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Episode 73. Salute to Service (ft. Gerald Rhoads) · Minnesota Masonic Histories and Mysteries

• 0:00
  Today's guest was raised at Meander Lodge number 7 6 5 in February, 1972.
• 0:07
  Meander Lodge being in the state of Ohio.
• 0:11
  He later affiliated at Hiram Lodge, number 2 87 in Lindstrom.
• 0:15
  That was in 1988, serving as Worshipful Master in 1993, again in 1999, a handful more times in 2002, 2005, 2008.
• 0:28
  We will have to hear more about that.
• 0:30
  Five, five times total in the East.
• 0:32
  Welcome Jerry Rhodes.
• 0:34
  Thank you.
• 0:35
  Pleased to be here.
• 0:37
  It's very selfless to say the least, that it's one thing to be master.
• 0:40
  Once or twice.
• 0:41
  You did five rounds.
• 0:44
  Enjoyed it, enjoyed every trip.
• 0:47
  You have done so much Mason Grand Lodge Education Officer in 19 95, 96 Grand Master from 2004, 2005.
• 0:58
  Before we get into some of those additional details, where are you originally from?
• 1:02
  Youngstown, Ohio.
• 1:04
  Right on the Pennsylvania border.
• 1:07
  I grew up there.
• 1:07
  I went to college there.
• 1:09
  Where'd you go to school?
• 1:10
  Youngstown University.
• 1:12
  Then I transferred to Pitt in Pittsburgh, graduated.
• 1:16
  Then after I returned from the Army, I made use of the v the VA bill, the GI bill, and went back to Youngstown.
• 1:24
  Got an additional degree.
• 1:26
  What were your degrees in business and science?
• 1:29
  I was a licensed mortician.
• 1:31
  No kidding.
• 1:31
  No.
• 1:32
  There's something I did not know about you.
• 1:33
  Were you ever practicing in the, in that field?
• 1:36
  I worked in that business for 11 years, uh, with timeout, be for the Army four years, but, uh, since, uh, about ninth grade, I just always wanted to be a mortician.
• 1:47
  So put the blinders on board ahead and next thing you know, I was licensed.
• 1:52
  growing up, any siblings?
• 1:54
  One sister younger.
• 1:56
  And what did your parents do?
• 1:57
  What's your dad do for a career?
• 1:58
  My dad was in data processing before there were computers.
• 2:03
  What did that look like in those days?
• 2:04
  Well, they didn't call'em computers.
• 2:06
  They called them business machines.
• 2:09
  And they were very large, very loud, disorders, calculators, printers, huge machines.
• 2:18
  And he just kind of gradually progressed right with the industry.
• 2:23
  Did that for 44 years.
• 2:25
  I bet it would be difficult for him to be able to comprehend how tiny these microchips are by today's standards.
• 2:32
  Well, he never used a, a laptop ever.
• 2:37
  And he said when he retired, anybody who mentioned the word computer in his presence would probably be skinned.
• 2:44
  Well, message Steve Dad.
• 2:46
  Yes.
• 2:48
  And then did you sign up for military service?
• 2:51
  Were you drafted?
• 2:52
  What were the, what was that timeline for you?
• 2:54
  I was basically a draft dodger.
• 2:56
  I didn't object at all to military service, but I didn't want to be drafted.
• 3:02
  If you get drafted, you just take two years of your life away from home, do exactly what they tell you to do wherever they tell you to do it.
• 3:10
  Uh, and I thought that such a waste.
• 3:14
  So I, I enlisted because I was sure I was gonna get drafted anyway.
• 3:18
  And what year was that?
• 3:20
  Enlisted in 67.
• 3:22
  Did you have a choice of what you wanted to go into?
• 3:27
  Well, I picked up every brochure the Army recruiter had, and the only one that interested me was the aviation.
• 3:36
  And the deal at the time was you could take the admission test for flight school, uh, before signing up.
• 3:43
  So you knew whether or not you were gonna get in.
• 3:46
  So I took the test and passed it a real brain drain.
• 3:51
  I'll tell you, it was a really eight hour exam.
• 3:53
  Wow.
• 3:53
  And Started out in helicopters the first day, which is opposite of what the civilians do.
• 3:59
  They get a airplane license and then transition.
• 4:01
  That's what I assumed.
• 4:02
  Okay.
• 4:03
  But, uh, we, oh, I started in helicopters very first day.
• 4:07
  Was flight school fast tracked because of Vietnam, because of things going on in the world?
• 4:12
  No, it took a year, six months in Texas and then six months in Georgia at, at the advanced school.
• 4:18
  And then from there, I, I had requested medevac because I did ambulance work before I went in the army.
• 4:25
  So I requested, uh, to fly medevac.
