Speaker 1: 0:06

We have to decide what to do with the time that has given us. You've reached the internet's home for all things masonry. Join on the level podcast as we plumb the depths of our ancient craft and try to unlock the mysteries, dispel the fallacies and utilize the teachings of freemasonry to unlock the great within each of us. I have you now All right. Welcome back to on the level podcast.

Speaker 2: 0:52

Thank you for having me, brother brother.

Speaker 1: 0:54

Today we have a very, very special guest. You've heard him once before. You've heard him. When he was in, you were installed master of your lodge. I think is when we had you on.

Speaker 2: 1:07

Yes, no Grand.

Speaker 1: 1:08

Lodge. Oh, that Grand Lodge, that's right. We were both masters of our lodges, I think at the time. This is Timothy. Worshipful Timothy Ferdon. Welcome back, timothy, good to have you. Well, thank you. Thank you, worshipful Burmese. Good to have you. I was really happy about that, which means you'll have all the titles soon, brother.

Speaker 2: 1:31

I'm starting to learn that two-letter word. But that's like can the secret word of a master Mason.

Speaker 1: 1:39

The one last word yeah, yeah, yeah, hey.

Speaker 2: 1:46

Tim what it turns into. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:49

You have a new title, right? I mean, you're now, yeah, what's your new title?

Speaker 2: 1:55

Yeah, I am the personal rep for the executive officer for District 5 in Dima-Lay, which encompasses District 23 of Masonic District-wise, the districts are a little different.

Speaker 1: 2:07

So who do you report to Jody the executive officer Jody. Yep Jody Jody McGuire the executive officer, jody McGuire. I'm sorry.

Speaker 2: 2:19

That's Worshipful, jody McGuire.

Speaker 1: 2:20

actually we're going to go there.

Speaker 2: 2:22

Yeah, Worshipful Right.

Speaker 1: 2:24

The master of Hillsboro, Lodge number 25. What an awesome lodge, man. It's a great lodge. I mean, that's what Freemason Lodges should look like.

Speaker 2: 2:34

Yeah, I agree. If we could all get the faux finish done and make the whole place look like a temple, like that everywhere, that would be awesome.

Speaker 1: 2:42

Do yourself a favor and go Google Hillsboro Lodge number 25. That's in Florida. You will see a two-story lodge that has actually three stories. I think the dining hall is downstairs in the main floor. It's like a four-year kind of a deal. And upstairs they have the billiard hall and the actual lodge itself.

Speaker 2: 3:04

And it's also another layer.

Speaker 1: 3:06

I think it's got a second story on the lodge level. There's like rafter seedings up there.

Speaker 2: 3:14

I can't get over the offices they have there. The Orchwell Master actually has an office. The secretary actually has an office. It's not just a closet in the back of the lodge that you hide away in.

Speaker 1: 3:25

Yeah, my lodge has. It's the secretary's office. The master's office is where the secretary puts his crap. There's no way for the master to sit in there and do anything, right, I mean?

Speaker 2: 3:37

not that I don't know, I didn't really need one when I was. I mean, I had to sign stuff for the secretary but it all goes back to the secretary, so it's like I didn't really need a thing like that.

Speaker 1: 3:48

My routine was I'd get there early, I'd go in the secretary's office what do you need me to sign, sign, sign, sign. And then I'd never step foot in there again for the rest of the night.

Speaker 2: 3:58

Yeah, In our lodge. It's where we keep a lot of things like before we started putting them in the display case, like ritual books and catechism and the mentors manuals and all that kind of stuff. So I would have to go in there for that. But with the exception of that, yeah, a couple of things I got to sign and that's it.

Speaker 1: 4:17

Well, I have to say you're the first person that has been a repeat guest on the podcast. We've never, ever had somebody on a second time as a guest.

Speaker 2: 4:27

Yeah, why me?

Speaker 1: 4:29

I mean I'll answer that because there's a very good reason for it. You are one of the best examples I know of what a Mason should be.

Speaker 2: 4:38

I don't know about that, but well, that's. I appreciate the compliment.

Speaker 1: 4:42

I do say it and you to take it.

Speaker 2: 4:44

Okay.

Speaker 1: 4:45

Thank you. Just take it because I observe, I'm an observer, I'm somebody who grew up like the only male in the household and you know we moved around all the time, so I really develop people watching skills and it's one of the skills that served me well in Masonry because I could pretty quickly identify who was what. With some rare exceptions I might have been wrong, because I wanted something. I wanted somebody to be something.

Speaker 2: 5:12

Maybe they weren't, you saw something you wanted to see, something in them that just wasn't there.

Speaker 1: 5:17

Yeah, that I'm not going to say that didn't happen, but by and large it served me really well, and you were somebody that I watched from afar for a while. We didn't really have a whole lot of dealings with each other until we got close to being masters together.

Speaker 2: 5:32

Yeah, the very end of our senior warden year, like and honestly, though, but even then it was only you know, conversations a couple of times or whatever, and it's not like we were calling each other or anything until pretty much right after we were installed, I guess. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 5:50

And then we had like a year where we led our district Really you and I led our district. Let's be honest. Yeah, no one wants to say that out loud and I'm not saying it to be copy. It's just what happened. We really rallied the other masters together and even our members together. You convinced me to come to the esoteric nights that you were already doing, and you're like I convinced you to host it Even.

Speaker 2: 6:18

I mean, it wasn't very hard to convince you, though. It was like we're doing this thing, yeah. And you're like, oh, I wanted to do that, why don't we both do it? And it was like, yeah, why not? And you guys had the better formula for the night and I just had people that were actually showing up to it. We just needed to come together so we could build it even more. I think is what the thing was. We just took ideas from each other and made it what it is. Actually, we just had one Saturday. It wasn't super well attended, but we probably had I don't know 10 or 11 brothers there. It was. We had a great conversation, it was awesome.

Speaker 1: 6:52

Like to most people, that would be awesome attendance to have 10 or 11 guys show up just to talk about Masonry on an odd night, not at a lodge. We got spoiled last year because we had 26, 28 guys coming. That's where we grew it to, man Right.

Speaker 2: 7:08

Yeah, and I knew this one wasn't going to be the same as what we ended it at, because it's the first one of the year we got everybody back used to doing it. We already had the second one planned.

Speaker 2: 7:18

I know a couple of people have conflicts, but it was the only day that worked in March for most of us, I guess. But no man, it actually. It was really really good we actually used your topic that you brought up, which was officers lodge, officers, duties. Except for it didn't get a whole lot into that, it more delved into to be an officer or not to be an officer.

Speaker 2: 7:43

You know what I mean, what the perks of being, of getting in the officer line, getting involved that way versus not, and it was good. So those of you in district 23, march 30th, we're having the next extra discussion. I encourage you to come out.

Speaker 1: 7:57

At some point I'll convince him to record these sessions and we'll put them online for other people to see, probably heavily edited, because there's drinking and I mean I've seen, oh, we wouldn't do that. We had one where one of the younger guys who wasn't as experienced in having some cocktails was a little messy by the end of the night and if that was on video he would not approve. No, yeah. So you know you got to be careful about that kind of stuff. But at the same time.

Speaker 2: 8:28

If you're going to do that, if you're going to get a little, out of hand. There was not a better environment for that to have happened? Nobody was going to let that guy drive home and nobody was going to let him get himself an NT kind of situation where he would have been a danger to himself or somebody else. He might have emotionally scarred one of my dogs for life, but other than that.

Speaker 1: 8:46

Yeah, he did spend quite a bit of time on the floor with the dog. I mean, actually he wasn't on the floor, it was in the grass.

Speaker 2: 8:53

Yeah, it was in your backyard Was healthy.

Speaker 1: 8:57

I mean, they were just playing, but you know.

Speaker 2: 8:59

Right. No, it was fun, I'm glad he had a good time. Glad he had a good time.

Speaker 1: 9:02

He did. I drove him home that night and we stopped to get. I had a Tesla, I have a Tesla. So I stopped to charge real quick because I wasn't going to make it home. And I turned around and there he was about to pee. He was trying to like hide it. So he was like but I'm like, bro, bro, stop, stop, stop, do not pee on the electrical machine. How about you go over there? He was like, oh, thank you so much, like no that's the last thing we need Death by Tesla urination?

Speaker 1: 9:33

I mean definitely, that is. So. I mean yeah, fix with the Elon.

Speaker 2: 9:39

Oh no.

Speaker 1: 9:41

But, we have a great time you know, and if it ever got off course, we managed to get ourselves back on track. It was. I really missed those, those meetings. I'm going to make it back for more.

Speaker 2: 9:53

Everybody was like what? Chris isn't coming. I'm like no, he's not going to make it.

Speaker 1: 9:58

Everybody was like, are you sure?

Speaker 2: 10:00

Yeah, no, not so much, man. I was leaning on you. I was looking forward to just having you run the damn thing. Yeah, I'm tired of things.

Speaker 1: 10:08

man, I'm just here running a podcast in my little studio. It's awesome.

Speaker 2: 10:15

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1: 10:15

You know I wanted to have you back as the first repeat guest because, like I said, you try to slip out of this one, but I'm not going to let you. I observed you and you were really a great Mason in my eyes and that was before he became the master and it looked like you were doing everything for the right reasons to me from the outside, looking in, and then once we started working together, I got that clear picture that you are the real deal. You are an actual like. What a Mason supposed to be and you're really trying hard to help other people. And you know we had crazy years because we were trying to help everybody that we could. I know you traveled to other districts to do degrees that year and I was traveling to other districts repeatedly for various things. We really tried to just show what leadership should look like. It's true, servant leadership is what we tried to, I think, express in our year and that you're stronger together.

Speaker 2: 11:13

Right. Well, my biggest thing was 90% of the job is showing up. If you could just show up and actually be involved. That's more than what most of the Masons do. If you say you're going to have an event, go to it. If there's an event in the district that you want to go support, go do it.

