Freemasons For Dummies: Headed For Grand Lodge of Montana

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Headed For Grand Lodge of Montana

Great.

The Associated Press is reporting that Montana state bear managers trapped a 7 foot, 6 inch male grizzly bear that weighed 750 pounds. Apparently, it took two scales and a hydraulic crane to weigh the 8-year-old bear that had 3 1/2-inch claws and a neck circumference of 4 feet.

Is anyone else intrigued that a state has so many bears that it has official state "grizzly bear managers?"

I wouldn't be concerned, except that I'm headed for Bozeman, Montana on Thursday to speak to the Grand Lodge of Montana. I had the pleasure of meeting their Grand Master, Most Worshipful Brother Tom Valente in Nebraska earlier this year (most astonishingly, he invited me AFTER hearing me speak!). I've never been to Montana – I'll be on the lookout for the dental floss bushes I've heard so much about.

Seriously, I'm truly looking forward to being there.

But this bear thing...

3 comments:

Jim DillmanThu Jun 21, 09:15:00 AM 2007
Just be careful that you don't develop a severe case of the dreaded bromidrosis, more commonly known as "stinkfoot". Have a great trip.
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BenThu Jun 21, 11:22:00 AM 2007
Nothing worse than going through the 3rd!
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Christopher HodappThu Jun 21, 05:32:00 PM 2007
qNo stinkfoot yet.

But I did sit next to stink-pits, if you get my drift, on the first leg of the flight out. Like being trapped in a cattle car with real cattle.
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Legendary brotherhood
With a mythic past
And a visionary future.

Freemasonry is the largest, oldest and best-known gentleman's fraternity in the world. Historically, it is based on the Medieval stonemason guilds who built the great castles and cathedrals of Europe. Mythologically it is founded upon the building of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem, as told in the Old Testament of the Bible.

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Christopher L. Hodapp is the author of Freemasons For Dummies, the international, best-selling introduction to the Masonic fraternity; and Solomon's Builders: Freemasons, Founding Fathers and the Secrets of Washington D.C..

Prior to joining the Masons and becoming an author, Chris spent 23 years as a commercial filmmaker with Dean Crow Productions in Indianapolis.

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In 2018 he was awarded the Caleb B. Smith Medal of Honor by the Grand Lodge F&AM of Indiana for his "distinguished service to Freemasonry in Indiana and worldwide."

Chris is a 33° Mason in the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite (NMJ), Indianapolis Valley. He is a Past Sovereign Master of Imhotep Council No. 434 of the Allied Masonic Degrees. He is a founding member of Levant Preceptory, a medieval Knights Templar period recreation degree team in the York Rite, and he is an officer of the Indiana College of the Societas Rosicruciana in Civitatibus Foederatis. He belongs to numerous other Masonic appendant organizations.

Chris is a Fellow of the Philalethes Society. As a Masonic author, in 2012 he was named as Friar No. 101 in the Society of Blue Friars. Chris was also a Founding Fellow of The Masonic Society, and was the founding Editor in Chief of The Journal of The Masonic Society. He was the editor and a contributor in 2004-5 to "Laudable Pursuit: A 21st Century Response to Dwight Smith" by the Knights of the North, a Masonic leadership think-tank focusing on modern lodge solutions. He has written for Indianapolis Monthly, Heredom, Masonic Magazine, Templar History, the Scottish Rite Journal, the Knight Templar Magazine, the Indiana Freemason , the Phylaxis, and numerous other publications.

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