| Los Altos Lodge No. 712: | Last Updated on February 11, 2000 |
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Master - From The East
FROM THE EAST
Wow! It's Aries already, and the Vernal Equinox was at 5:46 PST on March 20. We also have the 2nd "Blue Moon" of the year on Wednesday, March 31, at 2:49 PM, in 10 degrees Libra.
Our lodge events are progressing along, and we are now in the final planning stages for all of our 1999 events.
Please let us know your ideas so we can include them in our activities schedule! Our full schedule is posted on our web site.
Or April 5 Stated Meeting will be the formal Inspector's Visit by our Lodge Inspector, Dan R. McDaniel, Inspector of the 170th Masonic District.
Officers are reminded that this is a formal (tux) event. Let's all perform our ritual and floor work at 100% to give our Inspector an evening that he will not soon forget! (We'll use that 'bribe' he received at the Installation at some other time...)
Our first "Receiving More Light" function went very well at our March 1st Stated Meeting! Three Members in attendance, chosen at random read short (one minute) articles that summarized the "Ancient Landmarks" that are used in the California Grand Lodge Constitution.
The members who read these articles did receive "More Light", in the form of Masonic flashlights attached to a key chain! This function will be repeated at each Stated Meeting this year! So, come to Lodge and receive More Light!
Worshipful Sterling Bailey, PM, announced that our Lodge members are doing well in contributing to the Masonic Homes Endowment Fund! Let's all skip a lunch or two and contribute about $20.00 each to this worthwhile effort! Our Lodge should be on the Grand Lodge Masonic Homes Endowment Fund Honor Role every year!
The Los Altos Town Crier newspaper has been very kind and supportive in printing the two articles that I have submitted. The February 24 issue included our group Installation picture, and a summary of our activities, as well as advertising our after-dinner meetings and pro-grams! We thank the paper's editor, Bruce Barton, for his continued sup-port and interest in our Lodge!
Harold Bain and I attended the combined Officers' Management Workshop and the Secretary's' Administrative Workshop, that was held at the Vallejo Masonic Temple on Saturday, March 6. We received many new ideas and new information that we plan to use in the near future for our Lodge's activities!
The Lodge hosted a Masonic Memorial Service for Edwin William Reith on Sunday, March 14, at 2:00 PM. Although Edwin was not a member of our lodge, he was a long-time member of a Lodge in Oregon, resident of Los Altos, and was a member of the old Palo Alto Scottish Rite organization. The service was requested by his daughter, Barbara Collier. My thanks to all who at-tended this memorial service.
April is "Public Schools Month!" We urge all members to reflect on the importance of education in everyone's life, and the unique role that our public schools play in providing the opportunity of education to all children. Let's all be more active in visiting, calling, and supporting our public schools in Los Altos and in Mountain View, as they share the local school district!
The deadline for all resolutions to amend the California Masonic Code must be received at Grand Lodge not later than 4:45 PM, April 14, 1999. I also wish to thank Luis Orozco for his outstanding work in publishing the Trestleboard. Last month's Trestleboard was truly a work of art, and had zero errors!
I also thank all those that contribute their time to the Trestleboard Review, held at Luis's house at noon on the 2nd Wednesday of each month, and those that fold, staple and mail it. A Lodge can indeed be judged by its publications, and our Trestleboard has been, and is again maybe the best in the entire state!
Reminder: http://www.jps.net/losaltos712/
[Now: http://www.calodges.org/no712/, 2/11/2000]
is now the new URL and web site address for the lodge. The Geocities address will remain in effect for a while and will automatically bounce all users to our new site address.
Thanks Greg and Luis! We have a fantastic and great web site!
The After Dinner Program for April 5th will be a presentation by "Mark Twain" (he's baacckk!) discussing "Life In General"! Be sure to make your reservations for dinner, or we'll sic Mark on you! I look forward to greeting you in Lodge!
