Freemason Tim Bryce.

The Meaning of Life

BRYCE ON LIFE
It is ultimately about good versus evil.

good, evil, triumph

In the Monty Python movie, “The Meaning of Life,” the troupe offers a tongue-in-cheek explanation; “Well, it’s nothing very special: Try to be nice to people; avoid eating fat; read a good book every now and then; get some walking in; and try to live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.” Their explanation was very succinct and made for a humorous ending to the film. However, as far as I’m concerned, it misses the mark. It is not my intention to offer a profound statement along the lines of French philosopher René Descartes, but simply make my own modest observations. To me, there are three elements to the meaning of life:

  1. A person must lead a worthy and productive life. This is required for our perspective of ourselves, our work, and the people we come in contact with at the company and society in general. How we perform our job is an expression of our soul. If we treat it frivolously, our perspective tends to be shallow and irresponsible, but if we conduct ourselves professionally, regardless of the job, we will take pride in ourselves and earn the respect of others. We must recognize there is dignity in all forms of work, regardless of how menial it appears on the surface. As such, we should perform it as professionally as possible and as craftsmen. Those without this perspective, particularly managers, tend to be tyrannical in nature and are typically avoided. They will never know the simple concept of respect, just fear. However, if we “do unto others as we would have others do unto you,” this would inevitably lead to an honorable existence.
  2. Our second responsibility is to reproduce, thereby extending the species. However, this requires more than just the simple biological function of birth, it also means taking responsibility for teaching your offspring values, morality, and how to become responsible and productive people who will eventually take your place in society. Abdicating this duty is to allow evil to flourish.
  3. Leave the Earth a better place than when you entered it. By doing so, we make it possible for the species to evolve. This means not becoming a burden on society, lending a helping hand, and returning to our first responsibility. Unfortunately, there are those who would rather forsake and destroy the world as opposed to make it better.

Implicit within these three elements is the idea of good triumphing over evil. Without this caveat, life could easily regress as opposed to progress which is why we must thwart evil wherever it is encountered.

So, the meaning of life is not about eating, walking, or reading a good book. Rather, it is about leading a worthy and meaningful life. No, we will not all be compensated the same way. Some will make more based on their education, their work ethic, by making smart decisions along the way, or plain luck. Regardless, we should be more concerned with what our contribution will be in life as opposed to the financial prosperity of the next person. If we can rise each day and be proud of our family, our business, and ourselves, and celebrate the bounties of the world around us, then we have realized the meaning of life.

Keep the Faith!

Note: All trademarks both marked and unmarked belong to their respective companies.

Tim Bryce is a writer and the Managing Director of M&JB Investment Company (M&JB) of Palm Harbor, Florida and has over 30 years of experience in the management consulting field. He can be reached at timb001@phmainstreet.com

For Tim’s columns, see:  timbryce.com

Copyright © 2015 by Tim Bryce. All rights reserved.

The Durhams Of Fairfield

Dr., Rev., Bro. Robert L. Uzzel and Bro. Frederic L. Milliken
Dr., Rev., Bro. Robert L. Uzzel and Bro. Frederic L. Milliken

Past Grand Historian of the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Texas, Dr. Rev. Bro. Robert L. Uzzel,  has a new book out, “The Durhams of Fairfield.” This is Uzzel’s Roots story, tracing his wife’s family genealogy.

The Durhams, Black and White, originated in Fairfield County, South Carolina. Those that were slaves later moved with their Masters to DeSoto Parish, Louisiana.  From the early 1850s to 1930 DeSoto Parish was the home of Mansfield Female College, the oldest female college west of the Mississippi river. Uzzel tells us of the famous Civil War Battle of Mansfield in this County on April 8, 1864. Here the Confederates defeated the Union Army and stopped their advance into Texas. The Battle of Pleasant Hill close by the following day again resulted in a Union defeat and forever kept the Civil War out of Texas. One of the prizes the Rebels seized in these victories was the Val Verde Cannon.