Speaker 1: 11:36

I told the guys behind me this isn't like any other chair you've had where you can just show up for the meeting and then go home. This is like going to be essentially a full-time job for you. You should be at all the degrees. You should be at all the Master Mason Association meetings. You should attend every installation you can get to. You should try to go to other degrees in your district if you can and bring as many guys as you can with you. This is a full-time job. This is not a joke. To be the master of a lot and I don't know how effective I was in drilling that into them, but one can hope that something got through. We actually created little docs to give it to them so they can distribute it around year after year of what to expect and how to prepare, Because everyone's here for a year, but how?

Speaker 1: 12:27

No one ever told me how they were. Just like, you got to get ready, you got to make your plans and I'm like what does that even mean?

Speaker 2: 12:34

And then the biggest thing I got was your installation Plan for your own Planing aside for your installation. You got to, and that's pretty much most of the advice I got from the past Master's Office about installation.

Speaker 1: 12:48

For those that aren't masons or haven't been in the officer line, the master at least in our district, the master who's about to be involved plans his own installation. It's like planning your own wedding, I guess, sort of. So you got to figure out the food and you got to figure out the music, and is somebody going to sing the national land? You got to figure all this stuff out and coordinate with God knows how many people to get it done. There's probably got to be 20 guys easy that are involved in an installation, from the officer being installed to the past Master's that are sitting in their chairs to the installing officer and the marshal. It's probably a good 20 guys easy.

Speaker 2: 13:35

Yeah, yeah, right about 20.

Speaker 1: 13:38

It's no joke.

Speaker 2: 13:39

And my biggest concern was the food. Yeah, yeah. Well, that was the biggest thing for me.

Speaker 1: 13:44

You don't want people to not, you know, have a good time, right.

Speaker 2: 13:49

Right, and if you're going to, you know expect people to show up to an event like that for a couple of hours. The least you can do is feed them, in my opinion, Right.

Speaker 1: 13:59

You know they're going to sit through your boring installation.

Speaker 2: 14:01

At least you can get them Right, I mean, and you make it as little as I guess, as less boring as possible. But I mean, at the end of the day, we were at each other's installations.

Speaker 1: 14:15

You were at mine and I was there.

Speaker 2: 14:17

Yeah, we got we got pinned as Illuminati at yours, oh my.

Speaker 1: 14:20

God, that's right. I shared. I was, I shared photos from my installation and there was a nice candid photo somebody took of me and Tim having just a private chat after the installation. Just I don't know who took it, but it was a pretty good photo of us just chatting and it couldn't have been like. A month later I saw an ad for the Illuminati and it had used our photo as if we are the Illuminati and I was like I just thought that was hilarious. Everyone was so upset. They were like you got to get him to shake it down. This is not like. This is a great. What are you talking about it?

Speaker 2: 14:58

proves how much.

Speaker 1: 14:59

BS. This is. This whole Illuminati thing is a bunch of BS. They don't even do anything. They're just stealing pictures from the internet and making it look like they're doing stuff.

Speaker 2: 15:10

It's man. How many messages do you get from the Illuminati? I can't tell you how many I've got from from crazy. What I could do is say it and you know Join for the cause or whatever it's yeah, it's crazy, seems to be all about getting rich.

Speaker 1: 15:24

All the Messaging I get is like get rich, you know? Yeah, god, I don't know, but you know, here you are second time and now you're the personal representative In zone five.

Speaker 2: 15:43

District five for DMA. Yeah, district five for DMA.

Speaker 1: 15:47

And we've never on this show talked about any kind of a pen and body or outside organization other than Traditional blue lodge basing ring. I mean we've mentioned Scottish ride in York right and stuff.

Speaker 2: 15:59

But we've never really been motor core. I think last time I was on we talked a little bit about motor core, but you know, yeah, that was just a wormhole, we got down somehow or another.

Speaker 1: 16:07

Like a rabbit trail. Maybe we for five minutes, but this is the first time I thought you know you're the guy now um, in our area, uh, for DMA, and so I thought it'd be great because I? Um wasn't in DMA like myself, um, I was not a leader in DMA. I for about 10 minutes I was the chapter advisor of chapter, but, uh, I didn't get a whole lot of experience, um. So you know, I've done research and I thought it'd be great to have you on, because a lot of people listen to the show that aren't masons, um, and so I always try to keep that in mind and even people that are mason's a lot of new guys Probably don't know about DMA lay. People that were raised with like within the first 12 months, they have never even they may not even know their lodge has a DMA lay chapter, uh, so I thought it would be worthwhile to have a chat with you about DMA lay specifically.

Speaker 2: 17:10

It's a great subject, to be honest. I mean, I am a senior DMA, lay, as can you talk?

Speaker 1: 17:15

about your background in DMA lay.

Speaker 2: 17:18

So yeah, I was like how it impacted your masonic career um, I was eight years old when I was introduced to DMA lay. My older brother started a uh well, was a charter member of Lake Sumter chapter in Eustis Florida. Um, and I was. I mean, back then I thought it was so cool with the gavel and the caves and all the Canaries going on and off and I thought it was all cool.

Speaker 2: 17:43

Um, so I showed up to everything. I was at every fundraiser they had, every cleanup they had, I mean Anything I could be at I was. I almost actually joined early when I was 11, a couple of months because there was a conclave in my birthday, wasn't, like you know, two months after conclave, and they almost just let me just go ahead and join it at conclave. But then it ended Enough to happen.

Speaker 2: 18:05

Um what is conclave? Conclave is basically it's a convention of um that DMA lay puts on once a year. It's basically it's a week long Well, five day long event where the boys just have a good time. They are sports competitions, there's ritual competitions, there are delegate sessions where the young men vote on their own legislation for what, uh, you know what they want to do and and uh, who they want to to run their, uh, who they want to be officers and things, and some of that's changed over the years too. Some of it Boys have a little less say in. The executive officer now appoints certain things just because of some things didn't work out so they had to change around.

Speaker 2: 18:48

Um, but also, uh, yeah, I mean it's a pretty cool just to have Five days in a hotel room with your buddies throughout the state. That was like the best memories I hadn't even lay was was a conclave, because you know, even when you weren't in the competitions and stuff, you're still spending a you know a week Just about at a nice hotel with you know, a bunch of teenagers that you get along with. Hopefully, you know. So who pays for that? So the chapters pay for it, so they have to fundraise for it throughout the year so that you know because it's it's not cheap either. It's close to 400 bucks a kid, 350 a kid depends on how many kids are in a room, but uh, it's pretty expensive. So if the chapter doesn't do a good job at fundraising, well then you know each member is out of pocket or they have to look for a sponsorship or or otherwise, like that which, um, I know venice lodge helps out, usually helps send a couple of guys every year to go to conclave Um different events.

Speaker 1: 19:43

Yeah, I know that. Uh, your lodge, venice lodge number 301, has, as long as I've been in masonry, has always been like a pillar of the demole community. Uh, you have a very popular chapter there.

Speaker 2: 19:59

Well, we're all in restructure right now. Uh, I love cialan paterson chapter. I like the. I love our namesake. It's, it's great.

Speaker 2: 20:06

Um, he started, drew Drew warmington and larry bernard branched off of sarasota chapter to come down and start a new chapter in venice and they chose the, the name cialan paterson after the uh past master of venice that was the founding senior warden of of venice lodge and the founding worstful master of inglewood lodge. The idea of cialan paterson chapter would be to be the encompassing areas that Uh like port charlotte, inglewood, venice, and have the boys all come there and then eventually break off from there and maybe start a chapter in uh port charlotte or inglewood or, you know, or punagorda or whatever. And it just hasn't got there yet. But we're in a restructure now. We've got um, probably got about five boys that are actively showing up uh all the time and then we've got like 20 on the books. But so right now it's uh, we're working on. So we're working to Plan some more fun events to get the guys more active and and hopefully eventually build the chapter back up where it needs to be.

Speaker 1: 21:11

So demole is, I mean big picture. It's basically an organ, a youth organization for boys, uh, that are age 12 to 21.

Speaker 2: 21:23

12 to 21.

Speaker 1: 21:24

Yep and um. The only requirement they have, similar to masonry, is that they believe in a higher power, correct?

Speaker 2: 21:32

Right, right, you have to believe in a higher power, or that there is. I have heard the argument of um Agnostic being perfectly fine as long as you believe that there is something there. You don't necessarily have to know what it is. But um, there has to be something you know. That's basically you to be a better not an atheist, basically. No, not an atheist agnostic I would say yeah, but atheists no. Basically, you have to have something to hold you accountable for an obligation.

Speaker 1: 21:59

So Are women allowed to join or girls allowed to join? Demole.

Speaker 2: 22:09

Uh, no. So years ago they had a sorority program, um, that was well received for a little bit and it died off shortly thereafter. Uh, but no, um, we have the sweetheart program, which, if a, if a chapter has a charter, they're eligible to have a sweetheart, which is basically a female Liaison, helps them with, you know, planning fun events or planning a charity or whatever you know, whatever the chapter needs, and they get a. They usually get a nice tiara and a sash. Um, you know something, you know, uh, sion patissons has a actual a cape For the uh, sweetheart, you know, and their costumes are the best.

Speaker 1: 22:51

I mean the demole costumes are these black robes. It's like what I thought the night temp are costumes would look like. But then I find out, no, you look like a confederate soldier wearing a captain crotch hat. And I was like, no, no, that is not what I thought demole is gonna look like. Then I saw, uh, then I saw the demole. I mean I'm I'm talking not demole, I'm talking about the, you know, the night, the Templars the night Templar York right in the consistory, I believe.

Speaker 1: 23:20

Uh, because I was really interested in that. That's why I joined the York, right, I wanted to get involved. And then they you know, they showed up and I was like, what Are you wearing? No, not for me. But then I saw demole a chance to oh, I heard it's like a grand to put that costume together.

Speaker 2: 23:36

Oh man, it's bad yeah.

Speaker 1: 23:39

To me it looks like a confederate outfit, basically with like a you know it's got a ship oh, isn't that what it's called?

Speaker 2: 23:46

a ship, oh, or something like that, got a nice big white mohawk.

Speaker 1: 23:49

It's real fluffy Right. So I saw a demole and they're wearing what I thought that an actual night Templar would wear. It's like robes. You look pretty, pretty bad ass, I got to say. And they're black, and you got right, they're black now. They're. Oh, they weren't always black.

