Latest / Minnesota Masonic Histories and Mysteries / Episode 70. Masonry is a Way of Life (ft. John L. Cook, Jr.)

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Episode 70. Masonry is a Way of Life (ft. John L. Cook, Jr.) · Minnesota Masonic Histories and Mysteries

• 0:00
  Welcome back to another episode of Minnesota Masonic Histories and Mysteries.
• 0:03
  Our guest today is a member of Tussler Summit Lodge number 2 63 in Roseville.
• 0:09
  Having served as Worshipful Master in 1999, he He has been a faithful servant to the craft over the past 30 years, serving on the Board of Minnesota Masonic Charities, our jurisprudence committee, the kids ID program, and was installed as Grandma of Masons in Minnesota in 2010.
• 0:29
  Welcome, John L.
• 0:30
  Cook, Jr.
• 0:32
  Thank you very much.
• 0:33
  I'm glad to be here.
• 0:34
  We are all about authentic relationships, getting to know our members better.
• 0:39
  Tell us more about you.
• 0:40
  You were born in Georgia, correct?
• 0:42
  I was born in Atlanta, Georgia.
• 0:45
  Uh, I come from a family of five children.
• 0:49
  Uh, my mother and father was also raised in Georgia, in a small town called Norcross, Georgia.
• 0:56
  we grew up about 21 miles north of Atlanta in a little city called Roswell, Georgia.
• 1:06
  Five siblings, five siblings.
• 1:07
  Where were you in that order?
• 1:09
  I am number two and unfortunately, as of today, uh, there's only three members left in my family.
• 1:19
  Uh, I had, there were three boys and two girls.
• 1:25
  Both my parents have passed on and both of my sisters has, has passed on.
• 1:30
  I have a sister that was one that was older than me and other than that my other sister, both of them are gone and my, my, uh, two brothers, we are the ones carrying on the cook name at the time.
• 1:45
  How do you think being number two in that order of five kids shaped you?
• 1:51
  It's always different if you're oldest in the middle or the youngest, but then how did that work out?
• 1:56
  It probably shaped me a little bit different than normal, simply because my sister, who was the oldest, I'm 11, she's 11 months older than me.
• 2:08
  But then after, after I was born, seven years later, my parents decided to have another family of three kids.
• 2:16
  So, surprise.
• 2:16
  So it, there's a seven year, seven year gap between me and the next boy and my family.
• 2:24
  You think that led you to get along better, maybe not overlapping in activities or being in that different age?
• 2:31
  Not get along better, but during that time of life and, and growing up in the south, you did a lot of babysitting.
• 2:39
  So, uh, my parents had had, uh, built in babysitters for their family.
• 2:44
  So that turned out really well.
• 2:47
  So what led you to depart Georgia?
• 2:50
  Did you go straight to Minnesota, or where did your life journey take you?
• 2:53
  No, I, I, um.
• 2:55
  I, I landed in Minnesota because I was in graduate school here at the university.
• 3:03
  Um, I came directly from college, which was Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
• 3:10
  and when I arrived here, um, I wind up meeting a woman, my daughter's mother at the present time.
• 3:23
  And I got married, had a kid, and I wanted to go to grad cont I, I had to stop grad school.
• 3:30
  So then after I stopped grad school, I said, uhoh, I'm married the kid on the way.
• 3:38
  I gotta find a job.
• 3:40
  So I wound up going back to a company, be that I originally went to known as Ford Motor Company.
• 3:46
  I worked there.
• 3:48
  And, uh, what did you, what did you do at Ford?
• 3:50
  I, I worked as a, uh, dealer account manager, and that's, so, I say Ford, but all my experience in Ford was under Ford mode of credit.
• 4:03
  So I've, I've never been in, I, I've toured in assembly plant, but all my work was in the financial words world of Ford Credit.
• 4:12
  And I wind up being here and.
• 4:17
  Been here the whole time.
• 4:19
  How many years now?
• 4:20
  Since 75.
• 4:22
  I've been here since 75, 50 years.
• 4:24
  50 years I've been here.
• 4:26
  And uh, uh, my daughter is still here.
• 4:29
  She's, uh, now she has two girls.
• 4:33
  So there's, uh, myself, my daughter, and two granddaughters, and we do a lot of hanging out together.
• 4:41
  I.
• 4:42
  What's life as a grandparent?
• 4:43
  Is it as busy as everyone says It is definitely as busy because there is a little three year gap between the two girls and I'm always the one being called saying, Papa, can you go here?
• 4:56
  Papa, can we go there?
• 4:58
  So it is, it is definitely.
• 5:00
  And and so far, the interesting part is they have actually taken up my hobbies as well, so.