From the Parish of DeSoto, Louisiana, after the Emancipation, we follow the African American Durhams to Freestone, County Texas whose County Seat was Fairfield, Texas. There the Val Verde Cannon also found its final resting place. Just down the road apiece from Fairfield was the small town of Butler, Texas where most of the Durhams called home.

Durham 2

It seems almost prophetic, the hand of fate, that the Durhams of Fairfield County, South Carolina should end up in Fairfield, Texas, from Fairfield to Fairfield half way across the nation.

This book was 38 years in the making! Uzzel conducted an exhaustive research of the Durhams over the years. He researched birth certificates, death certificates and funeral programs, marriage licenses and baptismal and church records. He visited numerous libraries and courthouses for information. He mailed out questionnaires, conducted personal interviews, talked to many people via telephone, sent out and received correspondences and conducted long research on the Internet. It can be very difficult to trace the genealogy in the African American community.

In the author’s own words we will post below his journey in the writing of this “Roots” story.

How I Wrote The Durhams of Fairfield

by Dr. R. L. Uzzel

When my fourth book The Durhams of Fairfield:  An African American Genealogy was published in 2015, a dream going back nearly four decades came true.  The Durhams of Fairfield are truly a great family—a family with a very interesting history.  How did I become so interested in this family?  I married into it.  On 19 February 1977,

I married Debra Bass of Fairfield, Texas.  Debra is the daughter of Aldessa Henry Bass, the granddaughter of Gladys Durham Henry, the great granddaughter of Willie Anderson Durham, the great-great granddaughter of Rance Durham, the great-great-great granddaughter of Allen Durham, and the great-great-great-great granddaughter of the African Gobi.

I was born and raised in Waco, Texas and have had a passion for history since childhood.  On 14 May 1976, I received my Master of Arts degree in Church-State Studies (an interdisciplinary program involving courses in Religion, History, and Political Science) from Baylor University.  My thesis was entitled “The Nation of Islam:  Belief and Practice in Light of the American Constitutional Principle of Religious Liberty.”  One of my major sources for this work was The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley.  Later that year, Haley’s most famous book Roots:  The Saga of an American Family, was published.  I read this book and later watched the television miniseries.  Roots is about Haley’s maternal side.  At the time of his death in 1992, he was putting together a book on his paternal side.  Co-author David Stevens completed the editing of this work and Alex Haley’s Queen:  The Story of an American Family was published in 1993.  As was the case with Roots, I read Queen and watched the television miniseries.  I was inspired to do what Alex Haley did!

On 2 December 1974, I went to work for the Texas Department of Public Welfare (now Health and Human Services) in Teague, Texas.  Teague is ten miles from Fairfield, the county seat of Freestone County.  I worked as a social worker for the aged, blind, and disabled.  My duties included visiting nursing homes, where I assessed the social service needs of clients receiving Texas vendor payments.  I also arranged homemaker and chore services that enabled clients to remain in their own homes as an alternative to nursing home placement.   I served clients in Teague, Fairfield, Butler,  Streetman, Kirvin, and Wortham.  The latter community is the hometown of the Texas blues singer Blind Lemon Jefferson (1893-1929).  During my first trip to Wortham, I visited the Wortham Black Cemetery (now the Blind Lemon Jefferson Cemetery) and visited this great singer’s grave, which is now regarded as a blues shrine.  I resolved to one day write a biography of Lemon.  In 2002, my first book Blind Lemon Jefferson:  His Life, His Death, and His Legacy was published.  One of the nursing homes I served was the Fairview Manor Nursing Center in Fairfield.  There I met a nurse named Debra Bass.  Debra and I had our first date on 21 October 1976, became engaged on 25 December 1976, and got married on 19 February 1977.  We lived for a few weeks in Fairfield, moving from Fairfield to Dallas, from Dallas to Kaufman, from Kaufman to Waco, from Waco to Dallas, and from Dallas to Ennis.  We now look forward to returning to the Fairfield area as we approach retirement.

