On The Level Podcast
Some people think Freemasonry is on the decline, not if we have anything to say about it! Join On the Level Podcast as we explore that Esoteric side of Freemasonry. We talk about the inner workings of our Fraternity, how to apply it's teachings to your every day life to become a better man, and general current events. Join our host and guests as we explore Freemasonry together and bring our ancient craft into the modern age!
On The Level Podcast
Barry D. Hart: From Archaeologist to Financial Planner and Masonic Leader
What if your career path took a sharp detour from archaeology to financial planning? Join us on the latest episode of the On the Level Podcast as Right Worshipful Barry D. Hart returns to share his unique journey and the rich tapestry of his multi-generational family business, Hart Insurance. Barry's story isn't just about business; it's about family. We touch on his semi-retirement role, his son Jake's leadership in the family business, and the extraordinary reading skills of his grandson, who is on the spectrum. Plus, meet our new co-host, Matt Stone from Turkey Creek Lodge, who provides a fresh perspective on Freemasonry and his own path to becoming a Master Mason.
Ever wondered how someone transitions from the hands-on world of field archaeology to the stable yet complex realm of financial planning? Our guest takes us through his early life in Georgia, his academic pursuits in sociology and anthropology, and his hands-on experiences in archaeology. Discover the personal motivations that led him to shift careers for the sake of his growing family and how he applied his analytical skills to excel at New York Life. Hear the stories that shaped him, from the physical demands of archaeological digs to the intellectual challenges of financial planning, all while revealing the rich history of Georgia that influenced his journey.
In a chapter that speaks to resilience and adaptability, we explore the impact of smoking and the strength it took to quit amidst life's challenges. Our guest shares captivating anecdotes from his career, including the stark contrast between Hollywood's portrayal of archaeology and its real-life demands. Learn about his current hobbies like archery, motorcycling, and playing guitar, and how these passions help him navigate the health issues that prompted his career pivot. The episode delves into the camaraderie and purpose found in Freemasonry, the importance of Masonic rituals and funeral ceremonies, and the ongoing quest for unity in a polarized world. Don't miss this heartfelt and insightful conversation that spans career, family, and the enduring bonds of community.
#freemasonry #bluelodge #podcast #masonic #brotherhood
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 greatness within each of us. I have you now All right. There we go. There. It is Welcome back. Welcome back. Hold the applause. Welcome back to On the Level Podcast. Today we have a very special guest with us. He's been with us before, so you've heard his name and you know who he is, but we didn't really get deep enough into his story, so I'm hoping that we can get there today. If not, he'll come on again. Welcome to the podcast, right worshipful, barry D Hart.
Speaker 2:Thank you, worshipful master.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, that's for you, welcome back.
Speaker 2:That one guy in the crowd can clap.
Speaker 1:There's two.
Speaker 3:They just kind of like move their hands around around.
Speaker 1:We have to be clever. We have no budget. Welcome back. You came on last year sometime, I think.
Speaker 2:I think so.
Speaker 1:When it was Fred and Chris and now it's just Chris and Barry so happy to have you back. There's a lot of things we didn't get to talk about. Last time, when you were on, we talked a lot about generally Freemasonry, like in general. We talked about what you think about, like what's going on in Freemasonry today and some ideas you had for how things can maybe get better. But you know, what I really want to do is learn more about who Barry D heart is, and I think that you have a crazy I mean I don't mean crazy in a bad way. You have a very interesting life. You've lived a crazy interesting life and I think it's fascinating the stuff that you've done and that your interests, that you're interested in, the things you've spent your your life kind of like exploring, and I don't think most people know about some of the things you've been involved in in your life. There are things that a lot of people who know you know Heart, heart Insurance is the company that you are currently semi-retired from correct, or are you fully retired now?
Speaker 2:I'm still on a consult basis if Jake needs some help, and I also am very good at Medicare and I have to recertify every year, so I just do it because Jake can do it, but I already know how, so I help people out if I can.
Speaker 1:So he's talking about his son, jake Hart. Jacob Hart is also a member of Sarasota Lodge, number 147. Correct Also has children and is a third generation Hart in the Hart and Hart financial business. Is that right?
Speaker 2:That's right. My dad started with New York Life in 1965. I was 11 years old he started in 1965? Yeah, 1965. And worked with them until well, until he was 63. So and then I took over, and Jake's taken over for the last three or four years, Doing a great job.
Speaker 1:And I actually I think I was there in his office one day and he had his son there in the office. So it's like kind of crazy because you get to see the next generation coming up behind him and I can tell that he's going to be another heart in the heart and heart chain. Even when he was a baby he's a good guy.
Speaker 2:He's a little on the spectrum, so five years old, highly self-sufficient, but he's a handful.
Speaker 1:I have a grandson who's about that age, who's also on the spectrum and he's in all kinds of therapy because he can't really speak or communicate very well. Is that the case for your grandson?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, he's coming around. Speech is finally coming on. The kid reads man. He's five years old and he can read.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But talking's coming along and he's doing really good on it.
Speaker 1:Oh, he's talking fine.
Speaker 2:Yes, he is talking at five.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, I mean, he told me that he has a sister who basically does all the translating for him, which made it easier for him not have to learn to talk that much.
Speaker 2:I think that happens. It happened with my grandson from my other son, kerry, who's a member of Venice Lodge. He had an older sister who understood his whatever he was doing. You know he had mumbled, she had translated and I think that slowed him up for a couple of years. He's bright as he can be ferocious reader at nine years old.
Speaker 1:So you know it.
Speaker 2:just everybody's got their own schedule, yeah.
Speaker 1:It looks like we were joined by Matt Stone, so I don't know if right wishful that you probably know Matt Stone, matt.
Speaker 2:How are you doing?
Speaker 3:How are you, sir? I'm good.
Speaker 1:Matt's actually been on the podcast like three times and he's joining as a full co-host, so it's going to be on the level podcast, with Matt and Chris here moving forward.
Speaker 2:Welcome, Matt. Thank you, sir.
Speaker 1:Matt's from Turkey Creek Lodge and he was just made a Master Mason with a bunch of our members who went up to help him get raised. Sean Cooney and some of the other guys went just last year, so I don't think you're even one year Mason yet, right?
Speaker 3:No, I was raised on December 9th. And then they immediately were like hey, by the way, you're the junior deacon and catechism instructor.
Speaker 1:That sounds about right. Yep, sounds about right. And you're the plumber. I think I saw some photos.
Speaker 3:look like you were doing some plumbing work this weekend. Yeah, I had to replace two toilets. I swear those things are from 1972 because I think that's whenever that building was built. Uh, so they were. They were looking pretty rough well, we were.
Speaker 1:We actually just got started with right worshipful barry b heart and he was. We were talking a little bit about his family, but I really want to go to the beginning for you. Can you tell us a little bit about where you grew up and what it was like for you? Did you have brothers and sisters? What happened to you and your child that formed who you are today?
Speaker 2:I was born in Pensacola, Florida. Both of my parents were in the Navy at the time and they both got out. Three months later we moved to Macon, Georgia. My dad was born and raised in a half later, and my brother a year and a half after that. Apparently, my parents were on the rhythm. They had a good schedule going. Yeah Well, good for them. I mean, that's pretty tough, right, a year and a half apart.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you, basically my boys are 11 and a half months apart, and it's Irish twins.