Fraternally ,
Patrick Bailey
Master
Senior Warden - The Westerly Wind
Dear Brethren and Friends,
Visiting other Lodges is a lot of fun. On Tuesday, February 23rd, my son Jason flew into San Jose from Illinois. I had checked my listing of California lodges, and had learned that there is exactly one lodge which has its stated meeting on the 4th Thursday of each month Forbestown Lodge No. 50.... so we visited it. The day before I had called the Master and got directions. It is about 25 miles East of Oroville, up in the Sierra foothills, in a town which barely is on the map now, but was once a thriving town of over 5,000 goldminers.
Although attendance was only eight that night, plus us two visitors, the meeting was a lot of fun, we had great refreshments, and we were treated like long-lost brothers who had returned home! We were presented West of the Altar, and were given a brief history, printed on the inside of one (!!!!) folded "business" card of Forbestown Lodge, which is printed here:
THUMBNAIL HISTORY OFFORBESTOWN LODGE NO. 50 F&AM
Receiving its dispensation January 11, 1854 & its Charter on May 3, 1854, Forbestown was a moon lodge until 1924. For a while previous to 1860, it met in an abandoned reservoir with the tiler perched on a stump' Fire destroyed the lodge & records on August 1, 1861. Our present hall which was originally a hardware store and one of the few surviving buildings in town was rented, then purchased in 1862.
Forbestown Lodge survived the end of the mining era through the efforts of three dedicated Masons: William Schultz, Charles Adams, and Garrett Daley Jr.. For several years they walked over 10 miles to lodge. if no one else showed up, they would open lodge with Shultz in the East, Adams in the West, & Daley where needed to ask questions or give responses. Adams also read the minutes, mentioning the visitors present, as per the tiler's register, which was fine as long as no one got too inquisitive about the Penmanship of the signatures. They closed lodge in the same manner. For all the Grand Secretary ever knew, Forbestown Lodge was a venerable little mountain lodge, regular in its reports and carrying on in an efficient like manner.
Will Shultz served as Master for 29 years and 4 months, 1896 - 1924.
Garret Daley Jr., became Master in 1930, and Charles Adams in 1934. Note: [Talk about serving in the line a long time before becoming Master!]
The jewels of Forbestown Lodge are among the most unique in California Masonry. The silver was mined about 1868 in the mines of Virginia City, Nevada. George Kahars, treasurer of the Gibsonville Lodge No 158, designed and made the jewels.
Polar star Lodge No. 90 consolidated with St. Louis Lodge No. 86 in 1858.
St. Louis Lodge consolidated with Gibsonville Lodge No. 158 in 1882.
In 1897 Gibsonville Lodge consolidated with Jefferson Lodge No. 97, which in turn consolidated with Forbestown Lodge in 1926.
The marble tablet on the front of the lodge hall originally came around the horn in the early 1850's to St. Louis Lodge No. 86.
As a visitor sits in the little lodge hall at Forbestown, his mind wanders back over the events of well over a century. He thinks of the alter, the lights [Note: Forbestown still uses lighted candles as its three lesser lights.] old record books and other paraphernalia of the lodge. Some of them still on use are from lodges at Rabbit Creek (La Porte), Gibsonville, & St. Louis. The rods and emblems surmounting them are home-made and the hands that fashioned them have long since moldered to dust. He also thinks of those dedicated Masons of today. Some travel an hour each way by car to attend lodge each month and some have over 30 years or more of regular attendance. While others are direct descendants of our Brothers of the 1800's.
Forbestown Lodge looks forward to the years of 2004 and 2054.
COME VISIT US AGAIN
Brethren, when we look to some of the "problems" facing lodges today, Forbestown Lodge, and the dedication of just a few of their members, can be an inspiration to all of us.
Fraternally,
Robert W. Martin, P.M.
Sr. Warden
Of the many talents we all have, I encourage all Masons to learn to de-bate each side of every issue. Not to win, or be right, but rather to learn all of the fictions, data and facts that are being used to promote any side of any issue, and then to make up your own mind without pressure, fear, or persuasion.
I used to debate the issue of nuclear reactor safety in the Capital Building in New Mexico, and being a PhD in the field, I did learn all of the pros and cons of the issue. Our debates were well run, and each side of the debate did not know if they would be "pro" or "con" until two minutes before the debate!!! That is how we all should learn to de-bate and discuss issues.
