The Tao of Masonry

The tent has been folded up, the flooring has been packed away until next year, the fryers have been power-washed, and the apple prep gear has been boxed and stowed away. And most of us that worked the 2009 Southington Apple Harvest Festival are exhausted. In my opinion, we spent a hell of a lot of man hours (and some woman hours) just to make $1,200.

From Apple Harvest 2009

I’m not complaining — too much. Overall, the prep work was less tiring, and the clean-up much easier than when we had been cooking up those steak sandwiches. And we discovered that fresh, local cider — hot or cold –sells pretty well. And we also discovered that the warm, friend apples were an excellent mix with some ice cream, something that we’ll keep on the menu for next year. And as I’ve written before, I think that the two weekend stint is like a built-in team-building session, except that it is not run by high-priced consultants.

But still, the lodge building is old, and we need to raise more capital in order to stay ahead of the repairs, and to be able to lay something by in case of emergencies. I wonder what we could add to the mix for next year?

I can’t believe that this is my fourth time blogging about Friendship Lodge at the Southington Apple Harvest Festival. My first time was in 2006 when I was Master of the lodge, and really, not all that much has changed. Local businesses and street vendors still cross their fingers about the weather (apparently, those weather-changing HAARP beams aren’t supposed to be used frivolously), and the same members of Friendship still show up for the entire weekend to keep the food going. This year, however, we decided not to sell the “Philly” steak & cheese sandwiches that Friendship has sold for the last 15 years or so., and to concentrate just on selling the fried apple wedges that we’ve been perfecting for the last eight or nine years.

This was not an easy decision to make. Although it became clear that the sandwiches actually lost money during the last few years, the sheer amount of work involved to make them created a camaraderie that certainly added to the harmony of the members. How can you be upset with somebody who stood next to you, slicing the onions that you were peeling? And few things help develop common trust like knowing that somebody will show up for the important, but oft-overlooked cleanup work.

Our initial weekend was marred by cloudy, drizzly weather that became a downpour by Saturday afternoon. But Sunday was warm and sunny, and the crowds were out in droves to taste the typical fair fare, to browse some of the craft booths, and to enjoy the weather.

This being the lodge’s largest (and essentially only) fund raiser, we count on good weather and healthy appetites for the two weekends that the festival takes place. The first weekend ended up doing fairly well, allowing us to cover our initial expenses. We’re hoping that next weekend will be even more successful.

Maybe we’ll see you there?

The end of Apple Harvest is the final reminder that summer is over and we’re now beginning our long slide through autumn into winter.

Our own Apple Harvest was a mixed success; the changing New England weather left the crowds a bit more sparse than we would have liked to have seen them, but the people who did show up brought their appetites, and Friendship Lodge was benefited by that. In an interesting twist on our fund raising efforts, though, we discovered that those little fried apples that we’ve been selling for the last few years actually make more money for us than our famous Philly steak sandwiches. We never actually took a serious look at our sales until this year, when we were faced with an interesting dilemma.

Our building faces the town green, and is on a small, one-way street parallel to the main thoroughfare. Along the short block is a small office building, a bank, the American Legion, and a newly remodeled office building. The American Legion is right next door to us – we share a driveway in front and a small parking lot in the rear of the buildings.

For almost ten years, our lodge has sold steak sandwiches during the Apple Harvest Festival; it’s really our only big fundraiser, and we use the money to help maintain the old building that we’ve owned since the 1930s. In order to be a participant in the Festival, we pay a fee. We also pay a separate fee to get a tent, electricity (which we don’t use, since the tent is on our front lawn), gas hookups, and a temporary food permit. We also get some mention in one of the local sponsor flyers.

For the last three years the Festival was not run by the local Chamber of Commerce – it was turned over to private managers. Our lodge, being right on the green and in the middle of the Festival, has always kicked in a “goodwill payment” to help with the general costs. For this, we were supposed to get some extra mention in the various sponsorship ads – but each time it failed to materialize. It did entitle us to sell soda, which was a town-run franchise, but this year we noticed that several other non-sponsor vendors were selling soda, too.

Okay, stuff happens. But that’s not the worst of it.

Our neighbors, the American Legion, decided that they wanted to take advantage of the crowds and sell food outside. In a booth. Just like ours. And while they could have sold pretty much anything, especially items that weren’t already being sold (sausage & pepper sandwiches, burgers and dogs, Irish stew, turkey legs, etc.), they chose to sell. . . steak sandwiches.