Speaker 2:You know, is that what they call it.
Speaker 1:Irish twins.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Irish twins. Really good for them.
Speaker 3:Irish twins are just two shots lined up.
Speaker 2:Well, which leads to the other set.
Speaker 1:That's right, apparently his parents did that once every 12 months.
Speaker 2:Pause and effect. Yeah, exactly, my dad in effect. Yeah, exactly so. My dad was a traveling salesman in Macon. He'd leave the house on Monday and come back Friday night. Oh, wow. My mom's raising three kids by herself, which was a job, I imagine. We wound up moving.
Speaker 1:I'm sure you were the easiest of the three to raise right, oh, yeah, yeah, well, you know. You're the oldest, so you had to like also help out probably.
Speaker 2:It's less than you know how it is when you're the oldest. I mean when my first child was born, he was never going to eat at McDonald's and never have sweets in his life. Well by the time the third one comes around, you're thinking well, none of that killed the first one, so it must be okay, we do let our guard down a little bit.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and I didn't know what I was doing when my first kid was born, what I was doing when my first kid was born. I mean, nobody takes parenting classes, unfortunately, or they take them too late once they've screwed up, and I know that because I taught parenting classes for about 10 years.
Speaker 1:What I didn't know that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I got a degree in sociology, slash anthropology and did wind up teaching parenting classes. We'll get to that, yeah. So my dad left the building supply and went with New York Life in 1965. We moved to Swainsboro, georgia, a little town about 90 miles west of Savannah, and then moved to Savannah, lived there for about a year and a half and then to Augusta, georgia, where I graduated from high school in 1972, and then went to Georgia Southern College. It was a college then. It's a university now, starting in 1972. Got a degree there sociology, anthropology the very first anthropology degree out of Georgia Southern, really, yeah. And then went to graduate school at University of Florida studying archaeology and gave that up I'm sure comps and a thesis were masters in archaeology. But I had life hit me in the face and realized if I wanted to pursue archaeology I was going to have to get a doctorate. And I also realized that there were people that were paying to do archaeology. I was doing archaeology to be paid.
Speaker 2:And I think I was pretty good at it, but there were people paying to do it and I had a wife and a kid on the way and started looking for some other options.
Speaker 1:So well, I'm just really curious what gets in your head that you go? You're going for a degree in sociology, which is really the study of people, right, correct? I mean, you could have been into psychology, which is like why do people do the things they do? But you're more interested in the history of people, I guess is why you get into sociology, right? It's like more more historical than it is like the study of how do I help someone today in their life which is kind of like chiastry, I think sociology is.
Speaker 2:Maybe they're studying what's happening, but sociologists are definitely working in real world, right. Archaeology for sure you're looking at dead people. Archaeology for sure you're looking at dead people, but anthropology, which archaeology is a subdiscipline, is also looking at living people and how they're acting, because there's definitely more than one field of anthropology out there.
Speaker 1:Sure, but you had settled in the end on archaeology as your interest. So what got you interested in archaeology?
Speaker 2:Blatantly honest. They had a field school at Georgia Southern and so in a field school you signed up for the quarter, but all you did every day, we went out. The first field school I did we went to an Indian site that I'd found on the Agichi river, talked to the farmer on the property and, uh, spent an entire quarter out there doing archeology work. We mapped the site, we started digging. Uh, you know the whole thing. So learning how to be an archeologist Wow, and that was know the whole thing. So learning how to be an archaeologist Wow, and that was fun, man, that was an awful lot of fun. I wound up taking a second field school in Riceboro, georgia. So we left on Monday, went and rented a house in this little town near Savannah, georgia. We were at an old rice plantation. Out in the swamp. I've seen some pretty bad mosquitoes.
Speaker 1:It gets hot down there too.
Speaker 2:I grew up in Georgia it's also a super weird thing.
Speaker 3:My dad's family is from and they still live up. There is in Bostwick where they have the Cotton Gin Festival, right. So you think of Georgia, you think of pecans, cotton and peaches and that's about it. But no, you're like oh, they have a rice field in a random location in.
Speaker 2:Georgia pre Revolutionary War. So rice plantations were the industry in the colonies, especially in the South.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:So all of those barrier islands at one time. They're now their national seashores, but they had rice plantations on them. Rice was big back in the 1600s 1700s. I did not know that. Yeah, I'm talking to a man with an archaeology degree.
Speaker 1:Sos, I did not know that. Yeah, I can have a man with an archaeology degree, so he's going to teach us something. Yeah, really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that was a lot of fun and I realized I had an aptitude for it and got accepted at graduate school in Florida, and so that's how that happened and it literally made my living. It wasn't much of a living for seven years doing archaeology work Either you know, working in a lab while I was at school, or in the summer I was usually on a dig somewhere which would be North Florida, south Georgia. I did some work in Alabama, mississippi, and this would have all been in the 70s. Late 70s, early 80s.
Speaker 1:Late 70s, early 80s. So this is okay. And then you give it up and you get into the. You put the tie on and you're like, okay, I give up, I have to go be a normal guy now, and you get into the dad's business.
Speaker 2:Okay, let's make that a little bit better. Here's what I was thinking is. You know, my dad goes hunting any damn time he wants to.
Speaker 1:Ah, and so do you. I see, I see what drew you now.
Speaker 2:So when you're your own boss, you can take all the time you want, but you also learn quickly that that might not be a really good idea. But that was the attraction. And you know, at the end of the day, new York Life everybody thinks life insurance and, believe me, we are the biggest and highest rated life insurance company out there. But we're all into financial planning as well. And that I saw, as I didn't know crap about money and I figured, well, this would be a really good way to learn about it, and I did.
Speaker 2:I did so when I came into the insurance field. You know I had some questions, but here's what I liked about it is I got to help people and I did a lot. I mean you deliver a tax free check for one hundred thousand or a million dollars. It does an awful lot for the surviving family. So that was that. And then I mean I've got every designation I think known to financial planners and that was fun. So I started with Chartered Life Underwriter at CLU. You'll see it on some guys' cards. That was 10 college courses, and then I added Chartered Financial Consultant and there's about seven of them and I like that. I like learning yeah.
Speaker 1:So you got out of archaeology in the early, early 80s.
Speaker 2:we'll say I got married in 85, and that was the end of my official. I was actually one of the two state archaeologists for the Department of Transportation in Georgia, at the time living in Atlanta, and met my first wife there, and we got married and the next day moved to florida, the reason being my mom had just had a heart attack the day before her 50th birthday. She was uh, that's young, big, yeah, smoker, you know and uh, that's my age now she was 49 yeah damn, I had a heart attack at 48 and a bypass at 49, being a secondhand smoker.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we didn't have much choice in that when we were kids, I mean it wasn't uncommon. I mean for me even, you know, and I'm a little younger than you but it wasn't uncommon for me to be driving to school in the morning in the snow, with the windows rolled up and my mom smoking a cigarette and I'm dying the whole way to school. Right, she's like she doesn't care. Nobody knew about it, nobody even thought this might not be good. They just they just did it. Everyone did it.