• 5:09
  I, I have to put in my little teaching part of their hobby, along with hiring somebody to teach them some of the, the real things about my hobby.
• 5:20
  Well, you have a lot of hobbies I like to ask on this podcast.
• 5:23
  What's something most people don't know about you?
• 5:26
  And I don't know that many of our members quite appreciate the vast interest that you have between fishing, gun collecting tennis.
• 5:38
  Where to start?
• 5:40
  Well, you even left outta one because my, my third hobby is, uh, coin collecting.
• 5:46
  I've been collecting coins now for about 10 years, that's been intriguing because I've, my two grandkids like that hobby as well.
• 5:54
  Really?
• 5:54
  That's one that they've, yes, yes.
• 5:56
  Yeah, they've caught on to that hobby.
• 5:58
  As well as tennis, they caught on to those two hobbies in my life so that it keeps me very, very well connected with them.
• 6:06
  Are you a tennis pro?
• 6:07
  You teach, teach lessons, correct?
• 6:09
  I teach lessons only to certain people.
• 6:13
  my dream in life when I first started tennis was, you know, you gotta have a a, a goal out there.
• 6:19
  My goal was always to Wimbledon.
• 6:22
  I tore my Achilles heels and I, I, I got messed up, so I stopped and, and stuff, so I didn't make that part.
• 6:30
  So all of a sudden, the teaching that I do is with youth groups.
• 6:36
  We have a, a organization in in Minnesota called the Martin Luther King Tennis Club.
• 6:43
  I teach out of that group'cause we bring in summer camp kids to teach tennis to, and that's where I do most of my teaching.
• 6:52
  At How long have you played tennis?
• 6:53
  Did that start as a young age or when you were No, no.
• 6:57
  It actually started after I came out Vietnam and uh, I was home in.
• 7:03
  I went to this tennis court.
• 7:04
  I wanted to learn to play it early.
• 7:07
  But you know how sometimes you go to the park and you see these boards where you can hit up against the wall?
• 7:12
  Yes.
• 7:13
  Well, every time I hit the ball, it went over the board, so I couldn't, I couldn't.
• 7:19
  So finally something said, you need to learn this game.
• 7:23
  So I met some folk.
• 7:24
  In the Martin Luther King tennis box.
• 7:26
  I started learning.
• 7:28
  Then I took some private lessons, more private lessons, and then that, that started me on my way.
• 7:34
  Been been playing ever since.
• 7:35
  Been playing ever since.
• 7:37
  Have you ever played on grass at Wimbledon or compared the clay to grass?
• 7:41
  To just the regular?
• 7:42
  I had an opportunity to play on, on, it wasn't grass.
• 7:46
  It was, it was, it would've been clay.
• 7:49
  Dirt on a, on a, on a dirt surface in Georgia.
• 7:52
  How was it?
• 7:52
  Is it weird?
• 7:53
  Is it, does it play the same?
• 7:54
  It's it just slower.
• 7:55
  Slower.
• 7:56
  It's slower.
• 7:56
  Okay.
• 7:57
  The, the fastest court is the, is is the concrete court.
• 8:01
  Uh, the, the, the, the regular red clay that you see on TV is slower, is the slowest court.
• 8:09
  The one in the middle would be the grass.
• 8:12
  Is it slippery?
• 8:13
  Is it, does that no injuries occur on when you get on the clay or no?
• 8:16
  Not much.
• 8:16
  Not much.
• 8:17
  Because what they do is they, they groom it very well and before they get ready for the playing starts, they dry.
• 8:25
  It's dry.
• 8:27
  So you don't do a lot.
• 8:28
  Yeah.
• 8:28
  Sometimes people do slip it it But, but it's not often.
• 8:32
  Okay.
• 8:34
  Let's talk about fishing.
• 8:35
  I know of a few brothers and friends that have gone fishing with you and have said it's, it's not just simply casting and sitting there.
• 8:44
  You are a serious bass fisherman.
• 8:46
  Yes, yes.
• 8:48
  I been, up until this summer, I traveled probably to.
• 8:56
  Four tournaments a year outside of the state of Minnesota.
• 9:00
  And, and so I wind up fishing on what is known as the FLW circuit, uh, which is a, a a a medium, not a medium, but a sidebar to the National Bass Association League.
• 9:17
  it's, it's very difficult.
• 9:19
  It is hard work.
• 9:21
  And I can remember all the years that I've been fishing and I lived around my neighbors and they would say, oh, bring me a couple of fish back.
• 9:28
  I said, no way.
• 9:30
  I throw'em back in the water.
• 9:32
  I'm tired when I come home.
• 9:35
  So it's, it's different.