The Festival managers limit the items that can be sold, so that vendors are not selling the same things. However, the American Legion does not pay the entry fee, so they do not have to abide by the same rules as the other food vendors. Being right on the green, they are in the middle of the Festival, and being 20 feet closer to the band stage, they probably intercepted some of the traffic that we would have otherwise had.

They also priced their sandwiches a dollar lower than ours (we lowered our own prices to match). They also opted to sell drinks, and since they did not need to pay anything to the town supplier, were able to price their soda lower than the rest of us. Complaints to the Festival managers went nowhere, as they had no authority to do anything.

I know that the libertarian-minded people will say that this is just a matter of supply and demand, of simple economics – but that is not the way that the rest of us viewed the situation. All of the other vendors agreed to abide by certain rules, with the understanding that such rules turn a potential free-for-all into an organized community event.

Every year we always have one or two members who ask why we continue to pay a fee to the town. “The Legion never pays anything, and they get the benefits. Why don’t we do the same thing? We could put up our own tent and sell what we want, and keep all the money.” And every year, a few of us sigh and explain that while it’s frustrating for us, the majority of the members of our lodge believe that it’s the right thing to do. We believe that we are part of the community, and we want to contribute in any way that we can.

It’s easy to voice those sentiments when things are going well, of course, but it’s another thing to hold to your principles when faced with opposition. We spent the two weekends kicking around the idea of not paying the entry fee next year, but really, it was more about blowing off some steam.

But ultimately, this all led to some good things. At the meeting after the end of the Festival, we discussed a number of alternatives to sell; this included taking a closer look at how well the fried apples were selling, and what we could add or subtract to the mix. Some of the officers are already coming up with ideas for the next year, and I fully expect that our fund raising efforts for next year will be completely different.

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The rain held off, and the sun came out. While we were thankful for the good weather, I have to admit that we were muttering about the hot, humidness as we marched in our black wool suits.

However, it was another successful parade – we didn’t lose any of our guys.

The festival will open again later in the week, on Thursday evening. Right now, it’s less than an hour to closing time. We’re cleaning up a bit, and hoping to get our of here at a reasonable hour.

Where’s the beef?

We are seeing little patches of sunlight. Hoping for a successful day!

The phone calls always start off the same way.

“Tom, I know that it’s short notice, but. . .”

It’s September, so the next round of Ritual Certifications has begun.

In my slice of Connecticut, it’s typical for a lodge to have a “move up” night in which the Junior Warden takes the East for an EA degree, and the Senior Warden does so for an FC degree. Typically, I see this happening in the Fall, which presumably allows time for the JW to learn the part and get comfortable. I have seen a few lodges in which the JW always does an EA, and the SW does the FC degrees, but that arrangement bothers me. In the last decade, too many officers find themselves in the South after only a few years; they’ve barely committed a charge or a lecture to memory. In my opinion, the EA degree is a new brother’s first introduction to Masonry, and it sets the tone for the rest of his Masonic life. I know that a lot of my brothers like to see impressive MM degrees, but if the EA isn’t awesome, then what is going to motivate your new brother to come back and get involved?

Anyway, my answer to them is usually the same. Yes, of course I’ll come to your degree and do your ritual certification. Would you like me to come to the degree itself, or are you really nervous and would prefer that we do this at a rehearsal? Would you like me to come for the rehearsal and the degree? I’m happy to oblige; that’s why I get the big bucks corn, wine, and oil.

The next question is usually the same, too.

“Umm. . . what is it that I need to know for this?”

::headdesk::

Simple. You need to open the lodge in full form, receive a dignitary, go to refreshment, come back to labor, and then close in full form.

“What if I don’t have any dignitary?”

What am I, chopped liv. . . Look, let’s pretend that I’m a dignitary in case a real one doesn’t show up.

“Is it okay if somebody else does the Obligation?”

As long as they do it well. All I need to see is that you can open and close a lodge properly.

“Oh, and by the way. . .”

Yes, I’ll do the charge if your regular guy can’t make it.

Since most lodges are anxious to get back to work after the summer, there are a few EA Degrees in September. I will have seen four or five over the next week or so, which means that communication with my family will be primarily by email, phone calls, and notes taped to the lawn shed, which is where I’ll probably be sleeping by the end of the month.

We had an EA at Friendship on Wednesday, and another on at Sequin-Level on Thursday. Sequin-Level has an abundance of candidates, and they will be having another EA on Friday. Then on Monday, I’m off to Silas Deane, and (finally!) Tuesday I’ll be at Fredrick-Franklin.

Wednesday, I’m taking off to rest up for the rest of the week. No, wait – I can’t.