Speaker 2:You know she tried to quit after that heart attack and I'm pretty sure the stress might have killed her. She lived 13 years. And oddly enough, a week after my mom quit, my mom died, my dad quit and never smoked again. It's just and he tried. Man he would get so close and my mouth would make his life so miserable He'd have to go back, but he quit and then wound up marrying a woman that smoked but never went back, so that's a bad thing.
Speaker 1:That's strength right there, to be around and not fall back into it.
Speaker 2:I know I don't think he liked it. He got close to quitting a couple of times while she was alive, but uh so when did that work? Both ways you were smoking too, right I didn't I quit smoking cigarettes when I was 22?
Speaker 1:oh, early on or didn't, didn't like it anyway. So 1981 indiana jones comes 1981, indiana Jones comes out. Yeah, this doesn't make you want to stay an archaeologist?
Speaker 2:Well, I was already an archaeologist Right, and it was a fun movie.
Speaker 1:And then 1984, the second Indiana Jones comes out. Now it's really popular.
Speaker 3:I know, and you're like, this might not be for me- I'm just really curious how many underground Nazis right Worsh has punched in the face or shot in the street or something like that.
Speaker 2:So there's two problems here. One is I never got attacked by a huge ball or monsters or anything. So, my experience wasn't quite the one. His was Actually. There's parts of that that you have to appreciate. Nobody tried to kill me. I take that back. I got shot at once when I was an archaeologist. But other than that, and I don't think he was trying to kill me, I think he was trying to scare me.
Speaker 3:But he ends up giving me all the bones. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:So yeah, indiana Jones was, was great and had you know what. At the end of the day, a field archaeologist is a ditch digger yeah you did ditches very slow and very neatly, but you got a shovel in your hands so uh in 1973 I came down to Sarasota.
Speaker 2:I had a cousin who owned a plumbing company and wasn't married, didn't have any kids and my dad's going. And it was right after my first year of college. So my grades had gone from A's to B's, to B's to C's, to C's, to D's and my dad's thinking, well, maybe you don't need to have a college degree. So I came down here and I'm living out of this guy's office on the weekends and on Monday morning we loaded up, went to Clearwater and we were laying plumbing for a trailer park up there. So I just followed a backhoe 12 to 14 hours a day just throwing three feet of dirt on the pipe. Every now and then I get to do something else, but living out of a motel, eating out of a truck stop. And I went back to college and made Dean's List.
Speaker 1:You're like yeah, no.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm never picking up a shovel again is what I said. And then I got a degree in archaeology.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, like even now I watch documentaries about Egypt, for example, and you watch the archaeologists and the guys running the show aren't digging ditches, they're sitting looking at maps, figuring stuff out. You know, I feel like there's probably a hierarchy to that whole archaeology situation. You start out digging but you wind up in an office, somewhere you know, talking on TV.
Speaker 2:Well, the feel part's fine. I mean digging's digging and it's hot and there's mosquitoes and there's this and that, but it's fun. I mean you get to go to different places. You never know what you're going to find. Yeah, that's exciting. So that's kind of cool.
Speaker 3:What would be even worse is they're actually out there digging all the stuff. So they do this with the vehicle shows as well, like on Motor Trend and Truck U and stuff like that is they have actual mechanics that are there working, but the hosts of the show they'll like leave a bolt, like quarter turn just barely in the thread to be like, oh, we're gonna unbolt this thing, and then the host of the show goes over there and cracks it off in a quarter turn.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, it's prepped yeah yeah, yeah, they don't show him breaking his fingers trying to like oh.
Speaker 3:Their hands are spotless at the end of the day, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I mean what really happens is I mean, you look at the archaeology world and I haven't looked at it for a long time there were some contractual archaeologists out there, but a lot of that work tends to go to colleges because they they get funding right. Well, they've got professors that know what they're doing. They've got students Cheap labor, they do the work right, what they're paying you? To be able to do the work. It was fun and I don't miss it. Oddly enough, I do not belong to the local archaeology club.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:I'm under strict orders from my doctor not to use a shovel. Now, believe it or not, my wrist bones are—I broke both of my wrists when I was 28. And between that and arthritis, they're coming back to haunt me, so I had to give up golf. You know, my passions other than masonry are archery and motorcycles, and I play guitar, Entertain myself, irritate my friends. But you need your wrists for all three of those things, and the only way to cure what I've got is to start fusing stuff, and I'm going to put that off as long as I can.
Speaker 1:I know it wasn't my installation. It might have been just the year before my installation, but it was an installation. You had a bike accident and you had one or both of your wrists were injured in that accident.
Speaker 2:It was my left hand. Yeah, it was just the left.
Speaker 1:Okay, but you had braces on and I'm sure you shouldn't have been doing that installation, but you did it anyways and I'm pretty sure you went hunting right afterwards with your bow with that injury. So you know, some of the stuff might be self-inflicted. A little bit it seemed like to me.
Speaker 2:Well, the whole broken hand was self-inflicted. I was riding my bicycle. I'd ridden about 10 miles and I came up on a friend who I actually wanted to talk to, and I ride a motorcycle, right. So when you ride a motorcycle, the last thing you do is you pull in your front brake with your left, you pull in your clutch with your left hand.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's the front brake on a bicycle and I pulled that thing in and I went face down right over the handlebars and got my hand up under my face that accident should have been so much worse than it was and got out of there with one little break on a bone.
Speaker 1:So that was pretty, but you went bow hunting with that broken wrist, didn't you?
Speaker 2:It was so If it doesn't hurt, he told me I could do it if it didn't hurt. Hey, I was in Alabama in February. We're going out Monday morning. Everybody else is out in the stand. I waited until the bathrooms cleared, come out of the shower. It rained all day. The day before I hit the second step on the porch and my feet went to the sky. First thing to land was my back. I knew I'd broke at least one rib. I hunted until Thursday and and finally, when I got to go to the emergency room, it was indeed a broken rib.
Speaker 1:But they kept hunting anyways first of all.
Speaker 2:I mean you're already there that's exactly right, and you're gonna hurt whether you're sitting there on the couch watching tv or you're in a deer stand. So I was the slowest deer hunter that week but I kept going. Plus, when somebody takes you to their club and it takes seven hours to get there, maybe nine hours to get there you don't want to tell them you've got to go home the first day. You're never coming back.
Speaker 3:Well, you're going to get razzed for it, because you're going to be the guy that had to leave because you bent a fingernail.
Speaker 2:Exactly right. So I hunted and it all worked out.
Speaker 1:What generation are you? Are you generation Born in 54th? I'm a boomer. You're a boomer, okay, but you're not a typical boomer based on what I know about you. Maybe we're all like this, that story.
Speaker 2:But you're not a typical boomer based on what I know about you.
Speaker 1:Well, that story you just told isn't typical boomer activity, you know. And then I compare that to the later generations who you know just a bruise on the ribs would have caused them to go to the emergency room immediately and stay there for two months.
Speaker 3:You, on the other hand, were like get out of my way.