• 4:27
  So I had to go take medical training too.
• 4:30
  What was the attrition rate like in advanced flight school and then having in that?
• 4:35
  Aspect of having to have the medical the attrition rate in flight school was, uh, there were some that couldn't handle the academics and they just flunked out.
• 4:44
  There were some that couldn't, couldn't fly, uh, that were just afraid of it.
• 4:48
  It's helicopters are rather difficult to, uh, to handle and some of'em just never got over the fear.
• 4:55
  And were most of the ones who didn't make it dropped out.
• 4:59
  How soon after graduating did you get deployed?
• 5:05
  Uh, as soon as I graduated from flight school, I went to Texas for the medical training Standard medics course.
• 5:10
  So eight weeks later I was on my way to Vietnam.
• 5:15
  That's unusual for aviation too because, uh, usually the, when you graduate from flight school, air Force or Navy, you get assigned to a unit in the United States for additional training and, and just accumulating hours, becoming comfortable in the cockpit.
• 5:31
  And, but, uh, no, we get, my whole class went to Vietnam except for one guy.
• 5:38
  He had already been there for one tour as an infantryman, so they sent him to Germany how do you feel about sharing a little more insight on you're not only piloting a helicopter, but you're a medevac.
• 5:55
  Time is of the essence on innumerable levels.
• 6:00
  True.
• 6:01
  It's, uh, it's a very stressful occupation.
• 6:06
  I thought I was better prepared for it than most of the guys because I'd done the work in the ambulance.
• 6:13
  But, uh, in looking back at it, I was not any better prepared than they were.
• 6:17
  Uh, it's psychologically stressful just seeing guys shot up in bad, in bad shape day after day after day, and kinda wears on.
• 6:28
  You And you're trying to get them from where they are injured to a place of first aid and care and doing so without incident within an hour.
• 6:43
  The goal was to get'em from it wherever they were wounded to the MASH unit and the surgeon within one hour.
• 6:50
  Most of the time we made it.
• 6:53
  Sometimes the distances involved.
• 6:57
  Just made it take a little longer.
• 6:59
  I'd say 80% of the time the wounded were in Mash Hospital within an hour of being wounded.
• 7:07
  How fast were you expected to be turning around and back up in the air?
• 7:12
  It all depended on when the next phone call came.
• 7:14
  Sometimes it was, we didn't even shut down.
• 7:18
  Uh, we could fly four or five missions in a day.
• 7:20
  In a day.
• 7:23
  And we also flew at night, which very few of the other helicopters did.
• 7:28
  Can't hardly tell a guy, you can't come and get him because it's raining.
• 7:31
  Right?
• 7:31
  He's bleeding, you know, he needs us.
• 7:34
  how long did you serve in that capacity?
• 7:37
  One year through 712 missions.
• 7:44
  And we did fly at night quite a bit.
• 7:47
  How, what was that like?
• 7:48
  Well, the advantage is if you do it enough, you get real good at it.
• 7:52
  Most of the helicopter pilots in Vietnam didn't do it enough to get good at it.
• 7:56
  So consequently, they were pretty nervous about it.
• 7:58
  Yeah.
• 7:59
  I got to the point where I actually preferred it.
• 8:02
  How come?
• 8:02
  The air was smoother at night.
• 8:04
  And there's no better place in the world to hide than in the dark.
• 8:07
  So I could turn all my lights off'cause nobody else was flying.
• 8:11
  That was my next question.
• 8:12
  The novice question.
• 8:13
  Could you go into light discipline and turn everything off in the dead of night?
• 8:18
  Yes.
• 8:19
  Turn off all the external lights.
• 8:21
  The, uh, we turned the cockpit lights down, uh, so we could still see'em, but they, they're red, they didn't show up to the ground at all.
• 8:30
  So we, we could be up there, they could hear us and sometimes they shot, just shot at the noise.
• 8:35
  but very seldom with any effect.
• 8:39
  It that goes up there.
• 8:40
  And you know, I've been out flying, I see tracers going straight up in the air, quarter of a mile off to the left or right.
• 8:48
  And I know they're shooting at me'cause there's nobody else up.
• 8:51
  But they're not even close.
• 8:52
  It's laughable.
• 8:54
  Only once did I get hit at night.
• 8:56
  Really?
• 8:57
  Yeah.
• 8:57
  Just a lucky shot.
• 8:59
  Where did, where was contact?
• 9:00
  It uh, machine gunners kind of stitched up the belly of the helicopter.
• 9:06
  There was a dozen holes across the, the bullets came in, hit the fuel cells and actually dropped down onto the fuselage.
• 9:15
  Obviously you made it to safety, but that had to be dicey.
• 9:18
  Well, it's, it is.
• 9:21
  You can't see the damage, so you wonder just how bad it is.