• 9:37
  And the reason why I still probably have, fishing as my number one, uh, hobby is simply because.
• 9:46
  Um, when you, when you, I fish specifically for one species of fish, which is bath and what it has done for me, it, it allows you to do numerous things, in other words, techniques, while you are on the water.
• 10:04
  And it is really fascinating that you can be on the same lake and you use three or four different techniques to catch the fish.
• 10:15
  Because the fishes fish are pocket into one area in another area, they could be schooling up differently and you have to use different techniques to catch'em.
• 10:25
  And that's what really intrigues me is because I, I, I never wanted to be a fisherman that, that, that just setting one of those spots and try to wait on a fish to come to me.
• 10:36
  But that's what, what makes it interesting.
• 10:38
  You move around, you try different techniques and it goes really well.
• 10:43
  Time really flies.
• 10:46
  I realized what a novice I am in the fishing department having grown up.
• 10:51
  We go to Big Pine Lake near Perham, Minnesota.
• 10:55
  It would just be, sit there, drift.
• 10:58
  Mm-hmm.
• 10:58
  And hope.
• 10:58
  Mm-hmm.
• 10:58
  Cross your fingers.
• 10:59
  Well there, there was some markers out there, but I had no idea that there was such a depth of technique and process to this.
• 11:08
  It is a very strong.
• 11:10
  Um, technique and process, but at the present time, competition is really, really strong simply because what is happening in the fishing world, period is the world of electronics, just like the world itself has become a technological world.
• 11:31
  Fishing has become a technology world.
• 11:34
  There are some guys who you will go on their boat and they'll have five different screens that they're looking at.
• 11:41
  They're doing five different things in the water.
• 11:44
  Like what?
• 11:44
  Beyond the depth finder.
• 11:46
  What else was It is a, it is a depth finder, but they're also called, for example, there's another depth finder out there that's called the 360, because a depth finder.
• 11:59
  From the actual screen, it takes you down a cone and you are only looking at a certain part.
• 12:05
  But a 360 now gives you the vision all the way around your boat to see where the fish really are.
• 12:11
  Wow.
• 12:11
  And so you could, you can actually move them from that.
• 12:14
  And, and, and they also, the other important thing today about the electronics is bath will move.
• 12:27
  On, they like solid ground, solid sand.
• 12:32
  So the screens will now tell you what's by color variation, where you, what, what is on the bottom of the lake?
• 12:42
  Is this unique to bass only?
• 12:44
  Is this applied to Northerns and walleye and other It applies because everybody's getting into this electronic thing.
• 12:50
  Okay.
• 12:51
  Yes.
• 12:52
  Yes.
• 12:53
  And, and.
• 12:54
  I, I think I'm so, I ha I have to say it this way.
• 12:59
  I'm sort of good at it, but because I don't have all the electronics that a lot of guys have, but what they actually do is, is you are getting very, very close to the fact of going to the death finders.
• 13:19
  And now being able to tell, tell you what species that is in the water.
• 13:23
  No kidding.
• 13:24
  Yes.
• 13:25
  And it's not just by size and the shape of the fish.
• 13:28
  I'm telling you, these screens, they, these, they are coming up with some awesome pictures that will get you very, very close.
• 13:37
  How do you feel about that?
• 13:38
  Does that spoil the process, the, the technique involved?
• 13:41
  Is it, is it too, does anyone feel like this is.
• 13:45
  Too much insight.
• 13:46
  There is, there is, there is a lot of fight going on out there at the present time.
• 13:50
  As a matter of fact, the BASS, which is the um, uh, national Bass Association, they actually are limiting the amounts of electronics you can have on your boat for a fishing tournament because there are, there, there's everybody you know with, you buy a boat.
• 14:10
  And you got 5, 6, 7 pieces of electronic on your boat that equipment alone could probably put you somewhere around 20,$30,000 or more just for the electronics.
• 14:22
  And so some of the guys who are used to fishing don't use all of that stuff.
• 14:26
  They like the old way of, let me go find the fish.
• 14:30
  Okay.
• 14:31
  I can picture someone showing up at a competition and being that guy that has the boat just loaded down with.
• 14:39
  Way too much on the electronic and technology side.
• 14:42
  It, it can happen.
• 14:44
  But, but, um, when, when they started making these changes, they put'em in rules.
• 14:51
  They just don't say no more.
• 14:52
  When you, when you, when you're out there fishing on the BASS circuit or the FLW circuit, they have what is known as the tournament rules.
• 15:02
  It's gonna be right there in the rules of what you can and cannot have.
• 15:05
  So the guy could come with that, in other words, but he's got to disconnect some of that.
• 15:11
  Sure.
• 15:11
  Before he could actually use that boat.