Speaker 1:I got to be. You probably climbed 20 feet into a deer stand with a freshly broken rib and sat up there all day and did it day after day. Like there's generational differences here, that attitude doesn't exist today generally.
Speaker 2:It doesn't necessarily exist with my generation.
Speaker 1:It doesn't. I think you're an outlier in the boomer group. That's not a typical boomer mentality.
Speaker 2:I'm outrunning my honey buddies and I'm older than them Not all of them.
Speaker 3:See, this is the man that was the up and downhill both ways in the snow. Yeah, for sure, but he actually did it. Yeah for sure, but he actually did it. Yeah, I actually didn't complain either. Probably not.
Speaker 2:You know, I visited my old hometown, swainsboro, georgia, recently and when I was in the third grade I rode my bicycle to the school. It was about three and a half four miles. I don't think I'll let my kid do that today. I know most parents aren't letting their kids do that today, but back then that's just the way it was. We left the house in the morning and just had to be home by dark.
Speaker 1:We are live streaming, by the way, guys, so we had a guest just give you a thumbs up when you were telling that story.
Speaker 3:So somebody's live streaming you Awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's crazy. I mean, to me it's. It's crazy and, and you know, I think that your interest, maybe, and the interesting life you've had, or what separate you from, not your generation pretty much every generation like you're a unique guy. Um, you're what? 70 now, something like that. Yeah, just turned 70 and I spent time with you and in my mind I imagine you just a couple years older than me. I was just telling you this the other day. It's hard for me to fathom. You're 70 years old, um, and because you are still going hard and strong, like you and I have done lectures together and you're helping me your mind is sharp and your body's still strong. So it's. You know, what is the secret? Is it just keep going, no matter what? Like, how do you stay strong and so active mentally and physically at 70?
Speaker 1:I don't sit still well, tell me it's a lot of this stuff and make me happy.
Speaker 2:It may very well have been I mean, there's certainly been that involved at some point but I just I don't sit still. Well, I've got to be doing something. Even when I'm sitting, when I'm watching TV, I'm doing something else. I could be learning some catechism, or not that much anymore, because you already learned it all, but I'm learning in part for the actual past master's degree. So that's cool. That'll be my first time At Grand Lodge next week, yep.
Speaker 1:Oh nice.
Speaker 2:Come watch.
Speaker 1:I will, it should be entertaining. It should be entertaining, it should be there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm doing that, I'm trying to learn Spanish. It's been doing that for 70 years, still not there, but I can read it a lot better than I'm learning it. I mean, you know, I'm recognizing more and more.
Speaker 1:So, uh, that's fine yeah.
Speaker 2:But I just gotta be, you know, I gotta be doing something.
Speaker 1:So uh well. Freemasonry helps you with that right. It does kind of keep you busy.
Speaker 2:You know, uh, when I retired, freemasonry was there for me, and soon after I retired, my wife retired involuntarily, and I see the difference. I've got this and I've got other hobbies right. I'm a hunter, I'm an archer, I like to play music and sing. I've always got something to do. I ride a hunter, I'm an archer, I like to play music and sing. I've always got something to do. I ride a motorcycle. She's looking for things to do and I love that. I've got that family and I'm in a Masonic Lodge two to four nights a week.
Speaker 1:Masonic Lodge or affiliated body two to four nights a week, masonic Lodge or Affiliated Body. I mean, even now. You're a lodge instructor at Venice Lodge this year. Right, I am, you were a lodge instructor for me last year at Sarasota Lodge. I think you were also an instructor at two lodges last year, which wasn't a good idea.
Speaker 2:Don't do that. If you're listening out there. Don't do that, Don't do that.
Speaker 1:Don't do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it was fun and I'm doing a lecture Tuesday at Sarasota, the Fellowship right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I love that.
Speaker 1:I love that lecture and you and I have had some awesome experiences because we were blessed with having a lot of people that know the work in our district. So there's so many of us that in order for us to all stay active, we had to start doing them together. So you and I have done, I think, all three lectures together.
Speaker 2:I think we have yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we've even had third parties join us on occasion where we've had three-man lectures going on. It's a little crazy, you know. You think it'd be easier because you're saying less words. It's harder, really. I find it harder too, because it's so much easier to get lost. You got to know where the other guy is, yeah, and if he gets lost, oh boy. No, because it's so much easier to get lost. You got to know where the other guy is, yeah, and if he gets lost, oh boy.
Speaker 2:No, you both better know it pretty well, which is why I didn't mind doing it with you. I know you knew it. David Finkelstein and I did that the first time that I'd ever seen it done and he did a great job. It was fun. I like doing it. I'd ever seen it done and he did a great job. It was fun. I like feeling it, and I think people like seeing it that way.
Speaker 1:There's more energy. I feel like you get two different energies saying the words, and also the two guys are playing off each other a little bit too, and so I think it's probably more interesting to watch than just one guy droning on out there. But yeah, we've had some great times doing degree work, not just as lecturers, but even just putting on degrees together. I've enjoyed all the work I've done with you because you know the works, know well, you're able to play with it a little bit, and that's when it gets fun, when you're not like stressed out about oh God am am I gonna remember the next?
Speaker 1:word yeah and then you can actually enjoy it a little bit and try to have fun with it which is that to me, is the best times I've had in freemasonry is just playing, having fun, doing ritual work with guys that know it really well me too.
Speaker 2:I like it. Uh, I like it when it doesn't seem forced, yeah, when you know it well enough that it sounds like a conversation yeah, I will say, whenever it comes to degree work, one of the funniest ones I have ever seen play a role.
Speaker 3:We just put on a master mason degree two months ago I think it was a month two months ago and, uh, there was a right honorable who was there and he did the third ruffian. Uh, and the third ruffian. I mean this guy got crazy eyes and everything. So I mean he's there like this and he's, he's shaking and I'm I'm junior deacon and I am hysterical, I'm laughing so hard at this guy. I'm like it's the best thing ever, but I mean I don't know how much I can, I can say about that, but it was the best and he did the lecture and and I mean super over the top animated, just did a phenomenal job, walked in with this whole setup and did the whole lecture.
Speaker 1:So that's not impressive to Barry. And I Let me tell you about Barry Hart and what he's done. Please do, please do. Barry has sat in the East for the first section of the Master Mason degree. He was King Solomon. In the second section of the Master Mason degree. He used King Solomon in the second section of the Master Mason degree and he did the lecture in the Master Mason degree. Wow, yeah. So when he told me that, I was like interesting, so I had to one-up him. So I sat in the East for the first, king Solomon, for the second did the lecture, but I added the charge because I had to one-up him, of course. The second did the lecture, but I added the charge because I had to one-up him, of course, so we're talking to two guys that love ritual work.
Speaker 1:We'd both do the whole damn degree ourselves if we could, but they wouldn't let us you know I would do that again.
Speaker 2:But I loved it. But I'm pretty sure people were pretty sick of me by the end of that night.
Speaker 1:You know it is a lot of is a lot of you when you're doing all that stuff.