Speaker 2: 24:07

No, they used to actually be different colors for every position. Oh, every position at its own color at one point time. And then I want to say, like early 2000s, uh, a little after, either before I joined or after I joined.

Speaker 2: 24:19

We had both when I was when I was in, but I don't know At what point they actually like quit using them, because we would still use them on and off. But yeah, I can't remember all the colors, but yeah, every every office had a different color. Most of the offices have had a different color and then Eventually they just came out with all the everybody had a black one.

Speaker 1: 24:38

Now, are you familiar with how demole started in the beginning?

Speaker 2: 24:43

uh, yeah, I mean a little bit. I I have never read, hey dad. I've never. You know I haven't dived Deep into it. I've been told a million times. To be honest with you, but history was never one of my strong suits. I know the important parts and, oh, I'm sure you do.

Speaker 1: 24:59

Well, I have. I think it's fascinating. I pulled it up, um, and I thought I'd I'd read it real quick. Uh, the history in the way. So in 1919, 1990, well employed as the social services director for the Scottish Rite bodies in Kansas City, missouri, frank Sherman land Hired a teenager by the name of Lewis Gordon lower to perform odd jobs around the building.

Speaker 1: 25:26

As the two became friends, land found out that lower's father had died a short time before and that the young man missed having to guide him some of father.

Speaker 1: 25:34

So lower had other friends whose fathers were not in the home, whether from divorce or abandonment or death, and and that these young men would also like to have an adult male that they could go to for guidance, basically. So he said, I tell you what why don't you invite some of your friends to the Scottish Rite building and we'll talk about starting a club? Within a few days, lower brought eight of his friends to a meeting and the nine men agreed that the idea of a club was a good one, and soon the order of D Malay was formed. Within three years, chattras had been established in 39 of the 48 states, then 48 states and the district of Columbia, and it's now worldwide. They've changed their name at D Malay International. Fascinating to me that it started from a mason who saw a kid who needed a dad figure and said go get some of your friends, we're gonna start a club. So the influence of masonry in D Malay has got to be profound.

Speaker 2: 26:39

Well, yeah, I mean, it goes without saying, we, it's, it's our there are sponsoring body. Um, you don't necessarily have to have a blue lives sponsor you, but I mean, it's the most common that you'll find is a blue lives sponsoring and, yeah, or a mason of some kind, whether it's if it's a shrine or a Scottish Rite club or or what have you. You don't have to have a. You don't have to necessarily be sponsored by a blue lodge to have a D Malay chapter, though you don't. No, okay, no, there's actually. Uh, I want to say, at one point in Georgia, a friend of mine is the executive officer there now, uh, mark griffis. He was an advisor whenever in florida when I was coming up. Um, he, I think at one point in time he was talking to A prince hall shrine club or something like that, if I'm not mistaken. I it, because it doesn't matter.

Speaker 1: 27:28

Um, it's not an official masonic body. Right the D Malay.

Speaker 2: 27:31

We are. We are an official dependent body. Yes, oh, we don't have to use. Yeah, yeah, we are Um, I'm sure I know if we're not. That's news to me.

Speaker 1: 27:43

You probably are um, I'm. What I'm showing is uh, if you're watching the video, you're looking at the uh, this is basically the logo for D Malay the shield. Um, yeah, um and the crown Appearing in the self adopted heraldic arms, which is the emblem of the order, contains 10 rubies Yep. You can see them around the crown, each representing one of the original nine members and the organizations. Founder frank s Lynch. Yep frank and uh they used to be all pearls.

Speaker 2: 28:18

It says the one point one originally portrayed as pearls.

Speaker 1: 28:21

As each founding member died, the pearl representing him was changed to a ruby Yep.

Speaker 2: 28:28

So there you go, if you ever wonder there was still a couple of pearls on there when I got an issue, really, oh, 19, 19.

Speaker 1: 28:36

I guess they were kids so yeah.

Speaker 2: 28:38

Yeah, no there was still a couple whenever I was in. The last one just died. I want to say in 2014 or something like that. I Could be wrong on that, I'm not sure I know it was. It wasn't super long ago.

Speaker 1: 28:51

So you got. You got the knight, the swords, you got the the. What were rubies? What were pearl? Now rubies, to represent those founding members that bridge D Malay, um there's actually a uh presentation About this.

Speaker 2: 29:08

It's called the shield talk. Yes, about that, about the logo. It goes all into, in depth into it that I'm hoping we will have one of the young men, uh in our district learn to start presenting to the different lodges. There's a couple of different presentations that D Malay has, like that the ceremony of light, the flower talk, the shield talk. Nighthood has one called the rose talk, I believe there's. There's several of them. Basically, it just tells you what the organization is about, what we stand for, and their different speeches, you know, focusing on different aspects of it.

Speaker 1: 29:43

So that I guess that begs the question of what does D Malay stand for? Um, in my research I found, uh, D Malay has seven cardinal Virtues. They're taught as the basic ideals of. I guess being a Dima way is to.

Speaker 2: 30:02

Being a man, being a person, just being a man. They are the standards of which you are to base your life, as a Dima way, yes, they are filial love, reverence for sacred things, courtesy, comradeship, fidelity, cleanness and patriotism. Yes, exactly, if you use those seven things and you actually use the teachings that we have for them, you will inevitably be a good person, a better person.

Speaker 1: 30:29

A better man, a better leader, just like Masonry, right, right, trying to make you a better person. Exactly, exactly. So it makes sense. We see Freemasonry in the tenets of Dima way, although it's a little different. Like filial love is something that you don't really hear a lot of in western thought. Like most eastern religion is based on filial love. Like it's all about don't dishonor your family and you bring shame to the family and literally you'll kill yourself for doing that because Right of reverence for your family, but you don't hear it much here in the West.

Speaker 2: 31:07

And it's your first one filial love, which is pretty it's very first, very first one man, you wouldn't be here without your parents, you know, and just that by itself earns some respect. Now, I mean, you're going to have those people that you know. Maybe their mom wasn't in their life, maybe their dad wasn't in their life, whatever else and I'm not going to say that you still got to. You know, treat them with the same respect as anything else. That's your battle to fight, not mine. But if you do have parents that are there for you and brought you into this world and help you know, help you survive, then you owe them the very least respect.

Speaker 1: 31:40

Respect right. But there's another kind of filial love, which is you know we have an almighty parent, and so you can roll God into that right, like you. Love for God and respect and reverence for God too is part of that filial love.

Speaker 2: 31:55

Right.

Speaker 1: 31:56

Then you have reverence for sacred things. Yes, Wow. That sounds cool. Reverence for sacred things.

Speaker 2: 32:03

Reverence for all that is sacred. A man crossing the threshold of Dima-lay for the first time must profess as a deep and abiding faith in one living and true God. Without the steadfast faith and the grace of our Heavenly Father, our toil would be for nothing. That's part of the ceremony, a light that I was talking about, woo, yeah, so basically you need it's promoting having a spiritual belief and following a code in that sense. Now, you know, I think the most common is probably Christianity, but we are worldwide, so I mean there's Dima-lay of all different religions, you know that's awesome. It's basically just promoting that, promoting, you know, what you believe.

Speaker 1: 32:45

Here again we see masonry, because that's a very basic tenet of masonry yeah, you gotta believe in higher power, but we don't care what path you take to get there. Courtesy I like that. This is kind of an old-fashioned concept that a man should be courteous, kind of respect and philanthropy, all kind of role in courtesy. And I mean I didn't have a father growing up which was work to my benefit because I used, like television, people that I saw as my role model for a man and obviously that's not real. But I learned to open door for women, to, like you know, be the last one in to lift things and carry things for people, especially women, and so I ingrained that in my children, my boys, and I'm so happy to see that this is part of the tenets or the cardinal virtues of Dima-lay.

Speaker 2: 33:41

It's essential, man. Just a little bit well, I almost almost said it the wrong way just a little bit of caring, just caring about another individual and you know, putting somebody else above yourself every once in a while you know, Holding the door for that guy at racetrack that's going into the gas station or whatever.

Speaker 2: 33:59

Just little things like that go a long way. Then you got comradeship. Comradeship that's the biggest. Well, I mean, it's the one that is put the most focus on, because we are a fraternity, so any fraternity is going to promote brotherhood, having a sense of belonging with each other and keeping each other accountable for things and different things like that. So that's why they put an emphasis on it being in the center of the seven, because you know millions. Yet because of that camaraderie it should be, should hold each other accountable and help each other every chance you get.

Speaker 1: 34:35

And the explanation I'm looking at says being a faithful friend not only in good times, but also in hard times which is something which critically, which also means, which also means telling a friend when he's messing up right.

Speaker 2: 34:50

You know, it's not just being there for him when he asks you for help. It's not just being there, you know, to whisper wise counsel, it's to tell him hey, dude, you know what are you doing, Right, this isn't going to end well if you keep doing this Right.

Speaker 1: 35:07

I mean something you do for people you care about. Nobody likes to have difficult conversations, but you care about somebody. It's worth your time to try to help them, and that's also important in Masonry and it's we talk about whispering wise counsel in the ear of an airing brother. I don't know how many people do that these days, but you know, I'm glad to see that they're starting with kids.

Speaker 1: 35:34

Well, a lot of people miss that part of whisper wise counsel in the ear instead of you know an open meeting and say it in front of all the brothers, whatever it's on their mind sometimes.

Speaker 2: 35:46

Hey you did that wrong. Yeah, exactly, oh God, here we go.

Speaker 1: 35:51

Yeah Then. Then you've got fidelity, fidelity.

Speaker 2: 35:59

So I mean doing what you say you're going to do. If you, if you hold a promise to somebody, keep it, you know whether it be the you know promise to God, a promise to your friend, to your parents, whatever it is. I mean, just say do what you say you're going to do.

Speaker 1: 36:16

essentially, Fidelity, and so even the, the namesake for the organization, dima lay. It comes from the man, jacques Dima lay, who would the grand, the last grandmaster of the Knights Templar, the last one the last one because the Knights Templar were disbanded sometime around 1313.