On Wednesday, Friendship Lodge will start getting ready for the annual Southington Apple Harvest Festival, at which we set up a food booth for our main fundraising event of the year. It takes several days to set up the tents, put down the floor, move the refrigerators and grilltops outside, and get the gas and power hooked up. By Friday evening, we’ll be ready to serve up some Philly steak sandwiches and some tasty fried apple wedgies to the hungry hordes.

On Thursday of that week, we hope to get as many brothers as possible over to Unity 148 in New Britain for our scheduled Blue Lodge Council district meeting, at which we will get to hear one of the great Masonic dummies authors of our times, Brent Chris Hodapp, who will be telling stories, swapping jokes, and entertaining the Craft, while hopefully selling a few books.

And while Saturday will be the first full day of the Apple Fest, I’ll be down at the Warden’s Seminar in Ashlar Village for the morning, where I’ll be helping to present material about planning one’s year as a WM. We have revamped the entire Master’s Achievement Award to make it more like a yearly calendar, which should help new Masters to organize events and programs for their year.

Sunday the 28th will be the Apple Fest Parade, and you can’t have a parade without the Masons marching by in their tuxedos, smiling and waving at the crowd. Parade day is usually a good day for sandwich and wedgie sales, so we’re all hoping for excellent weather. I will have picked up 600 apples from a popular local orchard, and with any luck, we will be selling out by Sunday evening. Actually, with a real lot of luck, we will sell out on Saturday, and I’ll have to get more.

The next week is a little lighter, with a couple of lodge meetings, and then the Apple Fest madness starts up again on Friday evening. On Saturday morning, I’ll be at the seminar that we run for the incoming Wardens, and then back to help peel more apples and sell more sandwiches. No parade on the next day, but the nice weather will hopefully bring a lot of people out to see the dozens of craft booths that will be lining the streets. Sunday night we will finally break down the equipment and clean the grill for the last time.

If we have planned it right, we have just enough steak left over to make dinner for our Trowel Club meeting on that Monday night. We don’t need much, because by that time, most of us are sick of shaved steak and apples. And since some of us practically live at the lodge during that week, we’ll all be happy to finally have an evening in our own shed home.

What a difference a year makes! Last year Friendship Lodge finished up one of the best Apple Harvest fund raisers in recent memory, all the while dodging the rocks and ruts of the construction going on at the front of our building. This year we sold slightly more fried apple wedgies than last year – by 5:30 pm on Sunday we actually sold out of the 1,000 Cortlands that we’d bought. The word it definitely getting around about our delicious, tasty apple treats. We had an impressive number of repeat customers – some of them within a half hour of their first purchase!

Unfortunately, we had quite a bit of chopped steak left over, both cooked and defrosted. Ironically, we think that this is because the weather on Saturday was so nice – as in warm in the mid-80s – that people were too hot to eat regular food, and instead merely snacked on apple treats. Since the meat had already been paid for, some of the brothers on clean-up detail took it home (I’ve got a couple of bags in the freezer, just waiting for me to add it to a nice tomato sauce), and some of it was donated to the soup kitchen that uses our lodge hall during the day. This is the first year that we haven’t donated any healthy apples to them.

Although our profits weren’t as high as they were last year, we’re pleased that our expenses for the year are more under control. We’ve done a lot of repair and maintenance work, both inside and out in the last year, and the little bit that we have to go requires more time and sweat than actual money, so overall we’re in pretty good shape.

Here are some pictures of the 2007 Apple Harvest, along with a nice shot of the completed front of the building.

And once again the thanks go out to the unsung (‘cos I’m not singing) heroes of the annual festival. We’d get nowhere without the usual dozen or so people who come down every morning to open up or stay until late to clean up. Again, great work and I’m sure that all of the members of Friendship Lodge thank you and your wives and/or partners for the hours that you put in. We certainly could not have made it a success without you.

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Town and county fairs are a New England tradition, and Southington – a town in the Quinnipiac River Valley and known for its orchards and farms – holds a town event called the Apple Harvest Festival . It’s grown to a two-weekend event, and hosts the usual assortment of crafters, souvenir hawkers, baby-kissing politicians, and of course, an assortment of foods. Times being what they are, we seem to see fewer apple-related treats and more of the “deep-fried ice cream” or the “chicken-on-a-stick” genre. We don’t mind, though, because it’s all delicious. Diets take a back seat to deep-fried donuts, fritters, and of course, to the now-famous Friendship Lodge “Apple Wedgies.”

Hey, wait a minute… I wrote this last year!

The usual gang of overworked and underpaid craftsmen persons were on hand, starting with putting down the floor and putting up the tent on Wednesday evening, then setting up the grills on Thursday, and cooking up shaved steak on Friday, and (barely) waking up on Saturday morning to put in a full day of doing it for the rest of the weekend.