Speaker 2:It is, but it was fun and funny enough. I learned the charges when I went to the chairs at Venice and I need to go back and relearn those things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you just don't do them enough, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1:It's like some of those prayers you just got to do them or you're going to lose it yeah, I know, god bless anybody with a brown card that's you right. I got a brown card, yeah, but um, I can do the prayers and the charges, but the funeral ceremony I would be totally lost because I don't think I ever actually used it at a funeral and I don't know if anybody's using that one.
Speaker 2:Really, Most districts seem to have adopted something that's a hybrid of that. I know District 23 is. It was approved by Grand Lodge and it's really nice, but I don't know anybody that knows it.
Speaker 1:You got me into doing funeral work, so Barry is also the head of the funeral committee in the 23rd District, if not just for Sarasota Lodge 23rd District.
Speaker 2:If they need it. Manatee has a team Pantagorda's working on. I'm going down there Wednesday and working with them on putting together a team. So we'd love to have every lodge have a team, but if they don't, then we'll be there to help.
Speaker 3:So, wright-worstel, this is my first time meeting you, obviously, and we're what 30 minutes into this conversation? But 23rd District, that's in hillsborough, right, sarasota, that's sarasota, okay yeah, so we go as far north as palmetto.
Speaker 2:Okay, east is peace river and arcadia, south is panagorda okay, and you're a member of what lodge again? I was raised in 147 in 1988, but I'm past master of Venice Lodge in 2010 and past master of Sarasota in 2016.
Speaker 3:Okay, so it seems like you two are familiar with one another. You have a camaraderie. Obviously, all guys have known each other. For a minute, I'm curious, as accomplished as you are in masonry, what brought you to it to begin with? I mean, what brought you to the door?
Speaker 2:My dad was a mason. He was raised in Georgia but had moved to Florida and there was a group of guys that had a lot to do with building this town in the day Ron Foxworthy, jack Bryant, earl Collins. These were contractors. Jack and Ronnie were plumbing contractors, but they built a lot of those condos out there on the east and they were all Masons and they also built FCCI, the work comp company. So they and this is exactly how it happened my dad said meet me at this building. It turned out to be Sarasota Lines and I'm going. What's up? He goes, just be there and I show up and there's Kurt Eskew, who's another New York Life agent that I had met but I didn't really know, and a guy named Steve Weatherly. Again, I had never met Steve and they gave us petitions and said you're going to be Master Macy's and I'm going okay.
Speaker 1:Did you know what that meant at the time?
Speaker 2:I did some serious research, man. I mean, I did the paperwork but I didn't have to show up. So I went to the library.
Speaker 3:This is pre-internet, so this is before the days of oh, you guys are from another planet and all that other kind of garbage we hear about.
Speaker 2:There's still some of that crap out there. But if you researched it and you know how to discern, some people read stuff and everything they read is true and some people can tell you know. So I did my research, I felt comfortable with it. But but it was all based on the fact that I admired these men. And then when I got in it, right, it kind of takes off. So I joined the line in 1990. This is what my Masonic record tells me. I was junior steward in 90. I had to drop out of the line in 91. I was starting a new career, I had two kids in diapers and, unbeknownst to me, the Worshipful Master made me marshal. So I was marshal in 1991.
Speaker 2:I never sat in that chair and then there were times where I probably there were some years where I might not have walked in that building. But in 1990, those same guys, ron and Jack, got us started on the 20th degree in the Scottish Rite in Tampa. And then in 1990, I think that was 90, in 91 or 92, we took over the 14th degree. So that's where my ritual you know. I mean we did the catechisms and I thought they were hard as they could be, and then we learned this 20th degree and I thought it was the hardest thing I'd ever learned. And then we did the 14th and I'm going well, it can't get any harder than this Surprise surprise. But then, once you do it for a couple of years, it's not hard at all. Yeah, it's just there, right? I just did the 14th degree for the first time in six years and did the lecture and it was the best I've ever done Really, and I haven't thought about that thing for six years.
Speaker 1:But it was still there. You just mentioned the Scottish Rite. You are still there. You just mentioned the Scottish Rite. You are a 33rd degree Mason. In the Scottish Rite, you go to the Valley, in the Valley of Tampa. When did you become a 33rd degree Mason? 2007. And it was a surprise to you, right?
Speaker 2:Of course it is. You can't ask for it. So had I laid the foundation work? Yes, I mean, I've been doing degrees since 1990. But yeah, it's always in the Southern jurisdiction. To be 33rd, you've got to be a Knight Commander, court of Honor, and I had gotten that, so I got that in 2001. And the rules are you have to wait at least four years to become 33rd.
Speaker 1:I know there's a lot of confusion about that. Because when I became a Scottish Rite Mason I was told never ask anyone about the 33rd degree or you'll never get it. And I was like, well, how do I even find out what it is if I can't ask anybody about it?
Speaker 2:What they meant to say is don't ask for it, right, right, yes, not about it. You can talk about it, you just can't go.
Speaker 1:Hey, give me one of those things, just so you know I want that thing. I'm sure there are people that do it and I wonder. I just imagine there's a. It's like the grocery store. When you got the the shoplifters' pictures on the wall and you've got those guys' pictures on the wall of the sovereign grand inspectors or whatever you call yourselves, you're like, no, not these guys Never.
Speaker 2:Well, it was a real honor.
Speaker 3:So what I've heard about from all the different ideas and stories out there about 33rd degree masons, I'm going to ask you a very blunt and direct question when is the US Constitution? I've been looking for this thing. I cannot find it. I've been told the 33rd degrees are the ones that know where it's at the original Constitution. I'm kidding, referencing a movie, but yeah, so you're not going to know until you're high up enough in the 33rd degree yeah, well, we do rule the world.
Speaker 2:You know that. We just can't tell anybody. Oh, you're gonna have to edit this yeah, yeah, we ruled the world.
Speaker 1:We can out what Somebody asked me that one time and I'm going dude.
Speaker 2:I get up and go to work every day, why?
Speaker 3:would I do?
Speaker 2:that if I rule the world.
Speaker 3:Look, I keep telling everybody we are absolutely discussing world domination between plates of spaghetti. Absolutely, that's just the way it is.
Speaker 1:But I do have a serious question about the 33rd degree because, as you know, my wife's family is very conservative and they're very anti-masonry. And I've said, look, I got every degree in masonry you can get and I've been active, I've held most positions that you can get of leadership and I haven't seen the devil worshiping that you're talking about. And what they say to me is you don't have all the degrees and I'm like there's only like a couple, like, but they're I can't get them. You know I'm probably never going to get those degrees, so how would it benefit to withhold all the Satan worshiping till I'm like 100? You know how does that help use me?
Speaker 1:And then they say, well, you're just ignorant because you don't have the degrees and they're using you from on high. So you are a 33rd degree Mason. Can you confirm for my wife's family or deny that there are Satan worshipers in the 33rd degree or that that's what the 33rd degree is about? Of course they're going to tell me you're lying, no matter what you say, but I'd like to hear it, or what you're allowed to say about it, from you.
Speaker 2:I'm not a Satan worshiper.