Speaker 1: 36:39

We did a whole section on the Knights Templar. Go watch the episode because it's there you go. It's awesome, there you go. I love the whole idea of the Templars, what they stood for, what they did in society that people have no concept of how important they were to our ideas of banking and oh my that's yeah. No, we could be on that topic forever.

Speaker 1: 37:04

We could be on that forever, yeah in a day when brigands would routinely rob you and you had to get from a to B on a long trip, you can leave your really expensive craft with people and pick it up when you got there, like well, that's, that's essentially what a bank is. Here's my cash. I'm going to go pull it out of the ATM when I get to Monaco on my vacation and I don't want to bring my cash with me. Well, there you go. The Templars are doing it in the 1300s.

Speaker 2: 37:31

Right.

Speaker 1: 37:32

And sure they didn't have a keypad or a pin code. You had to actually use the secret word or a secret handshake to identify your stuff Right, right. Now we get to like how the Templars are infiltrating masonry, because we have secret words and secret handshakes that we use to identify.

Speaker 2: 37:51

Well, on top of the fact that I mean these are all rumors and speculation, but when it was disbanded, you know, all of those nights had to do something. So there's there's talk about them going into, into different workman's guilds, like maybe, brick Masons yeah, maybe.

Speaker 1: 38:10

And, of course, is that they had a huge naval fleet that was never recovered. I've heard this. Yes, it's. There's a lot of evidence that they actually went to the Caribbean and and that the pirates of the Caribbean are actually the descendants of the original 10th watch that disbanded. I have heard that.

Speaker 2: 38:30

Yes, it makes sense right.

Speaker 1: 38:32

They have a code that they live by, the, the fire code and all this stuff. I mean, they would obviously not have had the capacity to teach them to continue to be Templars. But generations later you would have had people that still live by some kind of code, because it would definitely pass that down. But I digress fidelity, we're talking about Jacques de Molay died. He died basically upholding his pledge to his brothers Yep.

Speaker 2: 39:02

I mean, it was offered all of the riches that he could imagine was to his tried, was was, you know, offered power beyond his imagination. And no, I know, give them up.

Speaker 1: 39:14

No, right, he told me, if you got to, I'm not doing that, no, he died, he had actually, I believe, given some kind of a statement that he had done bad, that they were bad, and, upon you know, thinking about it, when he came out and he was supposed to say all this stuff, publicly recanted and said no, this is a bunch of BS, we never did anything wrong, we're here for God and you know, this is a bunch of you got you all. You suck, you suck, you suck. I'll see you in hell. And then he left. He burned at the stake.

Speaker 2: 39:51

Well, it wasn't necessarily that he came out with a statement and then recanted. It was that somebody said he said right, right he's like. No, I didn't Right. If you have documents saying that they're purged like, there's no way that didn't happen. You know they burned him at the stake for it.

Speaker 1: 40:07

I mean, these, these Templars are being tortured for years. It's not like you spent a couple days in the cell. They were torturing you for years to try to get you to say what? Just just to die, just admit something, so we'll kill you, you know. And when you get tortured beyond that point, you'd say anything to just make it stop Right. That's what happened to most of those guys. They were tortured to the point that they would rather go against their order just to die than continue to be tortured Right.

Speaker 2: 40:40

I couldn't imagine being in that situation, man, to be honest with you, I mean, we'd all love to say that we would be Jacques de Malay and stand up on your principles like that, but I don't know, no. I don't know if I can tell you that.

Speaker 1: 40:52

Not like getting burned at the stake is an easy way to go.

Speaker 2: 40:56

No, holy crap, dude. Can you imagine and that's after like seven years of torture that they did to him before he was burned at the stake?

Speaker 1: 41:04

Yeah, no. In his home country, in France, burned him at the stake and the public was around to watch. So wow, that's fidelity. Then you have cleanliness. Yeah, okay, here we go.

Speaker 2: 41:16

Yeah. But not only the bodily cleanness, right Cleanness of every thought word. Indeed, you know to actually, you know think about things and not necessarily to use the foul language, or or you know all the dirty stuff that we all, yeah, try our best to stay away from, but some of us don't do a great job of it, you know.

Speaker 1: 41:39

As long as you're trying, that's all that matters. Nobody's perfect, right? We call this purity in masonry. They call cleanliness in D-Mole, but I think it's kind of the same thing, right.

Speaker 2: 41:49

Yeah, same thing.

Speaker 1: 41:50

It's like being pure heart, pure motivations, coming at things from a good purpose, and we wear white to symbolize purity. In free masonry White's, you know white glove treatment We've all heard it Like. It's associated with cleanliness. And, finally, patriotism. I love for your country, yep, the willingness to defend your country and your homeland, including public spaces, places, schools, asylums or furnitures, hospitals, supporting people in need. That's all part of being a patriot, right.

Speaker 2: 42:29

Sure, and just living a good life in behalf of your country, you know, just being a better person because you're an American or because you're, you know whatever you're yeah, yeah, insert country here, you know, because essentially you being a better person is helpful to your country. It is work for you.

Speaker 1: 42:51

You know what I?

Speaker 2: 42:52

mean, yeah, you're representing so in D-Mole. For years it's always the question, you know, the question that you just you quiz the D-Mole with or whoever with if you had to get rid of one candle or one, one virtue, what would it be? And most of the time people's answer is patriotism at the end of it, because you know they think about it just meaning America or whatever else, when really all seven of them are important. But if you encompass all the rest of them seven kind of just what seven will happen anyway.

Speaker 1: 43:25

Yes, yeah, that makes sense, but it doesn't end with those seven virtues. You've got a D-Mole defends three fundamental freedoms. You've got you mean, I can't I can't quote them off the top. I didn't prep this, you nailed those other ones. I was like, wow, I didn't expect you to know that as much.

Speaker 2: 43:48

I better know those. The seven are talked about in every single meeting, every other, yeah, yeah, but you better know the seven right.

Speaker 1: 43:55

The three fundamental freedoms that D-Mole defends are religious freedom that's represented by any holy book, independent. Okay, now I know what you're talking about. All right, yes. Civil freedom, yes, and intellectual.

Speaker 2: 44:08

Intellectual liberties. Yes, yes.

Speaker 1: 44:11

And that kind of you know. There are three Ruffians in the Master Mason degree Allegedly yeah. There's three Ruffians selling cigars. I can tell you, there you go.

Speaker 2: 44:28

By the way, I got some people that want to try those. I need to get with Sean or somebody.

Speaker 1: 44:32

It's getting green launched. We've got we've got new Wow, this is really sidetracking. Now We've got new Sorry, new formulas and new wraps, so actually it's improved and cheaper. We're lowering the costs and increasing the quality, so it's going to be good, awesome, a little something for everybody. I still haven't tried the original ones. I mean, I haven't either. I'm not a cigar smoker, so I couldn't tell you.

Speaker 1: 44:58

But the people that know this stuff say that it's it's gotten better. So I can't wait. We're in the process of relaunching that soon, stay tuned. But you know, we in Masonry we have people that try to take away three, three times something important to you and when you go through the mentoring after the degree, they kind of talk about how they're, what they're is this really represents, is they're trying to take away your freedoms in different aspects. Okay, so you've got someone that's trying to attack your ability to speak, which is like a civil freedom. You've got someone that's attacking your groin, which is your family, and you know that's the seed of your religious freedom. And then you've got someone that's attacking your mind, which is your intellectual freedom. If you think about it, those ruffians are tying directly into this. When I see this, I see the ruffians.

Speaker 2: 46:01

Hmm, I never thought about that, you know, but there's a good chance that the guys that putting together the ritual did. I mean it was written by by Scottish right Masons.

Speaker 1: 46:14

Makes sense. And then you've got an ethical chose composed of the following statements Demo lay serves God and Demo lay honors all womanhood. I like that. One honors all womanhood. But yes, this is important stuff to teach young men that women aren't your play things there to be honored and respected. You know, right as people, demo lay loves and honors his parents.

Speaker 1: 46:40

A Demo lay is honest. A Demo lay is loyal to ideals and friends. A Demo lay practices honest toil. So you're not going to be a gambler as a Demo lay. When you grow up, you're going to be earning an honest living, something that's legal and respected. Demo lay, his word is as good as his bond. A Demo lay is courteous. A Demo lay is at all times gentlemen. A Demo lay is clean in mind and body. A Demo lay stands unswervingly for the public schools. A Demo lay always bears the reputation of good and law abiding citizen. And a Demo lay, by precept and example, must preserve the high standards to which, as he has pledged himself. Man, I sure could use that. When I was a young guy, somebody gave me these values. You know we get them. I got them from television in a roundabout way.

Speaker 2: 47:34

But that PBS, I guess, was pretty good for for some of that. Yeah, depending on what shows you were watching. Mr. Mr Rogers Neighborhood.

Speaker 1: 47:45

They were kind of teaching some of those kids, but I don't know they don't get that. Today Kids are really growing up on like YouTube stars and Instagram people and it's far, far from this what they're learning.

Speaker 2: 48:00

So yeah, unfortunately, but you know what you know Never say, never, don't give up hope, one of those things.

Speaker 1: 48:07

I kind of see how important this is, now more than ever, that kids have a place where they can go to learn like to be honest and good and respectful. Kind but not only that like Demo Lays, kind of giving them opportunities to learn leadership right, like oh yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 48:24

So that's kind of the for me. That's the point. Right, you get a guy in, because if you're just coming there for a boring meeting and going home, then you know what we. What's the point? So, like, right now we're in restructure, we're not even, I'm not even worried about ritual in most of the chapters in our district. Right now.

Speaker 2: 48:43

I want you getting the guys together, planning a fun event and go do it. Meaning not you plan an event and tell the boys to come to it. No, you get with the young men that you have say, hey, what do you want to do? Ok, well, what do we need to do this? Ok, first you need to what you're doing. Ok, then you got to facilitate the place. Ok, is there a scheduling? Do we need to find a time to do this? You know, do. How much is it going to cost to do this? Ok, how are you coming up with the money for this? Are you expecting all the chapter members to pay their way? You know all those things. You're helping the young men put those together and then run the event and then also communicate to all the members and whatever else.