• 15:13
  Where's the next tournament?
• 15:14
  Where are you headed next to Alabama.
• 15:17
  in the middle of May to Lake Gunther.
• 15:19
  It might be a little steamy in Alabama by, uh, next month.
• 15:22
  It's gonna be steamy in Alabama.
• 15:24
  But I, I, the good part about going to this tournament is that's where my baby brother lived.
• 15:29
  Oh, not too far from that.
• 15:30
  He's about an hour from the lake.
• 15:32
  So I'll, I'll get to, to actually hang out with him for a while.
• 15:36
  I'll pre fish him for a while when I go outta state.
• 15:40
  It's normally a 14 day trip because you want to expend at least seven to eight days of practicing on that water.
• 15:49
  No kidding.
• 15:49
  Yeah.
• 15:49
  A week.
• 15:50
  Yes.
• 15:51
  And so he'll help you with that or he'll join you.
• 15:54
  Your brother will he'll join me.
• 15:55
  He'll join me.
• 15:55
  Okay.
• 15:56
  And what we do is we'll use our electronics to get where we need to get because it is a true fact that that, that the fish.
• 16:05
  Uh, you won't find them all over the lake.
• 16:08
  They're gonna be in certain pockets, in certain areas.
• 16:11
  And what you want to do in your pre, in your planning is eliminate all the, what we call dead water.
• 16:17
  No fish in them that you wanna fish.
• 16:19
  So that's why we go and spend that time.
• 16:22
  Grandkids get into fishing.
• 16:24
  You said they were into the coin collecting any family that wanted to be a part of this too.
• 16:28
  The grand fit grandkids only into fishing at the introductory stage.
• 16:32
  In other words, they like pan fishing.
• 16:34
  Okay.
• 16:35
  So I live on, I, I have an outlet to a lake at my house.
• 16:39
  Uh, and that's when they come and that's when I, I teach them what I know because that's also how I started learning how to pan and fish.
• 16:46
  And then you go from there.
• 16:48
  But, uh, at the present time.
• 16:51
  I don't think neither.
• 16:52
  It'll be a hobby to them more than me, because one wants to be an actress and the other one is into, uh, um, forgot what, what my oldest one college major is at the moment, but it'll come to me.
• 17:08
  How, how old are they?
• 17:09
  Uh, my oldest, my granddaughter is 17 and the young one is 15.
• 17:15
  Fun age, I would imagine.
• 17:16
  And they're open to age.
• 17:17
  Yes.
• 17:19
  And you're a gun collector?
• 17:20
  Yes.
• 17:21
  When did that start?
• 17:22
  When I went to college.
• 17:24
  what happened when I went to college was the fact that I went to Cornell and Cornell is in Ithaca, New York.
• 17:31
  Not to be confused with the Cornell in Iowa.
• 17:33
  That's right.
• 17:34
  Yes, that's right.
• 17:34
  That's right.
• 17:35
  So, so when I got there, I was using my GI bill.
• 17:40
  But I wanted to, I needed to make a little money, so I got a summer job at the Ithaca Gun Company, and they had at one the summer that I was there, they had a gun show, and that's when I got hooked.
• 17:56
  What were you doing in your job with them?
• 17:58
  Assembling guns.
• 17:59
  No kidding Shotguns.
• 18:00
  It's got Ithaca guns or shotguns on the assembly line.
• 18:03
  Yes.
• 18:04
  it was just fun doing it.
• 18:06
  And that got you hooked.
• 18:07
  That got me hooked and the first thing that, that, that really hooked me was the fact that I admired the, uh, the double barrel shotgun because in the old version when I was there, it was side by side.
• 18:22
  Now the new version is.
• 18:25
  So it, it was really just that thing and being a part, being able to, to feel it, to be a part of it was something that I wanted.
• 18:34
  And I said, oh, I gotta, I gotta have these.
• 18:37
  And my actual, my parents came to my graduation and that's what they actually brought me, bought me, was mine that a gun that I had seen.
• 18:47
  Did you get to try the.
• 18:50
  New things as they came out when you worked there?
• 18:52
  No.
• 18:52
  Did they?
• 18:52
  No.
• 18:52
  They didn't have a range.
• 18:53
  You could go Nothing.
• 18:54
  Okay.
• 18:54
  No, it, it, I was actually in the assembly plant.
• 18:57
  So it was all parts and labored?
• 18:59
  Yes.
• 18:59
  At that particular time.
• 19:00
  And then that's just grown over the years.
• 19:02
  Your collection, it had grown, grown over the years.
• 19:05
  Pistols, rifles?
• 19:06
  Nope.
• 19:06
  Nope.
• 19:07
  Only shotguns.