Speaker 2:There you go I don't know any 33rd degree Satan worshipers. There's nothing like that in the degree. So you know, if you go back and you look at the history of masonry, every 10 or 15 years somebody's going to come out. I had a buddy when I was just getting into masonry who found a book called the New World Order and actually he wound up giving me a copy of the book and he's going well, look, man, this is right out of morals and dogma. And then I'd break out my copy of morals and dogma and I'd go all right, kevin, look, you're right, this is in morals and dogma. But this sentence has 100 words in it and that's pretty much how he wrote.
Speaker 2:And they've only pulled out 25. If you put the other 75 words in there, it means something completely different from what this person is implying. That it says.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, there is some of that, for sure, no there's a lot of that.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of that going on in the news today. Yes, absolutely. You know, and unfortunately, a lot of people do not know how to discern something that seems truthful from something that they want to believe. You know, and it's funny now that because I've got a science background At the end of the day, archaeology and anthropology is science and the scientific method is critical to research. So you meet these people that go well. I did my own research on the internet. No, you didn't Number one. My computer's not that good. So if you're getting to places that I'm not getting to, I don't know what your secrets are, but if you're reading the same thing that I'm reading, some of it screams bullshit.
Speaker 1:It just does. The thing is you said reading. Nobody's reading anything right now. They're watching a YouTube video and they're calling that research. I mean, I see that you know, I got my wife's little brother does that. He's like I did research. And I stop him right there and I'm like I don't even want to hear what you heard when you say you did research, what is that? Oh, I watched a video. I'm like okay, we're done, the conversation's over. We're not even going to talk about whatever you saw.
Speaker 2:It's more like I spend enough time on the internet to find somebody that agreed with me and then, once they have somebody that agrees with them, then that's all they need. Yeah, they're confirmed If somebody else agrees with me, it must be right. It's something that this country needs to do is to get a better handle on being able to, you know, being critical of your country's, not unpatriotic.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:It's the best country in the world, but it ain't perfect.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And it is not wrong or un-American to point out the problems that could be improved in this country. It's not un-American in any way. Actually, it's a hell of a lot more patriotic in my mind than just going. Oh no, what that guy said, what that guy said and it's not easy to do.
Speaker 1:Whatever that guy says is the absolute truth, and I believe all of it. That's not the way it's supposed to be.
Speaker 2:It's not and you can't believe 100% from any of the sides?
Speaker 1:No, definitely not.
Speaker 2:But you can be pragmatic and you can look at it and you can you know Well, the problem isn't the people.
Speaker 1:I used to think it was. The people are just too dumb, and I'm ashamed to say that I thought that about my own countrymen. Like they're a bunch of dumb people. Um, don't apologize, I I've realized, though it's not that it's that there's no real journalism happening in our country anymore. There's not. Journalism's job is to do what you just said. Their job is to be critical and look under the curtain and try to find the truth and report it to us. But journalism today do what you just said. Their job is to be critical and look under the curtain and try to find the truth and report it to us. But journalism today is what you said. It's telling you what you want to hear and trying to confirm your beliefs for you. That's what they call journalism today, and you can get either side of it. You can go on Fox News and get one view, or CNN and get another view. Neither one of them are doing real journalism in reality. So people don't have access to real news these days, which is sad.
Speaker 2:It's out there, but people aren't going to go to hear what they don't want to hear. They're going. That's an absolute. That's not fair. Some people do. I try. I mean I watch more than one news source and I read more than one paper.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because I want to hear various opinions and then I will. Then I'll form my opinion, but I'm not going to do it just based on one side telling me the story, because that's crazy. I don't care which side you're listening to. You need to be hearing. But I don't think a lot of our country doesn't do that anymore. They just go to the source that's going to tell them what they want to hear.
Speaker 3:And it's also very selective. Everybody wants to live in their own echo chamber and nobody ever really wants to step out of that. So it's like the pages you follow on social media, the news sources you take in, the TV and movies that you watch. You want all of those basically to be a reverberation of everything that you already have working in your head, because then you feel more validated. Yeah, and that's where I was talking to a buddy of mine. He was dating a young lady that her church is part of the Southern Baptist Convention and they despise masonry. I mean truly despise masonry. They'll get up and they'll do multi-week lectures on why it's nothing but the devil. So he comes to me and he says hey, man, aren't you a part of that group of people? And I'm like, yeah, so is your brother and your uncle.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you knew that or not?
Speaker 3:So I end up having a conversation with him about it and he's like oh, they're telling me this, that and the other thing and I was able to factually disprove all of that and say no. And then I looked at their source material and this was the disturbing part is, in the source material that they had, they referred to God as Daddy and I had an issue with that. You mean, these people are the ones that are critiquing masonry. Really.
Speaker 1:I mean, if you use the word Father instead of Dad, it becomes less offensive. You know, it's their choice of words, really.
Speaker 3:It's specifically Dad D with the extra D-Y on the back end of it. That's weird, I know right.
Speaker 1:That puts it on a weird level.
Speaker 2:I got a pretty good buddy, actually a real good buddy who, right after he became a Mason, goes on an appointment, meets with these people, writes a contract. They give him a check for a substantial amount of money, but he's wearing a Masonic ring. And she asks about it. And a couple of days later he calls and goes look, we changed our mind. And my buddy goes why? And he goes well, you're a Freemason and my wife isn't into Freemasons.
Speaker 2:My buddy took his file and said well, you need to meet me, I'll bring him a file. He goes the beauty of my job is I get to work with the people I like and I'm firing you. Here's your file. That was pretty rough, right. I got a good friend who'd go what the hell did you just get me into? And now I've got to explain that. You know, the critics of misery are usually people that want you only to think one way. They don't like the fact that we leave our choice of a supreme being up to each person. Right. A lot of religions want you to think their way and you got to die if you don't think our way. Right? Some aren't quite that severe, but we're seeing it now.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:In Israel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in Kuwait, it's gotten very hot politically. Yeah, it's gotten very hot politically. Yeah, if you say certain words, you're automatically put in a bucket, in a category, and by one group of people demonized and by another lifted up, and no one even knows what you think. They just heard a word. It's crazy. Yeah, we're in crazy times right now, with the political chargeness of everything in the world, and it's everything.
Speaker 3:Everything has to have that us versus them spin on it so one of the things that I've been researching Chris, I realize we haven't spoken in a bit, but one of the things that I've been researching because of all this stuff like the anti-Masonic rhetoric, I've been researching actual occultism.
Speaker 3:So masonry is not a cult, but everyone calls masonry a cult and it's like I don't know a cult that you can get kicked out of because you didn't pay your yearly dues. I've been to martial arts gyms that are more cultish than what masonry probably will ever be. But either way, in researching all of this, this and it's like if you look at the video of pinks, just like a pill, uh, you know there's actually a cultist, uh, symbolism and people in that right, and it's scattered all throughout media, my thought process behind it being and I'm again, I'm still researching all this and you know right, worse, I'd love your opinion on it. But people want to point, point to Masonry and say, oh, masonry's the villain, because if they went after the actual villain, all of society would collapse. Masonry's the easy target.
Speaker 1:It is an easy target because we don't hit back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure we don't respond, which is the proper response. You know you can say anything you want, we're just going to keep doing what we do.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And why do you have to respond to people that don't know what you're doing anyway?
Speaker 1:That's my position now is like why would I waste my time and energy on a losing? There's no winning, that Like I can't engage you and change your mind really, so it's a waste of my time and yours to even respond to it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and anybody.