Durham 1

Roots appeared about the time of our marriage.  I immediately began asking questions.  I found little information on the Bass and Henry families.  When I inquired about the lineage of Gladys Durham Henry, however, more information was available.  Initially, I assumed that they had come from North Carolina in view of the city of Durham, which was named for Dr. Bartlett Durham, who donated land for a railroad in 1850.   Durham is famous as the site of Duke University and the place where Bull Durham tobacco was first manufactured.  I did much research on the history of this North Carolina city.  However, it soon became evident that the Durham family to which my wife was related did not come from there.

While no member of the Durham family was adept at genealogy, it was commonly reported that the family had come to the Butler community of Freestone County (between Fairfield and Palestine) from Louisiana after the Civil War; and that there were six Durham brothers—Belton, Allen, Minor, Chris, Anderson, and Isaac.  Some of the descendants of these brothers still farm land in Butler, where Durham is a common surname.  My wife is a sixth-generation descendant of Allen Durham.

Mary Durham, the widow of Belton’s grandson Rev. General Bev Durham, told me that her husband’s great grandfather was an African named Gobi.  Johnnie Johnson, Jr., another grandson of Belton, told me that Gobi was a slave in South Carolina and conveyed to me the following legend:  “Once, there was a rain spell and they could not work.  The straw boss (overseer) and Gobi went hunting for bears.  In a bear cave, they uncovered some gold.  The straw boss died first.  Gobi had sworn never to reveal the whereabouts of the gold.  Some men tied Gobi to a tree in a bottom and wrapped a rope around him.  Gobi refused to reveal where the gold was hidden, even when surrounded by mosquitoes.  As a result, his tongue was torn out by its roots and he was left there to die.”  These early interviews pointed to South Carolina and Louisiana as places where the Durhams were slaves.  When I asked about a specific county in South Carolina and a specific parish in Louisiana, no one had a clue.

In September 1976, I received my first pastoral appointment in the African Methodist Episcopal Church to Emmanuel AME Church in Dallas.  Shortly after our marriage, Debra and I moved to Dallas.  During the next four years, I held jobs with the same agency in Fort Worth and Dallas.  While employed in Fort Worth, I had a client who was a member of Durham Memorial Church of God in Christ, named for founding pastor General Bev Durham, who died in 1966.  Through this client, I met both Mary Durham and Mary Edwards, the sister of Johnnie Johnson, Jr.  Mary Edwards, who died in 2012 at the age of 96, was a big help in my research.

During the next few years, I conducted many interviews with older family members and visited both Lone Star Cemetery and Pine Top Cemetery at Butler, obtaining names and dates from tombstones.  I went to the Freestone County Courthouse, where I examined birth certificates, death certificates, and marriage licenses.  This information was very helpful.  However, the fact that none contained the exact county or parish of birth was frustrating.  I spent many hours in libraries, researching census records and slave schedules on microfilm.  I was able to verify some of the oral history I had obtained.  According to the 1870 Freestone County Census, Allen Durham was born in South Carolina around 1836 and his son Rance was born in Louisiana in 1859.  This, however, did not answer my question about the specific places of birth.  Numerous letters to libraries, genealogical societies, and other resources brought  limited results.  With the examination of numerous 1850 and 1860 records of these two important southern states, I finally hit pay dirt.  I found the majority of Durhams concentrated in Fairfield County, South Carolina and DeSoto Parish, Louisiana.

In 1983, I received a telephone call from Maj. (later Lt. Col.) Donald Smith Durham of Manassas, Virginia.  Don was calling in response to a letter I had sent to his brother Thomas in Shreveport that had been forwarded to him.  Don (who died in 2006) did much research on his genealogy and was confident that my wife was descended from slaves owned by his ancestors.  He confirmed what I had found in my research.  Don’s great-great grandfather was Robert Winfield Durham, who died in Fairfield County, South Carolina in 1852.  His widow, Mosley Eliza Durham, and three of their sons—Osman Lawrence Durham, Charlton Hightower Durham, and John Franklin Durham– relocated to DeSoto Parish, Louisiana, bringing their slaves with them.  Osman had lived for about ten years in Lowndes County, Alabama.  Molsey and her three sons are all listed in the DeSoto Parish Census of 1850 and 1860.  Don and I exchanged much genealogical information by mail and phone.