• 9:25
  But they came in and hit the fuel cells and, and just dropped off.
• 9:31
  it goes without saying, thank you for your service to our country, first and foremost.
• 9:35
  Most welcome.
• 9:36
  Very rewarding.
• 9:40
  So how does someone do that for a year?
• 9:44
  Stress, seeing what you, every day, seeing what you saw.
• 9:49
  How do you go back to civilian life after that kind of a day, at a time?
• 9:56
  I do probably the only criticism I had of the Army.
• 9:59
  I was much in favor of it, but, uh, the army and overall.
• 10:05
  But when I came back, nobody, nobody even said, how do you feel?
• 10:09
  Are you okay?
• 10:11
  I came back, had a couple of weeks off, got right down to the advanced flight school again as a classroom instructor.
• 10:19
  Got on with my life.
• 10:22
  Some guys needed some help with that right away.
• 10:27
  Uh, with me, it was, it, it kind of came back a lot of years later, you get, you're pretty nervous when you get back.
• 10:35
  It's, I'd call it hyper alert I still don't like to sit with my back to the drawer.
• 10:43
  I wanna see who's coming and going.
• 10:45
  It's just a habit, you know, it's, if my back's to the door, I'm just a little bit nervous.
• 10:50
  Understood.
• 10:52
  I don't know if that'll ever go away.
• 10:56
  So you come back, did you resume schooling or work at the time, or how did what?
• 11:00
  What was your Initially I went back to the funeral business and that's what got me into masonry.
• 11:05
  I worked at the funeral home.
• 11:06
  Everybody in the funeral home was a mason except me.
• 11:09
  In what city was this In?
• 11:11
  Youngstown.
• 11:11
  Okay.
• 11:12
  One of the suburbs.
• 11:13
  And we had funeral home and ambulance service.
• 11:16
  I worked there before I went in the Army, so I went back to, to the same job.
• 11:22
  So were your colleagues, obviously were Masons.
• 11:24
  Were you initially curious after seeing a Masonic service, perhaps, or was it your colleagues or maybe both.
• 11:32
  It was a little of both.
• 11:34
  I started doing some after dinner speaking because my boss was supposed to arrange for an after dinner speaker, forgot to do it, and three days before the banquet he says, Hey, you gotta bail me out.
• 11:47
  Just come and tell some stories, you know?
• 11:50
  Well, somebody that was in the audience came up afterward and asked if I would do it for his organization.
• 11:56
  And then next thing you know, it just kind of snowballed.
• 11:59
  It's the Jerry Road speaking tour now.
• 12:01
  Yeah.
• 12:02
  Doing the rubber chicken C circuit.
• 12:04
  Right.
• 12:05
  So I, I spoke at a shrine club.
• 12:07
  Youngstown has a shrine club.
• 12:09
  They have their own property and their own building, and about 150 guys at the banquet.
• 12:16
  And there was a girl there that night that had been in treatment for five years in a ho in the Shrine Hospital.
• 12:24
  She was about 14, I think she'd been nine years old when she started, but she had triple curvature of the spine.
• 12:30
  There were a lot of pictures of her in the lobby.
• 12:33
  Uh, when she started treatment at Shrine Hospital, she couldn't even look up.
• 12:38
  Uh, she spent her whole life looking down and after five years, she was standing there straight as an arrow.
• 12:43
  Well, her dad got up and spoke and he thanked them all, of course, for everything.
• 12:48
  She got up and spoke and when she said, I don't know exactly how to thank you, man, so I'm gonna thank you, the only way I know how.
• 12:59
  And she walked through the hall and hugged and kissed every guy in the place.
• 13:03
  It was absolute silence.
• 13:06
  And these guys who'd been standing at the bar drinking, smoking their cigars and talking tough before dinner, just melted a lot of cloudy eyes in the room.
• 13:16
  Oh, yes.
• 13:17
  And I asked the guy sitting next to me.
• 13:21
  How, how can I become a part of this group?
• 13:24
  I gotta get in on this.
• 13:25
  Was that, that was the moment where you said, yeah, I need to be a part of this.
• 13:29
  He said, well, first of all, you gotta be a mason.
• 13:33
  So the next morning when I went to work, you know, I said, uh, how do I become a mason?
• 13:40
  The guy was working with says, what the hell took you so long?
• 13:43
  He's waiting on you to say something.
• 13:45
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 13:45
  Well at the time he couldn't.
• 13:47
  Right.
• 13:48
  Did he produce a petition quickly?
• 13:50
  He had one in his desk.
• 13:52
  and that obviously what led you to join Meander Lodge in Ohio?
• 13:56
  Yes, yes.
• 13:58
  And I got so hung up on the Blue Lodge that it took me 15 years to get to the Scottish Rite.