My mother's mother taught me how to cast an "astrological birth chart" when I was 17, and I have been dabbling in "astrology" ever since. I agree with Maurice Dunbar that you could have just as good a day by reading ANY horoscope sun sign in the paper for any day of the week. Almost every one is a positive affirmation and would be of benefit to anyone. After all, since we are here looking at one planet (the Sun) being in one sign, each message would be said to be targeted to one-twelfth of all of the people on the planet, based on their birth date.
The interpretation of a person's full birth chart, however, is a more complex matter. There you have 12 planets in 12 signs in 12 houses, with all sorts of combinations, relationships, and aspects.
Now, I am not saying that "astrology works" or that "all astrologers are accurate", but I am saying that each person does have a unique "birth chart" that is clearly different from everyone else, and that some aspect of that chart may influence that person at birth. "The stars impel, they don't foretell!"
How this occurs, there are several books that try to explain why "astrology works". I person-ally do find the subject very fascinating, and there are several people (some Masons and some in Eastern Star) that absolutely believe in the use of their astrological birth chart and in the progressions of the planets with respect to their birth chart in their major decisions, and not in the sun-sign tabloid summaries.
Also, I have come across an interesting and informative book entitled "Sun-Earth-Man: A Mesh of Cosmic Oscillations - How Planets Regulate Solar Eruptions, Magnetic Storms, Conditions of Life, and Economic Cycles", by Dr. Theodore Landscheidt, Director of the Schoeter Institute for Research in Cycles and Solar Activity, Novia Scotia, Canada.
The book points out proven correlations between planetary positions and large solar flares on the Earth, which can be very dangerous. The idea is that all masses in the solar system rotate around the solar system's "center of mass", which every physics student knows.
What we forget is that the center of mass is NOT always the same as the center of the sun. There are times when Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn will be on one side of the Sun, and will cause the "center of mass" of the solar system to track outside of the surface of the sun, and even loop out of and back into the surface of the sun.
In order for the center of mass to stay constant in space, large loops cause the sun to move - and this generates solar flares that are seen to have been created, measured, and have struck the Earth.
Is this related to your birth chart? No! Does this have anything to do with astrology? Yes!
The positions of the planets DO influence what can happen on the Earth. The effect may be small, or it may be large. The effect on May 5, 2000, when all of the planets in the entire solar system will line up on one side of the Sun, with the earth on the other side, will be very interesting! How will it affect us? I don't know, but if one is overly concerned about this, maybe he should consult a professional astrologer...
Fraternally,
Patrick Bailey
Master
Trestleboard Editor - "The Birthday Month"
According to the four volume California Grand Lodge publication "One Hundred Years of Freemasonry in California," April 17, 1850 was the date of the Grand convention held for the purpose of establishing a Grand Lodge of California Masons.
It was however not until April 19,1850 when at High 12 "The Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of the State of California was opened in AMPLE FORM, in the Masonic Hall,, pictured on the cover of this month's Los Altos Trestleboard issue.
This year marks the 149th Anniversary of that Grand event, and begins the final annual countdown to the 150th, (Sesquicentennial) Anniversary of this auspicious Masonic event.
Much activity is planned by Grand Lodge and even now one can feel the undercurrent of excitement vibrating through the local lodge meetings and individual Masonic conversations throughout the jurisdiction.
This one promises to be a big one. In addition to our Grand Lodge, the State of California will also celebrate its Sesquicentennial anniversary in the year 2000. Indeed there will be much activity taking place throughout the state.
Isn't it interesting that so many Freemasons have worked so long and hard, and have served so often in public office to achieve this society.
There can be little question that from the landing of the U. S. Navy under the command of Brother Commodore John Sloat in 1846, to the founding of our Grand Lodge, to the upcoming mutual Sesquicentennial anniversaries our Masonic Grand Lodge and individual Masons successfully although individually erected a Society of Service on a truly Grand Level.
Happy Birthday to California Masonry.
Ed.
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