A Soldier and a Brass Band

What a wow weekend we just had! On Saturday, I attended a Social style Official Visit with a patriotic theme. There was a lovely dinner beforehand, which is nice not only because you are not running around trying to find a quick meal before getting to the hall, but also because it provides a wonderful time for fun and fellowship with the local members. And of course, when people ask me how I am doing, I tell them that I am short on time, money and sleep, but I have PLENTY of food. After the dinner, as each Chapter's Worthy Matron and Worthy Patron were introduced, they mentioned briefly the various community service projects in which their Chapter participates. I think that is GREAT! It would be completely awesome if every Chapter had a community service project. It gets our name and presence out into the community, gives our members a chance to work together promoting fun and fellowship, and makes everyone feel great. I have found in this life that there are few things better for making a person feel good than helping those less fortunate and seeing the happiness you can bring to another person, to help them and uplift them. Most of the things that make you feel better than that cannot be written about it a family friendly blog. :-) After the introductions, the speaker for the OV was an Army Captain, who read us the Warrior's Code with real feeling and meaning and then discussed how difficult recruiting efforts have become for our all volunteer armed forces. The sad part was that she told us that only one of five kids coming out of high school are even qualified to join and that even though society is much better today about supporting our troops, very few moms are actually comfortable with the thought of their kid becoming a soldier. She was a good speaker and I think that she was maybe a little surprised at the level of patriotism and enthusiasm for our military and our country in the room. We did a sing along of number of patriotic songs and I think she was amazed that all our members actually know the words. I know that we are unusual, being such a large group with a fairly unified view of supporting our country and our military. I hope she had a good time because we all did. The Worthy Matrons and Worthy Patrons also did a little skit that was fun and the program was a nice length too. On Sunday, we had a huge surprise at the Social OV that afternoon. The theme was colleges and scholarships and just as the Worthy Grand Patron was going to say a few words, the Deputy surprised us all with a ten piece group from the USC marching band, three trombones, a drummer, a bass drummer, a tuba and four trumpets. There were a fair number of USC alums in the room and they had a great time with the USC fight song. The band did a bunch of numbers, including some popular music and some dance numbers too. My favorite rock band is Queen, so I particularly enjoyed Another One Bites the Dust. Since neither of my two colleges had a football team, I have no particular rivalry feelings about other schools. However, the Associate Director in charge of the show, who also was a Mason (and belonged to a lot of concordant bodies, but not Eastern Star - what's up with that? - get that man a Petition!), was teasing one of my girls who went to Oregon and I guess Oregon is a USC rival, so he kept tweaking her in his monologue bits between the songs. Well, at one point, he commented that maybe he needed a lawyer and was there one in the audience and everyone at the table behind me started pointing at me and he started looking to find me and I waved to him and said, "Over here, next to the Oregon person" and everyone laughed. All my girls gave me a high five for that one. After lunch were some great speakers on schools and scholarships and there was one girl who had gotten a Masonic scholarship who spoke about how much it helped her go to school. Then a group of Job's Daughters did this really funny "Big Hats" line dance to Achy Breaky Heart that you have to see to appreciate, but it was hilarious. Next week, I am Leemore for an Offical Visit and then in Fresno for three events.