• 14:05
  Uh, and I wanted to get to the Scottish Rite,'cause I still wanted to be a Shriner.
• 14:09
  And then it took me 10 years before I get into the shrine.
• 14:13
  I got hooked at Scottish Rite, which I think looking back is still a plus because there is that opportunity to really get to know and understand what it means to be a Mason and to immerse yourself in your Blue Lodge experience.
• 14:28
  And we're, yes, we're all members of the concordant dependent bodies, but maybe we rush guys a little quickly outta the Blue Lodge and, and then overwhelm them with so many different places to be involved and to be active.
• 14:43
  Well, it's true.
• 14:44
  I usually tell our newer members that just give it a year or two, let things settle, decide what you wanna do.
• 14:53
  So how did you end up in Minnesota?
• 14:55
  You were raised in Meander Lodge in 1972.
• 14:58
  Did you work for a few more years in Ohio before?
• 15:01
  What was the catalyst that led you here?
• 15:03
  I left the funeral business, found out it just wasn't that good.
• 15:08
  A, a, a career.
• 15:11
  I liked the work.
• 15:12
  That was not a problem.
• 15:14
  But, uh, the, the, the career opportunities are few.
• 15:18
  So I left the funeral business and went into sales before we leave that were, was the funeral, the hours they had to be difficult?
• 15:25
  Were you the, the phone must have been ringing all throughout the night?
• 15:28
  Oh yeah.
• 15:29
  Seven days a week, twenty four seven I'd call every other night I'd be, I'd be at home in bed.
• 15:34
  The phone would ring two in the morning.
• 15:36
  but it was so unpredictable.
• 15:37
  You just never knew.
• 15:39
  So in those nights, you just really couldn't go anywhere.
• 15:41
  Had to stay home.
• 15:43
  Had to be, so you decided try sales.
• 15:46
  Try sales.
• 15:47
  And what company did you work for?
• 15:49
  I went to work for Trail Mobile.
• 15:52
  It was a tra, a semi-trailer manufacturer.
• 15:55
  I had, I worked for them for 15 years and then ended up going to work for a leasing company.
• 16:02
  As a trailer buyer.
• 16:04
  So I sold'em for 15 years and for the next 20 years, I, I was buying them and I was also acting as a consultant to our customers, the leasing customers on the equipment, not of they, me in the agricultural business.
• 16:20
  Well, they were all agricultural with that leasing company, but didn't have really that much knowledge about the trailers and they, they weren't getting the right equipment.
• 16:28
  You clearly had experience on both sides of that equation to Yes.
• 16:33
  Be a true consultant with good counsel.
• 16:35
  And if they were having problems with the trailer, uh, I could usually tell'em, you know, what the solution was.
• 16:42
  So was that company starting in Ohio?
• 16:44
  Did you get transferred to Minnesota?
• 16:46
  I got transferred from Ohio to Detroit with the trailer company.
• 16:51
  I.
• 16:51
  And after a year, a year in Detroit, I got promoted again and transferred to Boston.
• 16:57
  Lived in Boston for two years, and then got transferred to Minnesota.
• 17:01
  I changed companies and came to Minnesota.
• 17:05
  Had you ever been in this part of the country prior?
• 17:07
  No.
• 17:08
  First time.
• 17:08
  What, what city was it?
• 17:09
  Straight to Lindstrom, uh, it was to Minneapolis.
• 17:14
  Uh, they were hiring a manager for, Minneapolis, Eastern Wisconsin.
• 17:18
  And the Dakotas, multiple locations, a sales manager.
• 17:23
  Little driving involved.
• 17:24
  Uh, a little bit, yes.
• 17:26
  And I bought a home in, uh, maple Grove.
• 17:31
  Lived there seven years.
• 17:33
  Uh, went through a divorce, ended up remarrying and bought a hobby farm up in Lindstrom.
• 17:39
  stayed there for 32 years and six years ago I moved into Taylors Falls right next door.
• 17:46
  How many kids do you have?
• 17:47
  Got?
• 17:47
  Four kids.
• 17:48
  Three boys and a girl.
• 17:50
  Nine grandchildren only one of which is in Minnesota.
• 17:54
  Uh, my son went to University of Cincinnati, married a local girl there and stayed there.
• 18:01
  Uh, my daughter went to law school in Washington, DC at Georgetown.
• 18:05
  Uh, got a job in Washington and stayed there, and one of the other sons moved to Florida for, for his occupation.
• 18:14
  So he lives in Bonita Springs down by Naples.
• 18:18
  Safe to assume that's a good winter time visit?
• 18:21
  Uh, yes it is.
• 18:23
  My wife doesn't care for Florida, basically because her grandchildren are down there.