I found the fact that the Durhams started their journey in Fairfield County, South Carolina and ended up near Fairfield, Texas to be more than coincidental.  In her book Mama, “Babe” and Me, Eddie Marie Jones Durham, the wife of Bobbie Jean Durham, a fifth-generation descendant of Allen Durham, described the residents in two places called Fairfield as “either ironic or intentional.”  I first met Eddie when I interviewed Allen’s son Luke Durham, whom her mother had married.  She was also a big help with my research.

In 1979, I was appointed to the pastorate of Macedonia AME Church in

Kaufman.  As a result, Debra and I relocated from Dallas to Kaufman.  In 1981,

I went to work as a social worker at Terrell State Hospital (a psychiatric facility).

During this time, I learned that there was a Durham family living in the community of Avalon, which is located in Ellis County, which borders Kaufman County.  I went to visit them in 1983 and interviewed Isiah Durham, the son of Julious Durham and grandson of Chris Durham.  I had interviewed Julious in 1980 in a nursing home in Dallas a few months before his death.  Isiah confirmed the story I had heard about Chris having a peg leg, stating that he had lost his leg in a boiler accident at Lake Port Cotton Gin in Butler.  It was also in 1983 that I conducted an interview with Mitcheola Durham, brother of Julious, at a nursing home in Teague.

Over the years, I have attended a number of Durham Family Reunions, each time giving a lecture about my research and interviewing family members about their personal stories.  During the 1980s, the family of Archie Durham, grandson of Allen Durham, held some wonderful gatherings.  Archie was a very good friend with much enthusiasm for my research.  When he died in 2001 at age 95, I participated in his funeral.  However, most of the Durham Family Reunions have been sponsored by the descendants of Isaac Durham, the youngest of the six brothers.  In 1999, while teaching at Navarro College in Corsicana, I taught Richard Durham, Jr., the great-great grandson of Isaac.  Richard was born on 15 August 1980 and was amazed to learn that his great-great grandfather was born on 15 August 1860.  Richard’s genealogical paper revealed that Gobi’s wife Mary was pregnant at the time of his death and gave birth to Isaac shortly after her arrival in Freestone County. Isaac was the only brother born in Texas.  The five older brothers were born in South Carolina.

I do not wish to give the impression that I worked on this project non-stop for nearly 40 years.  There were years when I did little or nothing on it.  I was involved in other research leading up to my 1995 Ph.D. in World Religions from Baylor University and my 2008 M.A. in Political Science from the University of Texas at Arlington.  After many difficulties and delays, I was blessed to have the following books published:  Blind Lemon Jefferson: His Life, His Death, and His Legacy (2002); Prince Hall Freemasonry in the Lone Star State: From Cuney to Curtis, 1875-2003 (2004); and Éliphas Lévi and the Kabbalah: The Masonic and French Connection of the American Mystery Tradition (2006).  I repeatedly put the Durham project aside but always came back to it.

With the advent of the Internet, including such sources as Ancestry.com., my research accelerated. I found much interesting information.  In 1870 and 1880, there African American Durhams in both DeSoto Parish, Louisiana and Freestone County, Texas.   Some were born in South Carolina and some in Louisiana.  There were even a few born in Alabama.  The latter were more than likely the slaves of Osman Lawrence Durham.

On 23 August 2003, I made my first trip to DeSoto Parish, Louisiana.  On 22-24 August 2012, I made a long-awaited trip to Fairfield County, South Carolina.  I returned to DeSoto Parish on 11 March 2013 and participated in the 150th Anniversary of the Battle of Mansfield in DeSoto Parish on 26 April 2014.  As a result, I was able to obtain valuable pictures and important interviews.  I find it interesting that the Fairfield Memorial Hospital operated in Fairfield, Texas for many years before the building was leased by East Texas Medical Center, while the Fairfield Memorial Hospital continues to operate in Winnsboro, Fairfield County, South Carolina.  My book contains pictures of both hospitals.  The Val Verde Cannon which was used at the Battle of Mansfield found its permanent home in front of the Freestone County Courthouse in Fairfield but was on display at the 150th Anniversary of the Battle of Mansfield.  My book contains pictures of the cannon at both locations.