• 19:08
  Only shotguns.
• 19:09
  I only, I only actually own one pistol.
• 19:11
  That's all I own is one pistol.
• 19:13
  Never have really wanted on, but I've always collected, uh, shotguns.
• 19:18
  How often are you at gun shows or at other, do you have no other collectors?
• 19:22
  Has that turned into a small network of friends and, and collector?
• 19:26
  That's what actually happened to me here in Minnesota.
• 19:28
  I, I met four or five guys that were collectors and what we actually did was we moved to, we, we traveled around in the state to Wisconsin, to Iowa.
• 19:40
  They have, they have gun shows all the time, all around uh, you are always looking to see.
• 19:46
  What's new, what's old?
• 19:48
  But my collecting of guns is really not probably the way a normal collector would look at it.
• 19:56
  It's more so about I like this, you know, it was like the one that my parents brought me the side by side.
• 20:03
  I mean, I don't own a over under.
• 20:05
  I don't own a double bear over, under, no, I don't own it.
• 20:08
  It's, it's just so, it's just that feeling and just that, just that technique.
• 20:12
  That's all.
• 20:14
  So one of my questions was going to be what's something most people don't know about you?
• 20:19
  And we have learned, I have learned a lot, I've known you for a number of years.
• 20:22
  This is, this is why we do this.
• 20:25
  Yeah.
• 20:25
  Yeah.
• 20:25
  And I, and I think as, as I mentioned when we started, the other one was, was, uh, was collecting coins.
• 20:33
  Yes.
• 20:34
  I got into coin collecting.
• 20:38
  Just because I started reading a book about coins, and I think the fascinating part about coins to me is I don't think nobody in America realized unless you work at a place like this, how many coins in the world There really is.
• 20:57
  So I, I was reading this book and the title, title of this book is Get Rich with Your Pocket Change.
• 21:07
  And it tells you about the fact that some of the, the most precious coins out there are still in people's pocket.
• 21:16
  Okay.
• 21:16
  They're still in circulation.
• 21:17
  Yes.
• 21:17
  I mean, as long as, for example, let me give you a very quick one.
• 21:21
  The, the easy one is the Lincoln Penny.
• 21:26
  Lincoln Penny has been in existence since 1909.
• 21:31
  And there are not millions of Lincoln's pennies.
• 21:34
  There are trillions of them, but there are several coins.
• 21:39
  And what make coins this, these coins unique is an era has been made on the coin and on the 1909 coin, the one thing that happens is there is a designer of the coin and he gets to put his initials on the coin.
• 22:00
  Right under the date, and on the 1909, there were two batches made.
• 22:07
  One without, which was an error and one with, so you could have a 1909 in this hand and it'd be worth millions of dollars.
• 22:18
  You could have a 1909 In this hand, it is only worth a penny.
• 22:23
  That's how, that's, that's what makes it interesting to me.
• 22:26
  So it's, it's a constant.
• 22:28
  Looking and examining coins to know what it's worth.
• 22:33
  How many coins do you approximately own?
• 22:39
  Probably about 3,500, and that's an assortment of pennies.
• 22:45
  I only like pennies, quarter and quarters, and now I've gone strictly into silver.
• 22:53
  Because now the other thing about coins is the most precious content, which is silver and, and you, you have to, all coins don't have 99.9% silver.
• 23:07
  And so knowing that, so I went back into the books and that, I figured out which of that.
• 23:13
  So what happens is it's like making an investment.
• 23:18
  I have all these coins and you say they worth$3,500.
• 23:21
  No, they're not, because the price started at what is the market of an ounce of silver today.
• 23:27
  Sure.
• 23:28
  So that makes it very, very interesting.
• 23:31
  Have you ever been at a coin show or with a collector and had a, a nice surprise that you have one in your possession that's worth far more than you ever anticipated?
• 23:40
  No.
• 23:40
  'cause I examined them with coins very thoroughly of what I got.
• 23:45
  But what I, what I do have, I do have.
• 23:49
  I think I'm very much aware of mine because there's enough value to those coins and because they're all in my house, I have to know what the insurance price I need.
• 23:59
  Sure.
• 23:59
  I have, all of them are insured.
• 24:01
  I.
• 24:02
  The only some of my coins now, I begin to give off to my, to my two granddaughters.
• 24:08
  Once they learn, they are both into, into the, the baby is into the young one, in other words is into Penny's, and my oldest one is into quarters.
• 24:18
  And I have not turned loose any of my silver dollars yet.
• 24:22
  Okay.
• 24:22
  So that's, that's the biggest part of my collection.
• 24:25
  That must be fun watching them discover this whole process.
• 24:28
  Oh yeah.