Speaker 2:I've ever met that's anti-Masonic. Once they've known me for a while tended to change that opinion. That's true.
Speaker 1:That's true, and it's true for me too, Matt, because you're in a lot of very conservative Christian circles. So those people know you. Before you were a Mason and you haven't changed, If anything. Hopefully you got better as a man, and so that will carry weight, I think, with those people a lot more than any facts you can show them or anything. Yeah, so I have the way you show yourself as a man after becoming a Mason will influence them far more than any facts that you're going to dredge up and try to prove.
Speaker 3:So I have an example of it going both ways. So one of the groups that I hang out with, one of the training groups that I hang out with very religious people, I told them I was like, yeah, by the way, I'm going to be joining Masonry. This is before I ever filled out a petition. Yeah, I'm going to be joining Masonry. And they're like, no, don't join Masonry, it's evil. I was like, no, it's not. I've researched Masonry for over 10 years before I ever filled out a petition. So, become a Mason, go through the whole thing, get raised a Master Mason.
Speaker 3:I post an opinion of something on Facebook, an opinion on a Scripture, and it was actually breaking down a Scripture. Nothing Masonic about it at all, just something Bible-related. And they said your theology is warped, this must be the cult talking. And then I was removed from all of their social medias, blocked on all their social medias. I was like, interesting, okay, and but then there's the flip side of it, crystal, what you said. My wife comes to me. She's like, hey, I've got this issue. This is this thing is. You know, six, eight months ago, you know, do you remember saying this? And I'm like, yeah, it was a fantastic joke. I don't see what the problem is and why was it six, eight months ago, like you could have told me about it right when it happened and I was just like very super chilled, relaxed, just yeah, I'm sorry. Like that was it. And she's like Matt, I like this current version of you is so much more calmed down. You know not near as as hyper or whatever. You know words or whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's true, cause that's what we're. That's really the point of being a Mason is to try to work on yourself and become a better husband and father and, you know, hopefully even in the businessman, better businessman with more integrity, and those are things you can't fake. You can tell when somebody's pretending to be a good guy versus somebody who's trying to be a good guy. You can tell the difference. I can.
Speaker 2:Not everybody can.
Speaker 1:No, you're right. You're right about that and you know. I think we have opportunity now, because it is so polarized that guys like us because Matt thinks very differently than I do and we have. We're at opposite ends politically too, but I think now more than ever, it's important for us to show that we can be close, even despite the differences, and try to understand each other and appreciate each other, because people seeing other people do that hopefully. You know people need to see a thing to believe it's possible, otherwise you're just a magical unicorn fairy tale. So the more of us that do this actually try to understand each other and listen to each other and kind of celebrate the things that we have in common instead of focus on the things we don't have in common, and even try to understand the reasons we think differently. I think that's the best example we can set as men in this day and age, as masons.
Speaker 3:I agree. Well, it also depends on the heart and this is an opinion, but it also depends on the heart and the intent of the one who is actually both people on both sides of the conversation. Chris, you and I were texting yesterday while I was swapping out those toilets. That was a fun day yesterday, but we were texting back and forth yesterday and it was. It was a very good, wholesome conversation, masonic conversation, because at the end of the day, you're, you're looking at what is good and best for me, I'm trying to look at what's good and best for you, and it's those things just married together Very, very good. You know, versus if we go at it from the political spectrum or we go, to add, from you know, because we're both trying to be good Masons, regardless of what we brought into it.
Speaker 1:we're both trying to be good Masons and that kind of unifies us together. And that's what the beauty of Freemasonry is it can do that under this huge tent of humanity and actually bring us together. And if we can show we can do that in this fraternity, maybe we can do it out in the world.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but a lot of people go into it with the I want to win. I'm going to be victorious in this conversation. It's like you don't always have to be. Sometimes you can sit there and take one on the chin and say, okay, you were right, or hey, I disagree, but I love you anyway. You can do those things.
Speaker 2:It's what we should be doing as a country. It's what we should be doing is we? Our social contract was majority rules. You might not like it, but if you're on the minority side, you just have to live with that for a while.
Speaker 1:I think it's even more important to pay attention to the minority group in any situation, because you really do run the risk, I think, of going down a dark path If you really do run the risk, I think, of going down a dark path if you completely ignore the minority. So, when Democrats are in power, I think it's really important that they start listening to what's really going on in the Republican Party and what can we do to try to bring them in, and vice versa. But in the political situation we have, you're right, it's all about how do I get a win? I can instill you, I could say something and then I can win this situation. It's. It's.
Speaker 3:It's like devolved away from, like what it's supposed to be, devolved, devolved, yeah, it's like evolving instead of evil, and uh well, these days, all it is just people looking for, you know, sound bites, sound bites, yeah, for social media, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, something they can repeat. I saw a comedian the other day. It was hilarious. He's doing his bits and his jokes and he says I want to, I want to dildo really loud into the mic. And then he just keeps doing his bit and he's going on and he goes why aren't you guys paying attention? He's like, oh you, you want to know why. I said that. Like I just had to get the sound bite out so that everybody just plays that. Now I can tell the jokes. I want to tell, because all they're going to do is say I wanted to dildo on. You know, like it's true, people just take the little thing that is going to get attention and put it out there and and they don't listen to what you're actually saying, which is what Barry was trying to say earlier.
Speaker 2:You know, we watch the news every day and we record it. My wife for a long time is going. Why can't we watch it live? Well, they tell you what they're going to tell you, then they kind of tell you what they're going to tell you, then they kind of tell you, and then they tell you what they told you.
Speaker 1:And by the time you get rid of the lawyer commercials and the drug commercials.
Speaker 2:There's five minutes of content in that 30-minute show. There's just nothing there.
Speaker 1:There's no real news in the news anymore unfortunately, it's like sports commentators they're all just telling you what they think about whatever's happening on the field.
Speaker 2:Well, and now a good two minutes of that five minutes of content is about the weather. I don't know. I miss Walter Conkret.
Speaker 1:Walter, that's the way it is. That was his tagline, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:I think, it was. Denzel Washington, who said that if you read the paper, you're misinformed. If you don't read the paper, you're uninformed.
Speaker 2:There you go, that's the best thing.
Speaker 3:It's a battle you really got to fight.
Speaker 1:You got to fight to get the information, like, like Gary said, I do the same thing. I got to look at multiple news channels and I got to. I shouldn't have to do that, I shouldn't have to figure it out for myself. Somebody should just be reporting the damn facts. So just telling me straight what's going on, I shouldn't have to go hunt and figure it out for myself. Something broken with when. That's the way it is.
Speaker 1:But I think we all know that we're intelligent guys and let me tell you you don't know, right Worshipful Heart, but I came into a lodge that had a year-long fight about where to put a projector, or if we could even put a projector into a lodge, and I watched one man, after a whole battle, stand up and squash it with like a five minute speech. Like I don't know where that comes from. Like what in your background put you in a situation where you can speak. So, because this is something that Mason's aspire to write grammar and rhetoric it's important to us. So where did you get all that experience with the grammar and the rhetoric and the ability to kind of like speak plainly and get like a unification to a group of different guys in a room? Because we were fighting for like a year. You came in and said something and it was done that night.