On 5 March 2014, Eakin Press (the publisher of my Blind Lemon and Prince Hall books) accepted The Durhams of Fairfield for publication.  Much of 2014 was devoted to writing, editing, and proofreading.  After a number of delays, my first shipment of books arrived on 5 January 2015 and my first book singing was held for the Ellis County Genealogical Society in Waxahachie on 2 February 2015.

The Durhams of Fairfield continue to make their mark.  They are now scattered throughout the United States, involved in many businesses and professions and contributing much to their communities and to the world as a whole.  There can be no doubt that members of this outstanding family to whom I am related by marriage will always make their mark.  I thank God that my dream has come true and pray that this book will inspire the present generation and generations to come to do all they can to preserve the Durham legacy!

Durham 3

“The Durhams of Fairfield” book can be purchased at  Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, and Books A Million

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-durhams-of-fairfield-robert-l-uzzel/1120950796?ean=9781940130774

The Christianization of Freemasonry

In this installment of Symbols & Symbolism, we look at a reading from Albert G. Mackey’s Encyclopedia of Freemasonry on the Christening of Freemasonry, a sentiment that Mackey feels “… does not belong to the ancient system” of Freemasonry.

You can read more installments of Mackey’s Encyclopedia under Symbols & Symbolism here on this site and video of these segments on YouTube.

The interpretation of the symbols of Freemasonry from a Christian point of view is a theory adopted by some of the most distinguished Masonic writers of England and this country, but one which I think does not belong to the ancient system. [William] Hutchinson, and after him [George] Oliver – profoundly philosophical as are the Masonic speculations of both – have, I am constrained to believe, fallen into a great error in calling the Master Mason’s Degree a Christian institution. It is true that it embraces within its scheme the great truths of Christianity upon the subject of the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body; but this was to be presumed, because Freemasonry is truths and all truth must be identical. But the origin of each is different; their histories are dissimilar. The principles of Freemasonry preceded the advent of Christianity. Its symbols and its legends are derived from the Solomonic Temple and from the people even anterior to that. Its religion comes from the ancient priesthood; its faith was that primitive one of Noah and his immediate descendants. If Masonry were simply a Christian institution, the Jew, the Muslim, the Brahman and the Buddhist could not conscientiously partake of its illumination. But its universality is its boast. In its language citizens of every nation may converse; at its altar men of all religions may kneel; to its creed disciples of every faith may subscribe.

oliver and hutchinson
George Oliver & William Hutchinson

Yet it cannot be denied that since the advent of Christianity a Christian element has been almost imperceptibly infused into the Masonic system, at least among Christian Masons. This has been a necessity; for it is the tendency of every predominant religion to pervade with its influence all that surrounds it or is about it, whether religious, political, or social. This arises from a need of the human heart. To the man deeply imbued with the spirit of his religion, there is an almost unconscious desire to accommodate and adapt all the business and the amusements of life – the labors and the employments of his everyday existence-to the indwelling faith of his soul.

The Christian Mason, therefore, while acknowledging and appreciating the great doctrines taught in Masonry, and also while grateful that these doctrines were preserved in the bosom of his ancient Order at a time when they were unknown to the multitudes of the surrounding nations, is still anxious to give to them a Christian character; to invest them, in some measure, with the peculiarities of his own creed, and to bring the interpretation of their symbolism more nearly home to his own religious sentiments.

The feeling is an instinctive one belonging to the noblest aspirations of our human nature; and hence we find Christian Masonic writers indulging in it to an almost unwarrantable excess, and, by the extent of their sectarian interpretations, materially affecting the cosmopolitan character of the Institution.

This tendency to Christianize has, in some instances, been so universal, and has prevailed for so long a period, that certain symbols and myths have been, in this way, so deeply and thoroughly imbued with the Christian element as to leave those who have not penetrated into the cause of this peculiarity, in doubt whether they should attribute to the symbol an ancient or a modern and Christian origin.

Happy Patriots Day

Once again it is time for The Beehive’s annual Patriot’s Day message. Patriots Day is an obscure holiday celebrated in just one county – Middlesex – in Massachusetts. In the early years of our nation it was a National holiday but gradually July 4th supplanted a similar celebration.