• 24:29
  Oh yeah.
• 24:30
  One thing we haven't discussed specifically yet today is what led to your interest in becoming a Freemason?
• 24:37
  Now that's a very interesting, stubborn story.
• 24:40
  If I had to say so myself.
• 24:43
  I had, when I moved to Minnesota, I met this, this brother.
• 24:48
  His name was Robert Starkey.
• 24:51
  And Robert Starkey was a fisherman, so I'm on this fishing boat with him.
• 25:00
  One day we were just out fishing, we were just out having fun.
• 25:02
  This is before I really, really got started in the fishing and, and, and, and.
• 25:09
  Let me, let me, let me say this as I make this piece is, is the fact that I used to call, we call him sloping Bob, so I might use that phrase.
• 25:19
  So Robert Starkey is sloping Bob.
• 25:22
  So I was on this boat with Bob and he was, he was, he was on the trolling motor and he handed me this little card and the card said, what is a mason?
• 25:38
  I said, he said, Hmm, read this.
• 25:40
  I said, okay.
• 25:42
  So I read the card and then I gave it back to him and he said, what do you think?
• 25:50
  I said, what about the card?
• 25:52
  I said, yeah, it looks interesting.
• 25:54
  He said, so this is about Masonry, so what do you think?
• 25:59
  I said, yeah, it's a good idea.
• 26:01
  So at that particular point in time, he must know he gonna talk me into it.
• 26:04
  'cause he handed me a petition.
• 26:06
  I've been a Mason ever since.
• 26:07
  That's how I got started.
• 26:10
  That's, that's my starting block.
• 26:11
  Slopping Bob introduced me to Masonry.
• 26:16
  Well, we're grateful for slopping Bob Absolutely.
• 26:18
  For having that conversation.
• 26:20
  Absolutely.
• 26:21
  Absolutely.
• 26:21
  Absolutely.
• 26:22
  You've done so many things for the craft over the past 30 plus years.
• 26:30
  To the outsider, we summarize free masonry as authentic friendship, personal developments, building community.
• 26:39
  How should we best pursue doing those things and not just talking about those things.
• 26:46
  I think the one thing that, that we as Masons, uh, having a struggling problem with today is recruitment.
• 26:59
  And I had a, a mason to say this to me one time.
• 27:03
  He said, you know, masonry is a belly to belly thing.
• 27:09
  You, you want to, you, you, you need to meet a, a, a man, examine his character, and then invite him to be a mason.
• 27:19
  That's belly to belly.
• 27:22
  That to me has been the, the turning point for me and where I stand because I, I see our craft not at the present time following just that one little technique.
• 27:36
  Uh, we had so many masons year ago that we didn't have to look, and now that we are starting looking, we, we are forgetting the teaching part that we need to be teaching the incoming masons that they need to ask their friends.
• 27:50
  I.
• 27:51
  Asking a friend is still belly to belly asking a friend part of that bigger relationship building process.
• 28:00
  I think this gets misunderstood a lot, that we don't advocate going out to a perfect stranger and saying, Hey, stranger, come and join this, but someone that we know well, yeah, someone that we can vouch for.
• 28:12
  Yeah.
• 28:12
  And say, Hey, this is a good, good pain.
• 28:14
  Good man, good person who.
• 28:17
  Really already maybe embraces some of our core values, have that conversation.
• 28:22
  what I keep seeing is such a yearning for what we stand for.
• 28:27
  I.
• 28:28
  We can't assume that everyone's seeing our websites and our resources or our social media presence understand what that means.
• 28:34
  Right.
• 28:35
  To your point, belly to belly.
• 28:37
  Have the conversation.
• 28:38
  Got to have that conversation.
• 28:39
  Yeah.
• 28:39
  Why haven't you asked me about my Masonic cloud?
• 28:42
  What level of interest do you have in learning more?
• 28:44
  Kinda like slop and bomb, right?
• 28:46
  That's what he did.
• 28:47
  That's what he did.
• 28:48
  He asked me and he found out and he, so that was a good thing.
• 28:52
  And I, I think that the real turn of where we are today, I.
• 28:58
  Is, you know, we can look back over our history and we can say at one point in time we had 70,000 masons and all that was about.
• 29:10
  Belly to belly.
• 29:11
  Mm-hmm.
• 29:12
  I mean, you could, you, you got to imagine that that's what it was, simply because there was no telephone, no cell phones.
• 29:20
  These, these brothers was going on a horse and carriage and talking to people.
• 29:25
  And I think that's the big thing that, that, that we have lost a little love and, and we need to, I think time changes things, but communication never changes.