Speaker 2: 49:25

So what I like to tell people is first you put somebody on a committee. So a committee is making this plan to plan this event, ok. And now you're, you're a voice on this committee. So eventually, after you've been in a committee for so much, well, why don't you try heading up this committee next time? Ok. And then, once you've headed up a committee and you're, you know you're responsible for, you know, facilitating the meetings and figuring out everybody's ideas and putting it on paper and giving a report at the meeting, ok. Eventually, after you've done that so much, then now go into a leadership role in the chapter, become a counselor, you know, because now you know how to do different things. You just have to put them all together. Wow, kind of thing. That's, in my opinion, that's how you build the future leaders and that's how Dima lay can build the future.

Speaker 1: 50:11

There's so much that goes into what you just described, from like planning financially for something to managing personalities on teams, to right dealing with failure, because if you let those kids do that stuff, eventually something's not going to work out and it's going to be a shit show, and that value is something they're going to learn from. And yeah, as I, like I said, I was only limited in my involvement in the Sarasota chapter. I was for a few months but what I saw was parents wanting to do all those things you just said the kids should do. Right, that's the problem. That seemed to me like it was creating a. It was kind of like the opposite of what is supposed to be happening where what are the kids learning if parents are doing all that stuff? It's just daycare at that point, right.

Speaker 2: 51:11

Exactly Right. That's not what Dima lay is for. Yeah, we're not just here to watch your kids for you for a little while. That's just not what we do. Don't get me wrong. We're happy to, but we're going to have a purpose for it, you know.

Speaker 1: 51:25

Yeah, imagine that a place where your kid can go and try something out and try to be a leader and potentially fail, and still get support after the failure to show him that you can. You can basically learn from your failures and it makes you stronger, smarter or better the next time you do the thing that you failed. That those are crazy important life lessons. Crazy important life lessons. Right, and if they don't let the kids do that stuff, they're never going to learn those lessons.

Speaker 2: 51:56

Yeah, no it's. Is that it's right?

Speaker 1: 51:58

now it's hard because I only had, like I said, limited exposure in Dima lay and I saw that as a problem. In just a couple of months I was exposed to it. Is this a big problem in Dima ladies, would you say?

Speaker 2: 52:11

Yeah, I mean it's. We saw it whenever I was a kid. You know advisors overstepping but there's a fine line. It's not like there. I mean there is a handbook but so I can't say there's not a handbook, there's not a book tell you how to do this, or there is, but it leaves something to be desired. I guess you know it doesn't. It doesn't take into account the personal things with this, because problem is you have so much you're competing with now. When I was a kid you had Boy Scouts, sports and Dima, in least in my what for what I knew about. Really now, with with the Internet, the kids today have so many different options of what they can do to spend their time.

Speaker 1: 52:54

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 52:55

Sitting in a meeting learning about leadership is usually not on top of their list, right which to your point when you were saying about advertising to the parents of the of the young men. That's why it's so important, because of course you're not going to. You know, a kid just wants to go on fortnight or whatever in the heck they're doing now. That's all they want to do. Then, yeah, leave me alone. I don't want to go sit in the room with a bunch of guys telling me I'm a 40 better myself.

Speaker 1: 53:21

I'm about to be in. Tomorrow I'll be a 49 year old man, and if you left me to my own devices, I'd be sitting in a pile of my own feces within a couple months. Like we as men, need to be pushed outside our comfort zones, and especially even for kids, because they have to learn at an early age. They learn a lot faster when they're young than an old guy like me.

Speaker 1: 53:44

to change Now it's going to be, crazy hard, but when I was 12 or 13 I was like Clay. You could have shaped me into a great man if you took the time, and these kids have the potential to be great men. They just need to be be molded. But the key I think the key problem is you have to have examples as leaders.

Speaker 2: 54:09

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 54:10

If you have poor examples as leaders, how could they, how are they ever going to get those lessons?

Speaker 2: 54:16

I mean you know this is another thing to teach the hip back on the worst full master and just showing up.

Speaker 1: 54:24

Yeah, the things.

Speaker 2: 54:25

Yeah, I saw. Now somebody can steal this idea and run with it. I'm happy if you do. I wanted to make an award for for Masons, called the past worship of masters meritorious service award, because DMA has a what's called a past master counselors meritorious service award. Basically, you have to follow a strict guidelines on how to run your year, make sure you observe all obligatory days that you have you get. You have to make sure that you all you and your officers know your parts from memory to do all the ritual work. You have to get so many people in. There's a whole criteria for it and then at the end of it you can say I got my PMC MSA. I had a good term I would say year but it's six months.

Speaker 2: 55:12

So I want to develop an award like that, but have it Masonic youth base where the worst full master has to attend X amount of Masonic youth functions during his year, has to show up to their installations, has to go whatever else and be that face of Masonry to the young men.

Speaker 1: 55:29

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 55:30

That's what I want to do. I'm not. I'm not a lawyer, I don't. I don't speak legally and legislation writing is not my forte. But if somebody else wants to do that and you know I'm happy to have a worship full at the end, to add a worship to the bottom of the legislation, for yeah, yeah, well, I'll definitely.

Speaker 1: 55:49

if you like, I can include your email on the podcast and if people want to reach out to you to help out with that, they can.

Speaker 2: 55:56

Sure, yeah, I been a master 23 at Gmail. There you go. Now I'm going to get a bazillion emails. It'd be great.

Speaker 1: 56:03

Hail the light, illuminati. It's got master in oh man Right oh yeah, but you know.

Speaker 2: 56:14

Dang it.

Speaker 1: 56:15

I think that when you look at DMA lay now it's 1919, so they've been around for a long time now and yeah, we just had our centennial couple years ago. I. The way I got exposed to DMA lay was through a man named Rusty Russell Glendeni, great man who was kind of somebody that became a I don't want to say a mentor, because he would probably not like that. He never mentored me, but he was somebody that I watched closely and tried to like impress in Mason.

Speaker 1: 56:49

I don't know what you call that an influence influence me, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and he was huge in DMA lay and one day, oh yeah, he sent me a video of him interviewing somebody for the International Hall of Fame in DMA lay, and so I was watching him interview this famous person when he was a young man. He was probably in his 20s when he was doing this interview, which is crazy to see Rusty at his 20. I knew him as a seven year old man.

Speaker 2: 57:19

You know, I was expecting to see it like a dinosaur walking behind him or something when I watched the video.

Speaker 1: 57:24

Yeah, Jurassic Park theme plays in the background. So I mean I went down to Rat the Hole. You have Walt Disney.

Speaker 2: 57:36

You have. He was part of the original chapter actually, yeah.

Speaker 1: 57:38

Bill Clinton, and you got so many famous people that are in the International Hall of Fame, from sports stars to actors, I mean I'm not going to name them.

Speaker 2: 57:50

The undertaker was a DMA lay, actually, and he turned down the Hall of Fame Really. Yeah, yeah, he was. He was approached for the Hall of Fame and he said, because he did not base his wrestling career on how a DMA lay should be, he didn't feel he didn't, he didn't want to have his his, his picture, in that Hall of Fame for that. He didn't think he was the, he was the guy which I mean. Honestly, there's arguments says that that's an even better reason for him to be there.

Speaker 1: 58:19

Yeah, that's very a little rick of him to try to take the right rhythm, because most people, if they're offered any kind of opportunity to be in any kind of lasting thing to have their name in it, they jump at it.

Speaker 2: 58:32

Right.

Speaker 1: 58:32

So that means he learned the lessons, I think, of DMA lay. That's impressive. I didn't know that there's a couple astronauts on here. There's several politicians on the list Pete Rose, famous baseball player, air Force captains, philanthropist businessmen like these are impressive names that were part of this organization Right, and people always ask they think Bill Clinton was a Freemason, but he wasn't, he was a DMA lay, he was not.

Speaker 2: 59:02

He was in DMA. Lay, yeah, he was not a Freemason.

Speaker 1: 59:05

Which you know. I guess you could say I think maybe being a D-malay is more impressive than being a Freemason, because to get those lessons in your youth is probably going to make you a better man than coming into it in your 30s and 40s and trying to learn how to be a better man.

Speaker 2: 59:25

When I was coming up, it was a thing to put on your resume If you were a past master counselor or anything like that. You know it was something that I was told. Anyway, that meant something and I mean today, as long as you word it right it does mean something if you think about it and you actually go into detail while you're filling out your resume what all you did, what your duties were. You know it's a lot and it could look good for you.

Speaker 1: 59:49

It is a lot. You're really a leader in your youth. So this is how I saw you doing some ritual work. I asked you to help me with some ritual work. You said yes, with way short notice Happened more than once, let's be honest and I was like I don't know what's up with this guy, but he's some kind of savant and they said no, no, he was a D-mole, Like it's known in Freemasonry. If you were a D-mole, you're probably going to be a decent ritualist as a Mason. Is that fair to say?

Speaker 2: 1:00:19

Right, yes and no. So I grew up with a ton of brothers that hated ritual and they knew their part, for, you know, opening and closing. If they had a part in initiation, they knew that and that was it. But in just like in Masonry, there are brothers that you know it either comes naturally too, or it's just that something that they work toward to get good at, or either way, in my case, I kind of had a natural thing to it and then also it was I thought it was cool, I liked doing it. So for me it was something I worked at. But no, not all D-mole are ritualists. But they have an unfair advantage, you'll say, because they've had to memorize something since they were, you know, a kid, I mean. Even D-mole's obligation, I'm pretty sure, is longer than the Master Mason obligation Wow, I'm pretty sure it is.

Speaker 1: 1:01:20

And you have to memorize them.

Speaker 2: 1:01:23

Yep, oh yeah, they have a question and answer similar to what Lodge has, but most of theirs is the obligation we were, whereas ours is a lot of things. Also, there's an obligation, there's a couple of questions and there's an obligation.

Speaker 1: 1:01:40

Do they do a proficiency like Mason? Yes, they do.