Being a Past Master, I was on hand in a purely supervisory capacity. More correctly, people were supervising me to make sure that I didn’t wander off or get in the way of people doing the heavy lifting. Very important to stay out of the way of those who do the real work.

Sales were a bit slower than last year, although several of the booths that regularly hit the fairs mentioned the same thing. Too many fairs and festivals get crammed into September and October, which makes a virtual competition out of drawing in the crowds for each weekend. Southington runs the festival for two weekends, which helps to mitigate the problem of several large and well-attended agricultural fairs that always occur at the same time. Nonetheless, by Sunday night we had gone through several hundred pounds of steak, and almost 500 tart, tasty Macintosh apples.

Sunday morning saw great weather, which meant that the Apple Harvest parade would proceed as per schedule. Last year, a morning downpour forced the parade to be postponed until the next weekend, which meant that few outfits could march, as some had commitments elsewhere. The parade always elicits groans from some of the marchers – it’s a short route, but waiting in the lineup for almost 2 hours to march for 30 minutes is frustrating, especially when you can smell the various aromas wafting from the food areas. But as usual, thousands mobbed the streets to watch and wave us on. More encouraging, some people even seemed to recognize us as “The Masons,” which is much better than in past years where I’ve heard people ask a neighbor “Who are those guys in the suits?”

Actually, every year is a fun, exciting time – a little bit the same, a little bit different. The rush of getting food out during hungry periods, the story-swapping during the lulls, the complaining during the evening cleanup are all part of the experience – corporate HR departments spent thousands of dollars for team-building exercises that aren’t nearly as much fun, nor do they leave you with the satisfaction of a job well done.

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The second weekend of the 38th annual Apple Harvest Festival finally drew to a close, and although the numbers are still out, it appears that Friendship Lodge had its best year in a long time, with over $5,000 in profit generated from the sale of Philly steak sandwiches and our now-famous fried apple wedgies. With the exception of a downpour on the morning of the first Sunday, we had two weekends of good weather – not too hot, not too cold, and just right for fair-goers to walk around and build up an appetite.

Apple Harvest 2006 – Week 2

I’m pleased to see that the Apple Wedgies are becoming more well-known. For the last few years we’ve typically bought 6 cases (600 apples), often ending up with at least one case left over. This year we bought 10 cases! We peeled, wedged, and fried 9 of them over the two weekends and sold them right up until 7 p.m. on Sunday. What a fantastic increase! And I’m sure that it had very little to do with a certain officer who hooked the apple peeler up to a power drill to speed up the production… We also ran out of the steak sandwiches early Sunday afternoon, not long after the parade ended – a sure sign that the crowds were in a buying mood.

Events like this do not run themselves, and we appreciate everyone who came down to help in whatever capacity they could lend themselves to, whether it be running errands, moving the food from the lodge to the tent, moving empty containers from the tent back to the lodge, working the counters, or helping with the clean-up. While every bit of help was important, several people deserve a special mention. First, the event would not have been half as successful without the unflagging efforts of Gerry and his wonderful wife Rhonda. They helped to set up, they prepped and cooked, they helped to dismantle the booth, and Gerry even provided the all-important and nutritious egg sandwiches on weekend mornings. I am going to strongly recommend to everybody that they find out what kind of vitamins these two take.

Some other highlights worth mentioning: Kyle worked until his back gave out, and we’re hoping for a speedy recovery. Jim did an admirable job coordinating, something that I would have hated to do myself. And it was certainly worth the price of admission to see not just one, but two Dougs (H & L) doing actual labor. Special thanks to Chuck and Ken for manning the hot grill with their usual calm demeanor while under fire. Kevin, Ryan and Eric are also to be commended for their help while watching over the DeMolay tent; and certainly thanks to those DeMolays who pitched in to help their lodge by carrying things back and forth when needed. I understand that the Marcus Holcocmb DeMolay Chapter made over $800 from their popcorn and cotton candy sales; great job, guys!

I also need to specially thank Charley R and Larry B, both of whom stepped down from the East in their respective lodges to help out at Friendship. In fact, between the Apple Harvest and DeMolay, Charley has become so frequent a visitor at Friendship that we should make him an honorary member.

And I think that we should all take an opportunity to thank our wives or Significant Others, who either came to help out, lend moral support, or at least gave us the time off to come down to work the booth.

I know that I missed some people on this list, and I apologize for that because it took the efforts of every single one of you to make this the most successful Apple Harvest in recent memory. It’s events like this that make me especially proud to be a member of Friendship Lodge.

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