• 18:28
  She wants'em closer.
• 18:29
  Yeah.
• 18:29
  That is tough.
• 18:30
  And I have one son lives in Bayport.
• 18:32
  And have he, he has one of our grandsons.
• 18:35
  No great grandkids though.
• 18:36
  Not yet.
• 18:38
  Not yet.
• 18:39
  Keyword yet.
• 18:40
  Yet, yeah.
• 18:41
  Yeah.
• 18:42
  He's senior city planner, for the city of Woodbury.
• 18:46
  Been there since today.
• 18:46
  He got outta college.
• 18:48
  Long tenure.
• 18:49
  So far.
• 18:49
  He's been there 20 years.
• 18:54
  How different was it here coming from Ohio and then Boston?
• 18:58
  I lived in Boston a couple years in a prior career in underestimated the culture difference between New England and the Midwest.
• 19:05
  It's easy to do.
• 19:07
  Uh, I had no idea that it would be as different as I found it.
• 19:12
  Uh, the people in Minnesota make, make the difference.
• 19:17
  How so?
• 19:17
  It is definitely different here and did doing business in New England.
• 19:23
  You had to keep both eyes open all the time.
• 19:25
  They would purposely trick you, They were always looking for a way to, to, to get you, you know, you really had to be on your guard.
• 19:35
  I came to Minnesota, it just wasn't that way.
• 19:38
  People are honest, forthright.
• 19:41
  It didn't have to be.
• 19:43
  As, as vigilant as I had to be in New Orleans and bef or uh, new England and before that in Detroit.
• 19:52
  So when you first came upon that honesty, the integrity, did you initially maybe think, do these people for real?
• 19:58
  Is this, is this a front?
• 20:00
  It?
• 20:00
  It did make me wonder at first.
• 20:03
  For example, when I moved to Lindstrom, uh, wasn't married to my wife yet, had the, had the hobby farm and there was a place in the hallway that needed something on the wall.
• 20:16
  So I went to the shop in Lindstrom.
• 20:18
  I'm looking at, uh, couple of different photographs, framed pictures.
• 20:24
  Lady says, can I help you?
• 20:26
  I said, well, I can't decide between these two pictures.
• 20:30
  She said, well, I'll put'em in a bag.
• 20:32
  You take'em home and hang them up and see which one looks the best.
• 20:35
  okay.
• 20:36
  You sure I took the two of them home?
• 20:39
  And picked one out, brought the other one back and I said, I'm gonna dump them.
• 20:45
  Doesn't that make you a little nervous?
• 20:46
  Yeah.
• 20:47
  You didn't even ask me my name.
• 20:50
  He said, well, why would I be nervous?
• 20:51
  And I said, well, what if I didn't bring them back?
• 20:54
  She said, well, why would you wanna do that?
• 20:57
  Couldn't fathom you doing that.
• 20:59
  And then she said, do you, do you recall what the price was on the one you kept?
• 21:05
  I said, 39.
• 21:07
  Nine five said, okay.
• 21:08
  She close enough.
• 21:10
  Yeah.
• 21:10
  I said, this is crazy.
• 21:13
  where have I landed?
• 21:14
  Where are these people?
• 21:16
  It's just that's the way people are.
• 21:20
  I don't have a key to my house.
• 21:22
  Don't lock You don't lock it at all times, even when you're home or you Nope.
• 21:26
  You leave your car unlocked in the Yeah, we, we lock it when we go to bed.
• 21:29
  But other than that, the, the.
• 21:31
  The door of the patio, the sliding door is open all the time.
• 21:35
  We don't worry about it.
• 21:36
  I, uh, frankly, I love it.
• 21:41
  I like to ask every guest some random questions.
• 21:45
  I have pulled these out, written them down already, but it's almost a perfect fit into what we're talking about.
• 21:52
  What is the least favorite thing about where you live now?
• 21:56
  You've shared what you really do, like what's the least favorite?
• 22:01
  Uh, I would say the least favorite thing is my, my house is on four acres.
• 22:09
  We have a pond in the back, and we have some wetland between the house and the road.
• 22:15
  And by law we can't do anything with it.
• 22:18
  It's, to me, it's just nature.
• 22:23
  You just, you have to leave it alone.
• 22:25
  Great.
• 22:26
  Uh, great place to live.
• 22:27
  Yeah.
• 22:27
  Well, it's a trade off.
• 22:28
  At least you can't do anything with the lamb, but at least you have all of that too.
• 22:31
  Yeah.
• 22:31
  Small, small town.
• 22:36
  What personality trait do you find the most underrated in Minnesota?
• 22:47
  Anywhere?
• 22:52
  I would have to say compassion.
• 22:58
  I think there's much more compassion in people than we realize.
