ers that do not own a tie. We have brothers who come from work to attend the meeting in their work clothes. If we adopted a business suit dress code, half or more of our members would not be able to attend. Look around church any Sunday, you will see people wearing jeans and open shirts. Look again on Easter Sunday when the house is packed with everyone wearing their finest, and somewhere in the crowd you will see those same people in their jeans and shirts. ey are the ones walking and acting as such in their daily lives. ey are there rain or shine, not just for special events. I am certain that when we make that final journey to that house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, we will be admitted because of who we are and not what we are wearing. Ter r y Gevedon is a member of Blackmer Lodge 170. OXFORD — On May 8, the Masonic Home for Children held its annual Hayes/Neal Luncheon. In conjunction with that ceremony, School of Graphic Arts Manager Eddie Dickerson named the inaugural inductees to the print shop's Wall of Fame. e Wall of Fame was started to recognize individuals who have been instrumental through the years in the suc- cess of the School of Graphic Arts, and who believe that the School's mission is important to the success of the Masonic Home for Children. It was decided that nominees would be selected from four categories — students, staff, administrators, and friends. Since this was the first group of nominees to be identified, one person from each category was selected to make up the inaugural class of honorees. e 2009 selection as a student was Grand Master Dan C. Rice. On his plaque are the following words: "Dan Rice graduated from Oxford Orphanage in 1968. While working in the School of Printing, he gained the work ethic that would carry him into adulthood. Dan has gone on to distinguish himself in the busi- ness world, and in 2009 became the first alumnus to be elected grand master of Masons in North Carolina." e staff selection was Allen G. Colenda, and his plaque reads: "Allen Colenda, an alumnus, was man- ager of the School of Printing from 1959–1988. Dur- Clothes do not make the Mason School of Graphic Arts launches Wall of Fame ing his tenure he became one of the most beloved em- ployees at the Home. His legacy is manifested in the students that took his lessons of life and used them to guide their path into adulthood." e administrator selection was John H. Mills. His plaque reads: "John H. Mills, the first administrator of Oxford Orphanage, had the vision to plant the seed in 1875 that would lead to the creation of the School of Printing at Oxford Orphanage. With his leadership, what began as just an idea has flourished into one of the great success stories in the history of this Home." e friend selection was Tommy O. Eller whose plaque reads: "Tommy Eller has shown through his love, his caring, and his resources that he is truly a friend of the School of Graphic Arts at the Masonic Home. His ardent support during times of uncertainty has proven to be a guide to all those who still believe that, with faith, our mission can be achieved." e plaques that were presented that day now hang in the lobby at the School of Graphic Arts as a permanent reminder of the honoree's contributions to the children who learned a vocation or a valuable work ethic that supported them for the rest of their lives. Anyone who visits the Masonic Home in Oxford is invited to visit the School of Graphic Arts as well so you can see our newly established Wall of Fame. By Terry Gevedon WINSTON-SALEM — While at Annual Communication, Grand Master Dan C. Rice presented two Joseph Montfort Medals, the highest award that is given by our Grand Lodge. e medals went to omas O. Eller and Allen Hughes, both champions of the Masonic Home for Children at Oxford. Eller has long been an avid supporter of the Home, even building one of the campus's cottages. Hughes is a Home graduate who returned home after careers in the military and teaching to become administrator of the Home for Children. Eller is a member of Eureka 283 and Hughes is a member of Oxford 122. Both are in Orphans 761. Eller's medal was pinned on him by his son, Steve Safrit. Hughes's was pinned by Home resident Salena Helton. e Montfort is the highest award given in North Carolina Masonry. It is awarded at the dis- cretion of the grand master and for "distinguished Masonic service or achievement." Each grand master is allowed to present three of the honors. Thomas O. Eller J. Allen Hughes Rice presents Montforts Grand Lodge officer installation set NEW BERN — Grand Lodge officers will be installed Saturday, November 21 at 10:00 a.m. at the New Bern Scottish Rite Temple. A reception will follow. Grand Master-Elect William L. Dill invites you and your family. e word superstition comes from the Latin meaning "excessive fear of the gods." Man has always looked to the unknown in order to learn about himself, his world, and his way of life. Su- perstitions have been a part of mankind's think- ing since time began. All of us notice a black cat crossing our path; know to have our "lucky" rabbit's foot with us (the poor rabbit wasn't very lucky). We have heard about charms and spells, good and evil spirits, and other assorted forces or objects which man, in days gone by, thought might play a role in our success or failure. One old legend had spirits living in trees; it is possible that many still think knocking on wood will bring good luck. In looking at many superstitions, we find that many are based on trying to have good fortune and avoid any bad luck or misfortune. To be certain, superstitions do not now, and have not in the past, played any part in Freema- sonry. ere are no unusual omens which pre- vail throughout the fraternity, only sound and proven ceremonies, based upon our historical foundation, which will be found in any and all Masonic lodges throughout the world. Freemasonry is the opposite of superstition in that our union is founded on principles of such high order that our practices are as far removed from superstition as they may possibly be. In reality, the "Masonic Way" does not tell the fu- ture, does not guarantee good luck, will not stop evil spirits, and will not bring alterations to the weather. All Freemasonry will do is put you in touch with a group of men with the highest as- pirations, allow a man to develop his potential, permit a chap to associate with worthwhile ideas from the past, and point each member toward life's most valued goals and beliefs. J. Perry Watson is a member of Masters 754. Superstitions By J. Perry Watson No officer photos, please Hal Perr y photos

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