• 29:39
  No matter how you do it, I mean e even if, if your best friend is a friend that you talk to on the telephone all the time, it doesn't mean you still can't introduce him to the term of masonry.
• 29:51
  Mm-hmm.
• 29:51
  It's the fact that you didn't talk about it.
• 29:54
  You have to start that conversation.
• 29:56
  The person that is a Mason, we are the original social network.
• 30:03
  Death predating all of that technology and no matter how connected we might feel in that virtual online sense, that never substitutes face-to-face, friend to friend.
• 30:15
  Absolutely.
• 30:16
  Absolutely.
• 30:18
  I'm gonna pose a couple of random questions to you.
• 30:21
  Okay.
• 30:21
  In, in the pursuit of getting to know you better.
• 30:27
  What seemingly small thing changed your life forever?
• 30:36
  Are we talking in terms of masonry or just my life?
• 30:40
  Yeah, anything.
• 30:41
  Vietnam.
• 30:46
  Vietnam was the biggest changer in my life.
• 30:49
  Um, I go, I fight.
• 30:53
  I do think that a lot of people don't realize that I would, I'm in the infantry in other, all I did in Vietnam was carry a gun.
• 31:01
  All I did in Vietnam was shoot at people.
• 31:03
  All I did in Vietnam was get shot at.
• 31:06
  And then I come home and I have to, to um, readjust and I can't remember being at the Think cloud va.
• 31:20
  And one of the social psychologists actually said to me, he said, you, you were only 18 when that was happening, so you should be done.
• 31:31
  Got over that, and I had to look at him and I had to say to myself, I said, wait a minute.
• 31:36
  No matter what it is, if you kill somebody, no matter how it was done, you don't forget that man.
• 31:45
  I didn't ever see that psychologist again.
• 31:47
  I told, I told everybody because he didn't understand the fact that this is not something that changed, that happens to you.
• 31:54
  This is something that changes your life forever.
• 31:59
  Not for day.
• 31:59
  Forever.
• 32:00
  Forever.
• 32:00
  Forever.
• 32:01
  Yeah.
• 32:01
  Yes, yes.
• 32:02
  So that's my biggest change.
• 32:05
  But other than that, I've learned to adjust.
• 32:09
  I mean, the good thing about me, I had some loving parents.
• 32:13
  When I came home from Vietnam, I think I stayed, no, no farther than my parents' yard for almost six or eight months.
• 32:23
  So by the time I got home and, and went through those six or eight months, people had recognized me being home.
• 32:29
  So they didn't ask me many questions, and so I was able to, I've been able to live my life because a lot of people don't know that I'm a veteran.
• 32:39
  So I let it, I just let it pass, and you let it lay and you don't talk about it.
• 32:45
  And that's what the way I've learned to live my life thank you for your service to this country.
• 32:53
  Well, I think one of the biggest things about about that is just like I said, a lot of people don't recognize that, um, you know, you say, well, you're in the service and you say, yeah.
• 33:04
  And I says, where in Vietnam, everybody in Vietnam don't have to carry, didn't carry a gun.
• 33:11
  I mean, the supply people that were people that stayed in a secure camp, but I mean, my life was in the jungle all the time.
• 33:19
  I.
• 33:19
  It, it was, it was, it was very, very different.
• 33:24
  If you could ask any living person a question and be assured of a true answer, who would you ask?
• 33:36
  Who would I ask?
• 33:42
  It would really depend upon the question.
• 33:46
  If I was asking a question about Masonry, I would ask the people, the two brothers that started me along my way, Jerry Johnson and Russ Meister.
• 34:01
  If it was about my life, I'd probably be questioning myself.
• 34:07
  And making sure that I was on the right path.
• 34:11
  Um, I think I, I, I, I say that simply because I'm the oldest of the group in my house, so I don't know.
• 34:22
  But, but my, my question is al, my thing would always be what's the question?
• 34:27
  And then I would know the right person to go to if it was really something more than anything else, I'd go to my pastor.
• 34:36
  And, and, and I look at, at, at Rust and Mice, Russ and Jerry, as the two men in my life who started me on my Masonic journey, they saw in me something that I think I don't see in myself.
• 34:50
  They saw leadership in me that I didn't even know about, and they started me in these jobs, uh, which was, at that time the, uh, uh, I would, my first job in Masonry was a Dr.
• 35:03
  And then, then I took over for Russ at the district rep at, I mean, not at the district rep as the area deputy.
• 35:10
  And so those kind of things started me.
• 35:13
  And from that work I got to, to uh, the next person that came in, I came in contact with, with Neil.
• 35:20
  Neil, Neil Meyer Nemeyer.
• 35:22
  Mm-hmm.
• 35:22
  The late Neil Nemeyer and my Masonic term, we called him my, my fraternal father.