Patriot’s Day commemorates the first battles of the American Revolution in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts on April 19, 1775 where the shot was fired heard round the world. Having been born and raised in Lexington, the history of these battles was ingrained in me from an early age and later in life would mix with my Freemasonry.

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, “If the British march

By land or sea from the town to-night,

Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch

Of the North Church tower as a signal light,
–One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.”

You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,—
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,—
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere

William MunroeWilliam Munroe

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere”

Freemasons were prominent that day. While Paul Revere is the most notable Freemason involved, my favorite was Brother William Munroe an orderly Sergeant in the Lexington Minutemen.  Brother Munroe was proprietor of the Munroe Tavern, one of two taverns in Lexington at that time, the other being the Buckman Tavern at the Lexington Green where the Minute Men assembled awaiting the arrival of the British. He was stationed on an all night watch on the Lexington Green through the night of April 18,1775 into the morning of the April 19th. It was Munroe who received Paul Revere riding into Lexington with the news that, “The British are coming, the British are coming” (although historians are apt to point out that he probably said The Regulars or The Redcoats). Revere stopped at the Reverend Jonas Clark’s house to wake up and warn Brother John Hancock and patriot Sam Adams.

Meanwhile Munroe got the word out to Captain John Parker and other Minutemen. They were able to muster some 77 patriots on the Lexington Green to face about 700 British soldiers. Of those 77 some 20+ were Freemasons even though there was no Masonic Lodge in Lexington at that time. When Percy came in with British reinforcements later in the day he took over Munroe Tavern and used it as a command post and hospital.

Munroe Tavern Lexington, MassachusettsMunroe Tavern Lexington, Massachusetts

William Munroe was later to petition the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts for a charter for Lexington’s first Masonic Lodge. When he took his request to the Grand East he was there met by Grand Master Paul Revere. Hiram Lodge became Lexington’s first Masonic Lodge and Munroe its first Master. The Lodge met for some 40 years at the Munroe Tavern.

In 1992 when I joined the Paul Revere Colonial Degree Team that exemplified the Third Degree in colonial costume accompanied by a patriotic message, I searched for a Revolutionary War Freemason to represent as all the team members did. I chose William Munroe. As Master of Paul Revere Lodge in 1999 I took the Paul Revere Colonial Degree Team to Simon W. Robinson Lodge bordering the Lexington Green where once again we exemplified the Third Degree remembering those who fought dearly for the freedoms we enjoy today. Afterward three Lodges that had come together for this special occasion held a Tri Table Lodge.

Paul ReverePaul Revere

Today Munroe Tavern stands as a historical building just a stone’s throw from the Scottish Rite National Heritage Museum where you can visit their exhibit of “Sowing The Seeds of Liberty: Lexington & The American Revolution.” You can also see the ‘Lexington Alarm Letter”sent out on April 19,1775.

If you visit Lexington visit these two places as well as the Lexington Green and the Buckman Tavern. A great day to go is April 19th, Patriot’s Day.

Buckman Tavern Lexington, MassachusettsBuckman Tavern Lexington, Massachusetts

 

 

Freemasonry in the News

This is not your grandfather’s Freemasonry, at least not in Boston and the Grand Lodge AF & AM.

Freemasonry has opened up in the last 50 years, sharing its goals and purpose with the public so that they can be better understood. And the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts has been at the forefront of this openness.

It was four years ago that Massachusetts launched its Ben Franklin series that described the Fraternity to the general public. There is a concerted effort here to dispel some of the myths and misinformation that has been allowed to exist by tight lipped Freemasons and reach out to the public in hopes of creating a better understanding of the Craft.

This is all reflected in the WGBH Boston Television piece on Massachusetts Freemasonry. Go back a few decades and this would have been a hit piece. But because Massachusetts Mainstream Freemasonry has laid the groundwork of years of informing the public of just what Freemasonry is all about, something your Grandfather’s Freemasonry would not do, this is the closest you can get to an infomercial.