• 23:05
  Maybe we just don't get the opportunity to see it, or it doesn't really stand out except on exceptional occasions.
• 23:15
  But, uh, I, I have seen it all my life.
• 23:21
  When I worked in the ambulance, every time I got to an accident on the Ohio Turnpike, there was at least a dozen semis had stopped and they got out their blankets and their flares and their first aid kits and their fire extinguishers.
• 23:37
  And most of the time they never got any of it back, but they never hesitated.
• 23:43
  And that's saying something with a truck driver that's driving on a schedule Yes.
• 23:47
  That's getting paid on that schedule would say we're we're gonna stop and do the right thing.
• 23:51
  Time's money, yes.
• 23:53
  To a truck driver, but they never hesitated.
• 23:58
  But, and you know, nobody notices except maybe the people driving by and maybe they think they were part of the accident.
• 24:04
  They don't really see what's happening.
• 24:05
  But I know you know this, this patient's already got two blankets wrapped around him, and there's a fire extinguisher sitting there and you see they put out the flares and, and without hesitation or seeking reward, they do it because it's the right thing to do.
• 24:25
  Yeah.
• 24:26
  Doing the right thing.
• 24:26
  Yeah.
• 24:27
  Let's come up on this podcast frequently, how much we have in common as people, as humans.
• 24:35
  And the compassion.
• 24:36
  The compassion knows.
• 24:38
  No political angle, no religious affiliation, nothing.
• 24:43
  We're all wired to have compassion.
• 24:48
  I think 98% of the people in the world are good people.
• 24:53
  They're just fine.
• 24:54
  They're honest, they're caring.
• 24:56
  They.
• 24:57
  They're just plain nice people, but that doesn't stand out as much as the 2% that do all the foolish things.
• 25:09
  What would happen in this world if we took that 98% and had them highlight and showcase the things that made them happy, the things that they're excited about or in this holding pattern of social media, of just railing against the things we either don't like, don't agree with, or make us angry?
• 25:32
  How can we stop focusing on that and get back to that 98%?
• 25:38
  Well, that's a good question.
• 25:40
  I, I don't know if there's a one answer for that.
• 25:43
  I don't know if there's one step that you have to take or if it's a progress of things.
• 25:51
  Something to make people realize that they're the cause of their own misery.
• 25:58
  I can truly say there isn't one person in the world that I actually dislike.
• 26:03
  There's some people I prefer not to be around, but they don't know it.
• 26:09
  I can be around them, but the people who, who carry those grudges, who are always complaining, don't realize they're making them, making themselves miserable, and the person they're angry at doesn't even know it.
• 26:26
  He's out playing golf somewhere or fishing.
• 26:28
  He, he's not upset.
• 26:31
  The only upset is the person that's carrying this grudge around.
• 26:35
  So true, and I just made up my mind a long time ago, I couldn't stand my high school principal, but a few years after I got outta high school.
• 26:44
  Why?
• 26:44
  Why am I even thinking about that jerk?
• 26:47
  You know, I gotta stop this.
• 26:50
  I'm not even, I'm not even angry at the guy that shot me down over in Vietnam.
• 26:56
  I'd have lunch with him this afternoon.
• 26:58
  We could really, we could talk it over.
• 26:59
  Sure.
• 27:00
  I, he was, he was fighting for his cause and I was fighting for mine.
• 27:06
  He didn't, he, he had no particular dislike for me.
• 27:09
  He didn't even know me.
• 27:10
  So, you know, why would I be angry at him?
• 27:14
  I don't like what he did.
• 27:16
  You know?
• 27:16
  For sure.
• 27:17
  But if your life came with pause, rewind, and fast forward buttons, how would you use them?
• 27:34
  I don't think I'd hit a rewind button.
• 27:40
  There are times I'm, sometimes, maybe I'd like to have a pause.
• 27:46
  And I'm not sure I wanna fast forward.
• 27:52
  I'm having too much fun the way it is.
• 27:55
  I don't wanna skip.
• 27:55
  It might miss something.
• 27:59
  But as far as rewind, there have been times in my life that things happened that I would have preferred not to have happened.
• 28:10
  And like almost everybody, there are times in my life where I made mistakes, where I was embarrassed.
• 28:21
  Uh, but you learn from them.
• 28:25
  I don't think I'd change anything.
• 28:28
  I certainly wouldn't give up any of the people that I've met.
• 28:32
  I value all of them.
• 28:34
  You met some great people along the way.
• 28:36
  Oh, you, you had such a, such a story between Ohio military, your, your business.
• 28:42
  Your Masonic service.
• 28:43
  Could you imagine life without those people?
• 28:46
  No.
• 28:47
  No, couldn't, couldn't possibly happen.
• 28:49
  That's it.