• 35:28
  And.
• 35:29
  He also saw things in me that I didn't see, and he started me.
• 35:33
  And that's what started my Masonic journey into, uh, being, um, um, becoming the grandma.
• 35:41
  When I think about Jerry Russ and our late friend and brother Neil, true gems.
• 35:48
  Mm-hmm.
• 35:48
  And such, such pillars.
• 35:50
  But it is another testament to that.
• 35:54
  Unintentional mentoring that happens in the moment that we That's correct.
• 35:57
  You don't even realize it.
• 35:58
  That is correct.
• 35:59
  They see something in you.
• 36:00
  Yep.
• 36:01
  And we hopefully are doing that now for our younger generation.
• 36:05
  Mm-hmm.
• 36:05
  That identifying that guy's got something.
• 36:08
  Yes.
• 36:08
  And how do we help encourage him, buoy him up and cultivate whether it's being a leader.
• 36:16
  Or an influencer or someone who truly is that Mason in their heart first.
• 36:22
  And, and especially in, in our, in in today's times, that's really how you have to look at it, because the, the one thing I see in Young Masons today is the fact that they love it.
• 36:39
  They, they want to be Masons, but.
• 36:43
  Their shortcoming is coming into the lodge and doing the work, and when they go out, they forget that they're masons.
• 36:55
  You know, I, I, I think that's the biggest thing that's happening, and I think that's because we as, as, as their leaders are not doing enough to, to get them down that road of saying.
• 37:10
  Masonry is a way of life.
• 37:13
  It is not just coming into your lodge.
• 37:15
  It's about your being a true mason and following the tenets of masonry, brotherly love, relief and truth.
• 37:24
  And I think that's what we have to do.
• 37:26
  And we have to, we, we, we are at that point of finding young men, but we not quite cultivating them to that standard.
• 37:36
  They would because I think.
• 37:38
  We sometimes look at because the world changes so fast, we are looking too much at, okay, the world's changed.
• 37:44
  We don't have to do that anymore.
• 37:45
  No, Uhuh belly and belly to belly will never go away when it comes to masonry, because that's the true grit.
• 37:54
  Because the, the, the one thing, the difference today is you have to teach, give the man the knowledge of what masonry is so that when he goes home.
• 38:06
  And he talks to his wife.
• 38:08
  His wife got to agree to it too sometimes, because it is no longer the man.
• 38:13
  It's, it's about a, a shared, shared relationship in a marriage today.
• 38:18
  So you have to take it very every way you can.
• 38:23
  There's definitely an opportunity for us to help advise counsel on being a mason all the time.
• 38:34
  Tolerance, brotherly love relief on social media outside of the lodge setting.
• 38:41
  It's not just something we do when we get together and have a meeting.
• 38:44
  Right.
• 38:44
  It's something, is it in your heart then?
• 38:47
  Your heart, or is it just something you just say the words?
• 38:49
  Mm-hmm.
• 38:50
  Where, where the merch.
• 38:50
  Mm-hmm.
• 38:52
  I, I agree with that very much because given the number of years that I've been in masonry, one thing, one thing that I, I, I, you can notice.
• 39:03
  Especially even doing our degrees.
• 39:06
  There are some guys, these young guys, they love it.
• 39:11
  I mean, they just love it.
• 39:13
  They, they, it's unbelievable the way they can handle learning.
• 39:17
  All of the stuff that they learn, sometimes they stop because again, when they go out that door, they forget that they're masons.
• 39:30
  It's like, it's like being almost in a theater sometimes.
• 39:33
  You know?
• 39:33
  This is, no, this is not theatrical.
• 39:35
  The words that you're saying is a way of life, not a theater.
• 39:39
  So that's the, that's what we are going through at the present time.
• 39:43
  Learning how to tear down that wall to, to make sure it's a part of that young man's life.
• 39:52
  John L.
• 39:52
  Cook, Jr.
• 39:54
  It has been a pleasure having you in studio today.
• 39:57
  I feel like we could talk for hours.
• 39:59
  Oh yeah, I, I agree with you, but it's only a short period of time.
• 40:05
  We'll do it again.
• 40:06
  We will do it again.
• 40:07
  We'll do it again.
• 40:07
  But it's, it's nice outside.
• 40:09
  There's tennis to be played.
• 40:10
  There's fishing equipment to be worked, worked on before your next trip.
• 40:14
  But thank you for coming in studio and I can't wait to do this again.
• 40:18
  Your mother.
• 40:18
  Welcome.
• 40:18
  I appreciate you very much for having me.
• 40:22
  And this has been another episode of Minnesota Masonic Histories and Mysteries.