Speaker 2: 1:01:44

So now I'm not learned up on all of the rules like as I should be at the moment, but when I was in, you had to be proficient in order to vote in the Lodge in the chapter. You had to be proficient to compete in any competition at conclaves or many conclaves via, be it sport or ritual, otherwise whatever, it didn't matter. You had to be proficient to do anything. Basically, now I think it's a little more lax. I think you still have to be proficient to compete. Either that or be working on your proficiency currently something like that. There used to be a proficiency JBU that we had at conclaves that you could take. In lieu of being proficient, you just had to go through the class to help you learn your obligations and stuff. Then you could still compete.

Speaker 2: 1:02:33

But I think it's a little more lax now just because of you know we're all hurting from membership at this point. So if we can get five guys, like I said, and just get them to start learning some stuff, we'll let any of them have a vote, because it's what they want to do. It's their organization, not mine. Just because I think that they need to do this might not be right. It's their organization. I'm just here to guide you. And if I sell them, no, I better have a good reason. You know, if you tell it as a demolay advisor, if you tell a kid, no, there has to be a reason. You can't just say no because you didn't want to deal with that right now. No, there has to be a reason. You know, a while back, yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 1: 1:03:13

Go ahead.

Speaker 2: 1:03:15

A while back, we had a deal with one of the chapters wanted to get PayPal up. I wanted to be able to have an electronic form of getting money in fundraising-wise and one of the advisors was initially had said no, and I stepped in and I was like, why is it a no Like? Why, Because our bank won't do that? Well, we need to figure out what the problem is with that, because any bank should be able to do this and eventually they were able to get it and whatever else. And the big thing is sure there's a reason that he said no, because, well, that bank was telling us that we can't do that. Okay, that's a legitimate reason why you can't do that, but it's still a problem that we need to solve that problem and we're in the 21st century. Paypal is the thing. Why are we with this bank? Yeah, Move to another bank that will let us do this.

Speaker 1: 1:04:10

It's very progressive thinking. You've got there, I hope. Demolay moves quicker than lodges because that would be about a year and a half change to get them to move banks at a blue.

Speaker 2: 1:04:21

Oh, this didn't happen overnight, this was over months of time. This is just the fast forward. I've been around for a little bit, but yeah, how old are you now? I am 29. I'll be 30 in September.

Speaker 1: 1:04:34

Oh my God, that's crazy. I mean I know you're young, but I don't know, I don't know. I guess we talk so much I never really think about the age difference, but we do have a pretty big age difference.

Speaker 2: 1:04:46

It's a bit of a gap. Yeah, I didn't realize how old you were. I figured you were in your early 40s or late 30s.

Speaker 1: 1:04:53

Yeah, no, man, I'm going to be 50 soon. It's crazy. Yeah, I see that You're about to be 30. I see that? What? Yeah, so it's like you don't have to be a president of a huge multinational organization to be a leader, no, you just got to be a good person, right, and like trying to live the tenets of this stuff because these kids need examples. So if you're listening and you're like, oh, I'm not on the level to be leading kids, it's like wait, but are you? Because no one's expecting you to be like a political leader or a Bill Clinton Like you don't have to be that to get involved in DMA. What you have to be is somebody who wants to help the youth become better, to grow into being better men. That's really all they're asking of you. Right To be involved in the DMA, right?

Speaker 1: 1:05:56

They just want you to be good with kids and like support them and like teach them these values right.

Speaker 2: 1:06:01

Right yeah, and help them along where they need it now, and also knowing that being a leader doesn't mean do everything yourself. Quite the opposite, actually. You know Everybody needs help doing it. If you try to do everything yourself in anything whether it be Lodge, DMA, whether it be a sports team, whatever it is you're going to burn yourself out. Now you might succeed at it for a little bit, but eventually it's going to come to a head.

Speaker 1: 1:06:25

Yeah, and then how do you repeat that, Like what happens when you're gone, Like it needs to be? You got to create a coalition of people and it needs to be a leader. Create systems that can be passed down and replicated by other people, not themselves.

Speaker 2: 1:06:41

Right. I mean, I'm a firm believer that one guy shouldn't be in charge, or one person shouldn't be in charge forever. It needs to, you know. So if you have an advisory council and you have, you know you have leadership in your advisory council that needs to change every few years, you know, just to get a new set of ideas out, you know, or whatever, be it a chapter dad or advisory chairman or advisory council chairman, whatever, some people, some chapters don't have the luxury because, you know, chairman has to be a master Mason and maybe they only have one master Mason that's an advisor, so that guy is stuck being the chairman forever because, well, nobody else, nobody else can do it.

Speaker 2: 1:07:22

You know that kind of thing. But in most cases, like now it's when I know a little bit, before I joined only men could be chapter dads. A chapter advisor, the official chapter advisor, the liaison between the young men and the advisory council, is the chapter dad or chapter advisor. Now, now it can either be a man or a woman, it doesn't have to be a master Mason, you know, whatever else. And I've known some great women that were awesome chapter advisors and I've known some guys that really suck at it Me too.

Speaker 1: 1:07:57

Me too. Some of them were close to me. I saw it firsthand. Even though I wasn't terribly involved, I did. I did see some problems, and whenever I see problems I assume that it's not local, that it's probably stuff that you know. That's. That's like the first lesson I had in Masonry, all the negative things I saw. I thought I was just this lodge or just this guy. No, like, every district has a lodge like that, every lodge has a guy like that. You know what I mean. These are systemic things.

Speaker 2: 1:08:29

It's just a person problem. It's just. It's always a type of personality you have, seems to always come down to being people as the problem, right Right.

Speaker 1: 1:08:38

So we need to be very careful about who we put in a leadership role with children, because if they see adults arguing with each other over what food's going to be at an event, or they shouldn't even be having that argument. Right, that's the stuff the kids should be deciding. But they do argue over things like that. They do, right Right, like that's what the kids see and are going to take as an example of acceptable behavior. So you really do need to check. I mean, that should be like at the. That should be the entrance of every entryway into a lodge. Leave your ego here, don't bring it with you.

Speaker 2: 1:09:21

Right, yeah, no, well, as soon as it stops becoming about the young men, you're wrong, like as soon as it stops becoming about them.

Speaker 2: 1:09:29

You're wrong, you're. Whatever it is that you're trying to accomplish, stop, because if it's not for them, then you're wasting your time. Yeah, you know, and you're not going to do any good. You're going to do more harm than anything. And I have seen, unfortunately, in Dima-Lay, at the chapter level, all the way up to the state level, where there are certain people that maybe they get and get that notoriety in Blue Lodge, but they could get it at Dima-Lay, and we have to stop that. We have to do a better job at guarding the West Gate, as we say as masons. But you know, for our advisors we always need adult. Yeah, oh, a lady just came in with the kiddos. So you know, fellow ego.

Speaker 1: 1:10:09

So let's talk a little bit about you Now. Everybody knows generally what Dima-Lay is. Now we did a pretty good job there, I think, explaining it to people. It's Sure there's a lot more to it for sure that we could go into, but that Dude I yeah, that's a good luck. 45 minutes is a good synopsis, so this is what it is about.

Speaker 2: 1:10:29

Sure, this is what we stand for, this is what you know. And the biggest question is how do we help, how do we keep going forward? And I think, with the right people in place, we can do that, and we're starting to get a good sense of that, I think, in our district anyway, of getting the right people for the right job.

Speaker 1: 1:10:46

I mean honestly, as a marketing guy I see so many ways to grow the membership that no one. I guess I really haven't tried that hard to talk about it, but I could seeI mean we could blow Dima-Lay up with just a little bit of effort. Let's do it, I'm in. It's like you know you miss the part that people don't like to hear. A little bit of effort, like you're going to have to, I'm not trying to scare you.

Speaker 2: 1:11:12

I know you're not scared.

Speaker 1: 1:11:13

That's why you're in a position of leadership and you probably are the person I should talk to about my ideas, because you could actually get them implemented in more than one. I certainly try. You can definitely wish for wise counsel into people's ears.

Speaker 2: 1:11:29

Right, I can test your people. I'm pretty good at that.

Speaker 1: 1:11:31

Try to influence them, but in a positive way. I do see this as needed. I think the parents would jump at the opportunity to have their kids be part of an organization like this if they knew about it. They just don't know about it, and I think the kids, once you get them in, will want their friends to be part of it too once they see what it really is and they kind of get the bigger picture. So I think the first hump is to get the parents to understand that this is a pretty low-cost way to get their kids a very high-quality experience.

Speaker 2: 1:12:08

And $60 one-time membership fee. Depending on your chapter. Could be more, but for the most part like our chapter is $100, but you get stuff out of it before that and it's lifetime membership. You don't have to pay to be a member at all after that. The only thing else that'll come out of your pocket is whatever the boys don't fundraise for it.

Speaker 2: 1:12:25

So if they don't fundraise for it and they want to go to Conclave, well, the chapter doesn't have the money for it. They want to go. I mean, you know one of those things you better, you got to figure out a way. But that's why we, you know, try to tell these guys fundraise. When I was in, if we wanted to do something we had to fundraise for it. I walked up every single stair in the UCF arena multiple times as a kid selling peanuts at the Shrine Circus, because it was one of our biggest fundraisers. I shut corn at a Zellwood at Zellwood for their Zellwood Corn Festival every year because we needed to do, we wanted to go do things. We had to do things to make money for that, and that's part of the experience I think is actually having. It's not all fun and games. Sometimes you got to work.

Speaker 1: 1:13:12

You're touching responsibility and like how to actually get something done, because that's going to be the case throughout your whole life. You're always going to need money to do things you want to do, and it might require some hard work to get it.

Speaker 1: 1:13:25

And then you know I was. There are so many communities where kids just don't have opportunities, opportunities to like really be in a position of leadership within their own peers. They just don't, would never have it. And Sarasota, there's a community that I wanted to hit aggressively because I know it's full of kids that would, with an opportunity to learn public speaking skills and organization and leadership skills. It would be a game changer for their future life. And you're talking about $50 in Sarasota, chapter $60 in Venice.

Speaker 2: 1:14:05

It sounds like it's a hundred in Venice. Oh, a hundred, sorry a hundred, but that's for life.

Speaker 1: 1:14:12

And from 12 to 21,. That's the only investment it's going to cost you to get all these lessons and experiences. There's just nothing comparable out there for a kid that can offer that kind of quality for that price. Sorry.