• 28:50
  It constantly reminds me of the fact that on the tombstones, you know, it says 1901 to 1989.
• 29:00
  It's 1901 dash 1989.
• 29:04
  The 1901 means nothing.
• 29:05
  The 1989 means nothing.
• 29:07
  That's how you spent the dash.
• 29:11
  That's what, that's what counts.
• 29:17
  I really appreciate your perspective on that.
• 29:20
  Not using the fast forward button, because it feels like so many people in the world today feel like happiness, fulfillment.
• 29:30
  The next thing around the corner is where they're gonna find it.
• 29:33
  How fast can I get there?
• 29:35
  And they're not realizing that today.
• 29:38
  Right now.
• 29:39
  Those are your good old days.
• 29:41
  That's right.
• 29:42
  We're not enjoying the moment enough.
• 29:43
  We're, we're keep looking ahead.
• 29:45
  How do we get there instead of, and we're taking for granted everything in today.
• 29:49
  You have an opportunity today to create a memory, a pleasant memory.
• 29:55
  Why would you rush it?
• 29:59
  I went back to college after I retired.
• 30:03
  Uh, I always had a passion for history unfortunately, you can't make a living in history.
• 30:08
  That's true.
• 30:09
  All you can do is teach it.
• 30:10
  Yes.
• 30:11
  Uh, and, and there are lots of people that wish they could teach it, but in studying history and going back to college after I was retired, what was that like?
• 30:21
  Oh, it was wonderful.
• 30:22
  Yeah.
• 30:23
  Uh, I got an additional major in history.
• 30:26
  I didn't, I didn't finish the degree.
• 30:28
  My mom got cancer and I dropped out that quarter and went down to Ohio to spend time with her and just never picked it up again.
• 30:36
  But they, they said then the purpose of studying history of liking history is so that you can learn the lessons of the past to make decisions in the present and plan for the future.
• 30:52
  So I picked right up on that and just bore ahead.
• 30:56
  That is so true.
• 30:57
  You learn from the past so that you can plan, so that you can make decisions in the present and plan for the future Really Makes me sad to think that.
• 31:11
  The, the history is being slanted, trying to make our mistakes, uh, go away, There's a lot of it.
• 31:20
  They don't teach in school.
• 31:24
  I'm really going to be thinking about the dash that you just described too at first, the year, the last year.
• 31:33
  It's all about the dash and it's all about living in the moment and not trying to wish our lives away.
• 31:38
  To fast forward that even in tough times.
• 31:41
  I guess where I'm going with that is the, the difficult times.
• 31:46
  We want things to be easy.
• 31:47
  We want things to be comfortable.
• 31:49
  A, a brother shared with me a, a quote recently that basically said that when asking people when they really grew spiritually, they never described that it was an easy time.
• 32:02
  That their biggest growth came through hard times, difficult circumstances, and that really made me think that was the hamster wheel in my head at three in the morning the next day.
• 32:16
  Yeah, I can understand that hamster wheel sometimes that's a little overactive.
• 32:23
  Why can't, why can't that happen at three in the afternoon and not three in the morning?
• 32:28
  I wish I could tell you I have a habit of waking up in the middle of the night.
• 32:34
  I always have, and I can't go back to sleep.
• 32:37
  So I usually get up and read and within 45 minutes I'm, my eyes are drooping again.
• 32:44
  I go back to bed.
• 32:46
  This is a tough question, but in all the years of study, do you have a favorite book?
• 32:51
  Can you say There's one that's my all time fave.
• 32:57
  I would say there's two.
• 33:00
  the Bible fascinates me.
• 33:03
  I, I'm not one to try to memorize verses or quotes.
• 33:09
  My interest is more in studying about the Bible.
• 33:12
  Who were the people that wrote this?
• 33:14
  What were their lives about?
• 33:15
  What was their motivations?
• 33:17
  What was the social circumstances at the time?
• 33:21
  So that's fascinating.
• 33:24
  Uh, the other one is my heritage as Welsh.
• 33:27
  My family came here from Wales probably the most famous book in Wales is How Green Was My Valley by Richard Lewellen.
• 33:37
  I think I've read it eight or 10 times.
• 33:40
  Never gets old.
• 33:41
  Never gets old.
• 33:43
  It's about a Welsh coal mining family, uh, in the 18 hundreds.
• 33:49
  Had to be tough, tough times.
• 33:51
  Tough living.
• 33:51
  Oh, man.
• 33:52
  And making your living mine in coal.
• 33:56
  Yeah, it's a, it's an excellent book.
• 33:59
  And speaking of books, history, reading and learning, you've been a Mason now for 53 years, serving in so many different capacities.
• 34:12
  Grand Master of Masons in Minnesota, 2004 to 2005.