Speaker 2:Over. I think that was just pure luck. But you know, I've been an insurance salesman since 1985. And I'm not a salesman by nature. My dad was, my son is. So for me the only way I can make a sale is to become a teacher. So for me, the only way I can make a sale is to become a teacher.
Speaker 1:Just inform people, lead them to the natural conclusion and not everybody's going to do that. You did the thinking for them and then you explain it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you put it out there. They still got to make the choice. But that's all I did that night. But that's all I did that night was I framed it in a place where I knew what the alleged problems were. Well, I took the legs out under that argument and then they kind of had to agree with me.
Speaker 1:They didn't have to, but Well, somehow, you know, like the average person can't do that. They can't take the legs out of somebody else's argument and then still have the other side thanking you for showing them that that's a rare thing in today's world talk to my wife, she'll tell you I must have been really lucky that night, but we did get what we wanted. We do have a projector and we used it a lot over the year.
Speaker 2:And on the right wall that was another part of the deal was we argued about the wall, you mean on the pink walls. Yes, they're not pink.
Speaker 1:That is funhouse.
Speaker 2:You're actually talking to the man that painted those walls that color right now really yes, you are I painted them, but gary gocher and I picked the color, and the reason for that is matt is if you're in the lodge and you look at the paintings that we've got on the walls, there's a, there's a strong. It's not purple, it's mauve, I guess would be the color. Yeah, and we were looking for something that would tie in the walls to the floor, which does have purple right.
Speaker 1:Red is purple, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and to those decorations, and that was the one color. Yeah, yeah, and to those decorations, and that was the one color the the prior painting we had two walls that were one color and two that were another. They weren't that far off from that color that we have right now and, more importantly, don't don't they do a pink lodge somewhere in the state?
Speaker 1:every year they do they should bring that to Sarasota, they should. We are the pink lot. We are the pink lot. I know you don't want to hear that it's pink, it's Funhouse, funhouse.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, so okay. So now I'm putting it together. I've heard your name once before, Only once. I was at Sean Cooney's installation as junior warden. Sean Cooney's installation as junior warden, sean Cooney, from the Three Ruffians. And as we're there, you know I'm sitting behind the west and, or sorry, the south. I'm sitting behind the south and I'm just kind of, you know, just watching. I don't know anybody there, you know, except for Sean, and so the conversation of painting that room came up.
Speaker 1:They want to change the color.
Speaker 3:They want to give me a hard time oh they're busting this ball and it was just a conversation. I'm not trying to get anybody in trouble, no, but there was one brother who stood up and I mean, and with voice and burr, I do not think it is right for us to be even having this conversation without right. Worshipful, barry Nice, I laughed so hard, yeah, because he was so adamant about it. I mean, it was really over the top. You know, the thing is, I don't think you're tied to that.
Speaker 1:It's not like you want that to be your legacy. As I painted the lodge pink, I don't think you'd be mad if they changed the color I would not be mad.
Speaker 2:Here's what people don't understand is, before we painted that lodge, we had a big crack over there on the south side which we repaired. Uh, we had roof leak that had, uh, water stains going down most of the walls. So we fixed all of that and it looks great compared to what it was before. And I defy anybody else unless you're going to paint them white, I don't think that's a great idea. What color are you going to pick that's going to fit our carpet and our decorations.
Speaker 1:I'd like to see stone personally. I know it's expensive, like fake stones, yeah, you know, like Brandon Lodge has got those faux stones on the wall and it looks pretty good and you kind of paint them a Jerusalem whitish color, you know, and I think that could look nice and timeless.
Speaker 2:I got no problems with it. I'm not married to that color I was just looking for. I needed to paint some walls exactly, and uh, and you know I went to the guy who painted, who I don't know.
Speaker 2:if I don't think jerry painted those decorations, but he had come back and repainted them, so. So he knew what those colors were. And so you know, if they repaint it, it won't hurt my feelings. And if we sell our parking lot, then maybe we can get some stones. Yes, right, yes, or we could paint it. We could find somebody to paint stones if we wanted to.
Speaker 1:You also had. Weren't there like cigar stains? Because the guys used to literally smoke their cigars in the lodge? In the room I heard the stories that that was one of the reasons you had to paint.
Speaker 2:Nobody smoked in the lodge room but that dining room for years after the meeting guys sat around and smoked. When they lowered those ceilings, that took care of part of it, because those tobacco stains always wind up on the ceiling. That got rid of some. Then when we repainted our dining room walls, it helped a lot. It was pretty bad there.
Speaker 3:Regardless of what you guys are, Good sir.
Speaker 2:I'm just saying. Every lodge in the 80s smelled like smoke.
Speaker 3:Yeah, regardless of what you guys are doing down at Sarasota, from a color standpoint you're doing far better than Turkey Creek and I love Turkey Creek. I was there working yesterday. But we've got what is it? A dark blue hall leading up to the A room. We've got a white lodge room, blue carpet, and then the bathrooms are all orange and the and the painting like as a contractor, it drives me nuts, cause like no one used painter's tape at all and I swear my two-year-old daughter could do a better job painting this wall than what they did. It just looks so terrible.
Speaker 1:Add it to your list of stuff you need to get done before you're done in the line.
Speaker 3:I don't know if I agree with you, sir.
Speaker 1:Oh, I think you absolutely need to add that to your list of things to get done while you're still in the line.
Speaker 3:That's a true worshipful master right there. It's like, hey, since you're complaining about it, you get to do it now. This is that's the rule.
Speaker 2:This is how it works he who pitches becomes head of the committee. That's the rule guess what? Nobody else is gonna do it yeah, and matt, listen, your two-year-old daughter could paint it better than I could, because I can't paint right. So, uh, and we did, you know, we painted that that lodge and pulled out all of those seats, pulled out the back row, all of those seats.
Speaker 2:Uh, dan tibbett's worked his butt off over there, uh, and so did the rest of the lodge. So I was really proud of what we got done there, and it does look. Everybody's forgetting about what it looked like before we painted the lodge.
Speaker 3:No, no, you guys's lodge is amazing down in sarasota. I mean, if you've ever been to turkey creek, I mean it's just kind of like a little hole in the wall. Lodge yeah, you know it really is it, it's, it's a lot of fun. I mean turkey creek. So I had somebody tell me at one point. They were like there are three ways to do anything there. There's the right way, there's the wrong way and then there's the Turkey Creek way. That sounds about right, yeah.
Speaker 2:My thing is there's a thousand ways to do it wrong and one way to do it right.
Speaker 1:So technically, not everybody agrees with me. Technically, Turkey Creek is probably doing it wrong if they're not doing it the right way.
Speaker 3:You know, I'm hearing a fatherly insult in that statement. Right there, there are a thousand ways to do it wrong, one way to do it right and you had to pick all the wrong ones, at least a handful the wrong ones right.
Speaker 2:So well, I'm not being critical, I'm just saying the right way. There's usually only one right.
Speaker 1:So we've gone a little over an hour and I have some plans for Right. Worshipful Heart you.