Speaker 2: 1:14:28

Right, there are other organizations, don't get me wrong, like, boy Scouts of America is an organization, and they do a lot as well, and they were founded by Masons. Also, that's another organization. When I was a kid, it was always said Boy Scouts teaches you how to survive in outdoor environment than the wilderness, although that's not 100% true. They also have core values to help with your day to day, whereas DMALE is going to more prepare you for a business life and just life in general, which I think that's a watered down version of explaining it, because DMALE can be whatever you make it. They can teach whatever subject the boys need to learn about.

Speaker 1: 1:15:15

I've seen it. I'm on social media a lot, so I see a lot of DMALE chapters doing like. Well, like you did, you did a fundraiser that involved paintball and like shoot an adult and get you know hey, here's for X amount of dollars. You can shoot Tim or you can shoot Chris and the kids can do it and that's a fundraiser, that's fun.

Speaker 1: 1:15:39

But they got to organize it and they got to promote it. And then they got to, you know, get people to show up and have food. You organized the one that I went to. There was two things going on. I believe there was a chili competition or some kind of food competition Mac and cheese, mac and cheese.

Speaker 2: 1:15:56

I actually didn't have anything to do with that. I showed up, I was, I was a target. I did not. But credit where credit is due, the boys had that, put that that all together and the advisors helped it along. I had a. I took a backseat for the last couple of years with the chapter because I had some stuff and I still have stuff going on now, family life wise that I had to deal with. That had to take precedent, but man it's. I was really glad to see that event was a success. You know, the boys showed up, they worked it. No, they, I think they made a good little bit of a little bit of money at that event I'm not sure the exact numbers, and it was Bob Gaten's wife that wanted to and that was cool and you know. And we got to eat really good mac and cheese and then we got shot with paint balls.

Speaker 1: 1:16:49

But you know, yeah, bob Gaten's is amazing, from Englewood Lodge, englewood, number 360. And I believe he's like senior Deacon or junior ward and something like that Junior ward. Now Bob's junior ward now Got to go to his installation because Bob in our district that I see as being a leader not just in his lodge but also in the district. A really good experience.

Speaker 2: 1:17:19

No right he's yeah. Right, he's a business owner too. I mean, you know just.

Speaker 1: 1:17:25

He seems like a very solid person. He is. I always, in Masonry, try to surround myself with people that I felt were solid people, so he was one of the guys that I tried to bring in to my circle. So that's someone that I could, you know, talk to about things Right and to survive the year I had when I was master, I needed that. I needed you and Bob and Barry Hart, and you know, tom, don't get it twisted.

Speaker 2: 1:17:52

I needed you too, shoot. I called you several times for different things, for one thing or another. It went both ways.

Speaker 1: 1:17:59

We're kind of like all in it together. You know we're all moving in the same direction, we're all trying to get the same kind of stuff done. We just happened to be in positions of leadership in our little patch of dirt at the same time, which was for sure it is for us, because we worked together really well. It was no problem. I never felt it.

Speaker 2: 1:18:16

I'm still so proud of what we accomplished last year I'm going to come here, and we had like a healthy rivalry.

Speaker 1: 1:18:25

And then there are unhealthy rivalries where it's like you start to teach people that those people are bad and these people are good. I'm talking about young guys coming up and then your lines and some of that had happened in our district. I mean, I was part of it, I saw it and again, that's like not anything unique to us. It happens in every district. There's always lodges like that.

Speaker 2: 1:18:49

Happens in more than one group.

Speaker 1: 1:18:50

I mean it's not just because you can go into any group Because, yeah, men and people are egos and our little picks and quarrels and all the things we caught in.

Speaker 2: 1:19:01

As you'll learn in life, as anybody will learn in life, people suck. No, it's just no, it's not.

Speaker 1: 1:19:06

And we know we'll have to admit it. But we suck too.

Speaker 2: 1:19:09

Yeah, yeah, me included.

Speaker 1: 1:19:11

We all suck, you know, that's what I was kind of getting at, because you've been a leader in a lodge. Now you're a leader in a wider area for another organization and your leadership is going to continue into the future. You will certainly be leading in Freemasonry for a long time in different capacities, are you?

Speaker 2: 1:19:31

I need to start learning the two letter word a little bit better. But yeah, probably, I'll probably always have a job doing something. You will, I hope.

Speaker 1: 1:19:40

I hope you will, if anyone is listening and you're in the state of Florida. He gave his email address contact the fan because he would be a great leader in anything in the fraternity. He might tell you, you know if he's smart, but I think he'd be great at it. So please contact him. But you know you consider yourself a perfect man or some kind of example in your personal life for someone to hold up Like I don't myself. Nope, I'm aware of my issues.

Speaker 2: 1:20:12

And I've got several. No, there's a lot of reasons why you shouldn't neglect me.

Speaker 1: 1:20:17

Like we're not perfect people here. But the thing is, it's like we're trying and this is what Masonry and it sounds like what Dima lays about which is you got to be trying? If you're not trying, do your best and get outside your comfort zone. Do things that are hard for you to do, that you don't want to do sometimes, and we've both done a lot of that service. That's what servant leadership is really. It's like you know, if I could have done everything I wanted to do, I would have had a much easier year. I just said no, this is how it's going to go. Shut up, sit down, enjoy the ride, but it wasn't like it was much more.

Speaker 2: 1:20:58

You can't run a lodge like that. We've seen that in the district. You cannot run a lodge like that because this is a volunteer organization. It just does not work that way, correct? And some people had to learn that the hard way.

Speaker 1: 1:21:12

There are people that I saw not make it through their entire year as a master of a lodge because their lodge essentially revolted against that because of the leadership or lack of leadership that they tried to instill. And you know, that's again. That goes back to the culture of the lodge, because how does somebody get to be master and not know that that's not going to work and the only way is if you're in a culture that keeps that kind of thinking going.

Speaker 1: 1:21:45

It doesn't happen. Just one person. This is a that's probably been a problem for generations of officers in that lodge for that person to get to that place. But you can always write that ship. You can always turn it around. All it takes is some guys that want to move in a positive direction and they can do it Like you said in D-M-L-A.

Speaker 1: 1:22:05

D-M-L-A is whatever the kids want it to be and, honestly, a lodge is like that. A lodge is whatever the people running it want it to be and the brothers that show up want it to be. It can be anything and you can change it anytime. All you got to do is stand up and use your voice.

Speaker 2: 1:22:23

Be the change you want to see. That's right, and be the change that you want to see. If you want to see something, do it. If you want to see Mason's meeting outside of lodge and having a couple of cigars and some beverages with each other, well, do it. Plan it, have it, have at it. If you want to grab a bunch of kids and go bowling on a Saturday, well, figure out how you're going to pay for it and go do it. It's pretty simple when you think about it, it really is.

Speaker 1: 1:22:53

Yeah, you just have to make the decision to do it like you said. So tell me a little. I mean, we got probably like four minutes left here. I'm already 30. Oh, do we have we been going for a minute? It's an hour and 30 almost, and I only asked for an hour of Tim's time, so I'm like way past now what he gave us.

Speaker 2: 1:23:13

Oh, you're good, I still got 20 minutes until I got to leave for lodge. Yeah, I got to just throw a tie on, so I'm going to get.

Speaker 1: 1:23:19

I really want an enter apprentice degree tonight, I believe sit on the sidelines.

Speaker 2: 1:23:24

I think yeah. That's funny, that you think that I am. I think I'm either sitting on the sidelines or I might be a conductor, but I think there's only two candidates, I don't know. So there's a chance. There's a chance I could be conducting, but I think I'm on the sidelines.

Speaker 1: 1:23:40

Tech me and let me know what chair they put you in when you get there.

Speaker 2: 1:23:43

No, no, no. They've had several practices. They did a good job on this one. I think it's going to be a candlelight degree. They got dispensation so they can do all that, so they better have all the chairs filled. I would think that would be step one.

Speaker 1: 1:23:57

So you're 29,. You're past master of a lot. You're now in a leadership role in. D-mallet. What do you do for fun? What are your hobbies? How do you because it's a lot of pressure free missionary can be a second job when you take it as seriously as you do, so how? Do you compress. What do you do for fun?

Speaker 2: 1:24:21

Believe it or not, it's a. I got so much stuff going on that sometimes D-Mallet is what I need, because it makes me focus on something else and get my mind off of what I got going on with all the other crap. So it's like, like I said, last year, last year was a rough year for me personally. Lodge was the only thing right that I had going on.

Speaker 2: 1:24:41

So it was a nice escape for me Masonry even though it is a job, it's a nice escape for me. But I play pool every Wednesday. I have a pool table in my house. I actually play every day just about. I play on a league every Wednesday. Occasionally I get together with some friends and run Dungeons and Dragons, that kind of thing. Actually, the picture right there was from a campaign I was in. I was a character in and a brother, aaron Rowan. He's the senior no, he's the junior steward of Venice Lodge. He ran a Sunday game and that was. I think I was in that campaign for two years and yeah, so he had those made for all of the players at him. That's so cool.

Speaker 1: 1:25:26

I'm just so happy to hear of him because I'm old and I wasn't even the original generation that played Dungeons and Dragons. Like I was playing second and third edition rules by the time I was playing. Like you know, that started in the 70s I think, when I was born, and it just makes me so happy to see that it's still going on. That people still get together Dungeons and Dragons is no joke. Okay, you gotta learn a lot to be effective at Dungeons and Dragons. There's a lot of rules. Well, I mean sure you can go up and role play, ha ha. But if you wanna be a good player, you need to know what a constitution check is. You need to know there's a lot of things.

Speaker 2: 1:26:08

But it's fun too. I mean it depends on your table. There's different dynamics for every table. It is, you know, if you wanna go and play competitive D&D, yes, you need to know all that. But if you just wanna have a good time on a Friday night with a bunch of your friends and goof around and maybe kill a couple of goblins or kill a dragon or something or save a damsel, you know, I've actually had nights where you didn't kill anything, where we you know they played different types of poker using dice and it was a role play kind of session stuff. I mean, it's whatever you want it to be, you know. So it doesn't.