• 34:17
  What are some of the best memories of that having served in the Grand East?
• 34:27
  I would say the best memory is all the traveling that I did and all the people that I met.
• 34:35
  I, I was treated like royalty everywhere I went.
• 34:41
  Anywhere specific come to mind.
• 34:44
  Any local lodge I went to.
• 34:46
  Okay.
• 34:47
  Uh, not me, it's the office that I held.
• 34:54
  Um, most of'em didn't know me until I showed up at their lodge, but their, their respect for the office was so impressive.
• 35:05
  Always being their last to speak and having people I never got used to people standing up when I'm introduced or when I'm finished speaking.
• 35:16
  it was a, it was a wonderful year.
• 35:19
  Who named you to the line?
• 35:21
  Chuck Luman.
• 35:23
  Chuck Luman?
• 35:24
  Yeah.
• 35:25
  Character.
• 35:25
  All his own.
• 35:26
  Yes.
• 35:28
  The uh, the reception that I got everywhere I went was just, just super It was a wonderful year.
• 35:36
  At the banquet at the end of the year, I said, I, I have to thank you for giving me the opportunity to live my masonry for a whole year, every day, which a lot of people don't get to do.
• 35:51
  I wish we all could.
• 35:53
  Oh, that is quite a, quite an honor and, and a privilege.
• 35:56
  Who comes to mind for you as being a mentor?
• 36:00
  Someone that you look up to, somebody that maybe identified in you something that you didn't identify in yourself?
• 36:07
  One of'em was Stuart Lindman, who was active in the radio here.
• 36:12
  Yes.
• 36:12
  He was pretty well known.
• 36:13
  Yes.
• 36:15
  Another one that just died was Wiley Smith.
• 36:19
  I think if you looked up the word Mason, there's probably, I got his picture there.
• 36:22
  Oh my God.
• 36:23
  Wiley was such a, geez.
• 36:25
  What a guy.
• 36:26
  We could do a whole episode on Wiley.
• 36:28
  Gosh, what a, what?
• 36:29
  A just, but just having, I said, keep an eye on me.
• 36:34
  What do you see as the future of the craft?
• 36:42
  Over the past 400, 500 years, it's been up and down.
• 36:50
  The reason we went from operative to speculative was because it was shrinking.
• 36:57
  They weren't building castles and cathedrals anymore.
• 37:02
  The favorite construction was Italian Renaissance, which is two and three story buildings with flat roofs.
• 37:08
  Hell, anybody with a hammer and a sock can build those.
• 37:11
  You don't need to be a mason to put up one of those buildings.
• 37:15
  So the lodges were shrinking.
• 37:18
  They took steps to make it better and take in speculative masons.
• 37:24
  It's been up and down, up and down.
• 37:27
  I don't think it'll ever be out.
• 37:30
  I can feel it being coming back up already.
• 37:35
  It's, it's coming slowly, but just in my own lodge, in Lindstrom, we were on the verge of thinking about merging All of a sudden a group of young guys came along and grabbed onto it.
• 37:47
  And I can truthfully say the torch has passed in Lindstrom.
• 37:53
  And I would agree with you in seeing the surge.
• 37:58
  Of new members of gentlemen interested in learning more about Freemasonry, really wanting what we offer with authentic friendship, building community and resources to pursue personal development.
• 38:12
  Not just talking about it, but taking the tangible steps to become that better version.
• 38:20
  To keep chipping away.
• 38:21
  it's, it's good to see.
• 38:23
  Yeah.
• 38:23
  That's what it's all about.
• 38:24
  Yeah.
• 38:24
  It's fun.
• 38:24
  And having a, a past master still stick around, but having a mentor, that mentor mentee relationship to help elevate the new guy who may be intimidated to wanna offend.
• 38:38
  You've been doing this for a long time, but really ensuring the longevity of a lodge for these guys really grabbed it.
• 38:46
  Jerry Rhodes, you have given so much of your time and talents to this world, your career, your military service, Mason.
• 38:59
  We could talk about it for hours.
• 39:01
  I wish we had more time, but we really appreciate you being here.
• 39:05
  My pleasure.
• 39:06
  I I'm happy to come and share whatever there is that I have to share.
• 39:11
  well, you've given us a lot of things to think about and contemplate in pursuit of prioritizing what's important in life.
• 39:19
  Mm-hmm.
• 39:21
  I like that.
• 39:24
  I'm flattered that you see it that way.
• 39:26
  Very much so.
• 39:27
  There's that authenticity that just rings.
• 39:29
  Rings so true.
• 39:31
  We look forward to seeing you again soon, and as always, thank you to our listeners for checking us out.
• 39:36
  This has been another episode of Minnesota Masonic Histories and Mysteries.