My Year In The Grand West

The evening in Schomberg started with a quick visit to a local pub, due to our early arrival, where the GJW and I enoyed wings and fries at The Scruffy Duck, before heading over to visit Union Lodge 118 on the occasion of the Official Visit of RWBro Alan Dresser, DDGM York District, and ended with an excellent banquet down below. The brethren conducted a 2nd degree and we proudly welcomed the newest FC of True Blue Lodge. Also present in lodge were two esteemed Masons, one a William Mercer Wilson medal recipient and a William James Dunlop Award winner. The latter is rare, and more information on the past award winners can be found on the Heritage Lodge website  as well as information on WJ Dunlop himself. In brief, "Dr. Dunlop was appointed Minister of Education on October 2,1951, and retired from that office on December 16,1959, but continued to serve in the Cabinet of Ontario as a Minister without Portfolio until his retirement from that position in November 1960. At that t...

Yes, this was a unique night for Zeradatha Lodge. Because it started of with a pre-meeting dinner at a local pub called The Hobby Horse Arms, owned and run by a Mason, and I had the pleasure of sitting with WBro Tim Richardson and sharing stories, due to the fact the lodge's on banquet facilities were rented out for the evening. Following the normal array of toasts and concluding with the JW's traditional toast, we then ventured a minute up the road to the temple. The lodge had een opened prior to dinner and the WM was being returned to the Chair in the East (for a third time), and the IM, WBro Don Kemball, had asked me to sit in the West and also asked RWBro Mark Kapitan to sit in the South and did an excellent job throughout the evening. The first brethren invested were the SW and JW, and the GJW invested the latter, while I invested the former. Zeradatha Lodge was the very first lodge I visited, while still an EA, and while Zeradatha and The Beaches were still in the sam...

I have known WBro Nitin Pande for only a few years - via King Cyrus Chapter, of which RWBro Al Dvorak is also a companion - and I had never visited Richardson Lodge prior. So it was quite a pleasure to sit in the West for the Installation of Nitin the other night and watch the smile grow wider, with great pride, at every turn in the ceremony. Impressed he was. It was also one of my first post-op visits with sidekick RWBro Mark Kapitan as well. Also in attendance was MWBro Terry Shand who pulled me aside afterward to note, privately, that I had made a small error in my work of the evening, which had made him smile, when I'd answered the WM when closing in the third by bluntly stating "No"to begin - though followed by the appropriate sentences - when asked if we had discovered anything. It was a moment that reminded me when I was a young EA and was signing the Tyler's Register at a lodge I was visiting with "Beaches Lodge" and MWBro C Edwin Drew, who was be...

It was the 150th anniversary celebration at Zeradatha Lodge No 220 in Uxbridge last night, and I learnt three things while sitting in the East, other than the members have met in various locations and currently meet in a temple that was built in 1962. The lodge was formed in 1869 shortly after both the Civil War and Confederation had taken place. Since forming, they remain a vibrant lodge, its members still tightly woven with the community in general and Uxbridge specifically.  History abounds in the lodge - from the huge painted scrolls (measuring over 7 feet in width and nearly 400 feet in length) to the Vimy Gavel and and Lt Col Sam Sharpe, DSO , who is a true Canadian hero. Sharpe was not only a proud member of the Zeradatha Lodge, but he was also a Member of Parliament, and only one of two who has ever gone to war while sitting in parliament and he was re-eleted to office while serving overseas. He helped to recruit an entire battalion from the Uxbridge area, who eventually...