Speaker 2: 1:26:40

You don't necessarily have to know all the rules. It's my job as a DM to know the core rules and know how things are supposed to work and help the characters that maybe cause. You know, I get a lot of new people, fleet People's never played before. Help them. You know I need you to make a constitution saving throw. Where is that? Okay, go to constitution, go to saving throws, go to constitution. It's plus five, whatever. Roll a D20 and add the five to it, it's. You know stuff like that. So, yeah, you don't necessarily have to know all the core rules. It's nice if you eventually, you know, pick up on them. But no, I don't think it's a requirement to know.

Speaker 1: 1:27:14

So when he said he's a DM, that means dungeon master, that means he's the guy running the show. He basically has to role play. For all of the non-player characters that you're gonna encounter, whether the good guys or bad guys, you're playing them and you're ultimately deciding what happens to every character good or bad. You make the final decision on that, so it's a big job to take on being a dungeon master.

Speaker 2: 1:27:42

I like to do it a little differently. So the way I see it is, the players are building the story. I'm just facilitating, I'm setting the setting, I'm putting the setting in, but they're deciding what they're doing. And you know, I run kind of a sandbox, I don't run a railroad, you guys are going down this road now. And you know, do you go left or right? No, what do you guys do?

Speaker 1: 1:28:02

You know this is what you guys see.

Speaker 2: 1:28:03

What are you doing? It's more along those lines.

Speaker 1: 1:28:06

That makes for a much more enjoyable experience for everybody, because they feel like they're creating something together.

Speaker 2: 1:28:13

But it's a price. Different strokes for different folks, though Not everybody likes that.

Speaker 1: 1:28:16

It's much harder for a dungeon master to run again that way, because it's much easier to just say I have every encounter planned out and this is what we're gonna do for four hours and do it. It's much harder to not know what you're getting into. You have a rough idea.

Speaker 2: 1:28:31

Probably you got a point in, so it's actually easier for me for that reason, right. So I tried running the modules and my problem was not remembering who this guy's name was. That's important because on this other page you know, in a next chapter you got to know who that guy's name is because they got to find it and all that. Yeah, knowing all that and trying to remember all that it's a watch, because your characters are gonna pick option C either way. Any way you do so I'd rather it just be more of an improv base than so.

Speaker 2: 1:29:03

I try not to over plan. I have ideas of what my guys are gonna run into and I'll have things that maybe I can move around, but they're still gonna run into this thing even if you go that way. But whatever, that's more along the lines of what I do. I don't do the plan a whole dungeon thing where it's nothing but a dungeon crawl and you gotta know where every trap is and every monster. I have done it. I hate it. So it's a lot of work I tend to. I'm more of an open world kind of guy. I sell.

Speaker 1: 1:29:34

That's fun and I noticed that now they give bonuses for role playing, like it wasn't like that when I played. You were expected to role play, depending on your master, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:29:44

Depending on the dungeon master, oh, depending on the dungeon so you can do well, yeah, it's inspiration is what it's typically called. You can do a lot of different things to incentivize it, Like what I've done. Instead of just giving somebody inspiration, saying, instead of saying I wanna hit that guy with my axe, I'm gonna do a backflip over this guy, Do that. If you're explaining to me how you're getting there, how you are doing that, then I'll give you an extra. It might be a harder role. You might have an acrobatics check on top of it, but if you land it well, then you get extra amount of damage on top of it, depending on how cool the thing is that you did. So.

Speaker 1: 1:30:23

There's different ways you can incentivize role play to your players as a DM, I think the best way is to do it yourself right, like when you play a character, you play him with an accent, you play him like you do something, and that pulls the beat.

Speaker 2: 1:30:39

The old master of disguise, become another person. Mantra yeah, and for me I always like.

Speaker 1: 1:30:45

I'm drawn from movie characters that I like, right Like I might have a Scottish accent and I'm doing, like you know, some kind of a. What was his name? He played James Bond. I always imagine that guy is like.

Speaker 2: 1:31:01

Sean Connery, I would do?

Speaker 1: 1:31:03

Sean Connery? They had no idea, but that's what I was like, but you pull from your life and things and you kind of like you know method.

Speaker 2: 1:31:11

Acting, I guess, is what they call it. Right, but no other than that. So pool D&D and I like to hang out with some friends of mine and have a beverage or two on occasion, that kind of thing. I'm pretty simple. Nowadays, I don't have a whole lot of time for a lot of things.

Speaker 1: 1:31:29

So You're between work and family and Mason Rear. You don't have a lot of time for hobbies.

Speaker 2: 1:31:36

Like I said, I got a couple that I do and hyper fixate on them. But I have ADHD, so I also do martial arts and stuff and so I got a million other things, but it's like what am I focusing on this week?

Speaker 1: 1:31:46

I didn't know that.

Speaker 2: 1:31:48

What's the file? Yup, well, I'm in a couple. I'm in Roku Kempo through a master out of Jacksonville that I started with when I was a little kid and I still talk to and then Worshiple Hampton Krimi teaches a sanguku-bujitsu Rinmei and I was in his class for a while and I still practice some of his kata and stuff, even though we're not meeting on any regular basis anymore. But yeah, a couple of different ones, all Okinawan K for the most part.

Speaker 1: 1:32:18

So you're training, stand up and grappling oh.

Speaker 2: 1:32:21

Yes, and I've done a little bit of small circle jiu-jitsu, which goes hand in hand with that. And then you know, I've done a very small amount of modern Arnese or Kali. It's a different form of Kali, Filipino stick fighting kind of thing. I'm not, I suck at it. I tell people my IQ drops 30 points every time I grab one of those sticks. When I'm at a seminar it's like, but I feel like I could do better than just the random person that maybe never picked up a stick before Right.

Speaker 1: 1:32:52

I mean, that's kind of the key to martial arts. That's what I tell people. They think, oh, you're deadly weapons hands. It's like no, I could definitely beat somebody that's never trained before you know that's the advantage of training You're better.

Speaker 2: 1:33:07

You're hopefully going to be better than that.

Speaker 1: 1:33:09

Right, you put me in a competition with other guys that have been training and it's going to look pretty pathetic.

Speaker 2: 1:33:16

Right, yeah, no, I'm out on that. I don't do turn, I'm out.

Speaker 1: 1:33:19

Now I've also seen a lot of pictures of you in a leather vest, with a widow's son. Oh yes, so I'm assuming you ride motorcycles.

Speaker 2: 1:33:30

I am a motorcycle enthusiast. I do have an Indian chieftain in the garage that I do get to take out from time to time, and I haven't been doing that as much recently, so it wasn't at the forefront but yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:33:43

I just used to see. That's how I used to see pictures of you online.

Speaker 2: 1:33:46

You're always doing widow's son stuff before I knew it Right, yeah, yeah, that was before I was master. You know I had a lot more time to do all that I do love it I get to go to. I forgot about a meeting yesterday. I still feel bad about that. I missed it, but I'm starting to get back involved with that too Now that I'm out of the East and I get a little bit more time as far as that goes.

Speaker 1: 1:34:08

That's a whole nother group we've got to talk about one day the widow's sons.

Speaker 2: 1:34:11

Fascinating. Widow's sons is a fun, fun group. I like that. I like the widow's sons a lot. A lot of great brothers in them. Motor Corps is also a lot of great brothers there. A lot of the same brothers, a lot of similarities between the groups. One's a standalone that's technically not a dependent body at all and not a Masonic body at all. It's just a body with masons in it. Then you know motor corps or shrine units.

Speaker 1: 1:34:41

No, I appreciate you giving me your time and coming on the show again to talk about Dean Malay, which I know is something that's important to you and has been for a long time.

Speaker 1: 1:34:49

Oh yeah, Hopefully people learn something about it from the show and hopefully if they know somebody that has kids between the ages of 12 and 21, they'll send them to beadmalayorg when they can learn about Dean Malay. I'm sure on that website they can even inquire about joining a chapter near them and hopefully get involved. You've done a lot for a 29 year old in Masonry, especially Been the master of the lodge. You know you've been in several dependent bodies and now you're in a leadership role in one of them.

Speaker 2: 1:35:27

I think the term you're looking for is I'm a sucker. Yeah, no, I get it.

Speaker 1: 1:35:31

I don't know what the word I'm gonna use. I'm gonna use a leader. You're a leader and I appreciate you. You have a platform here where you can speak to masons all over the world. We gave your email address, so I'm gonna encourage people to reach out to you with questions they might have, whether it's about being a master of the lodge or an officer, or being involved in Dean Malay or any of that stuff. They should say you know, you have a lot of experience in this area.

Speaker 2: 1:36:00

So I hope they read there's certain things that I'm better at than others. Man, I had a good year. I did my best. But if you're looking about the guys that know all about all the reports that you gotta do and that aspect of being a master, I would direct your attention to somebody else because I had a mentor that was helping me the entire time get through that. But as far as managing people, I'm halfway decent at doing that a lot of the time and managing events that kind of thing I'm decent at. And Dean Malay. I'm happy to answer any questions that can with Dean Malay too.

Speaker 1: 1:36:39

We have to go, but I wanna give you the opportunity to speak last. Is there anything that you'd like to share with the listeners? That are probably masons wisdom for them that we can leave them with on?

Speaker 2: 1:36:50

the way out. Once again, support Masonic youth. They are our future. Without them, what do we have? We are not in this situation where we have enough members to where we don't need to build the future, and we'll never will be. So find a local Dean Malay chapter and do what you can, whether it's financial support, whether it's just showing up and being an extra hand, whether that's helping with if you have a young man in your life and get him involved, and not just Dean Malay, but also Job's daughters and the rainbow girls. Look into those as well. I don't know as much about those two so I won't talk too much on it, but they are also great organizations that need help as well.

Speaker 1: 1:37:30

Well, thank you. Thank you for being on the show, thank you for the year, thanks for having me. I'm glad together, everything that you did for me, and I hope you come back.

Speaker 2: 1:37:43

Yeah, brother, I appreciate you, man. Anytime Give me a call, Tim for.

Speaker 1: 1:37:46

Don. This is it for on the level podcast. Join us next time. See ya, oin.