Merry Christmas From the Road

Please accept my apologies for the long gap in posts this month. We've literally been on the road since the first weekend in December.

Instead of staying home with Alice to help pack for California, load the trailer, scream at our now-you-see-them/now-you-don't kitchen remodeling contractors, and deal with our new and certifiably insane 13 week old puppy at 3am, I flitted off to York, Pennsylvania to speak at the 150th anniversary of Zaredatha-White Rose Lodge 451 on December 7th.

Yeah, I know. 

It was a wonderful evening in a beautiful venue - the John Wright Restaurant which sits right on the Susquehanna River (and is owned by a Brother Mason, I might add). Many thanks to Worshipful Master Donald E. Peiffer, Jr., Senior Warden Matt D. Grimes, and all of their officers for their kind invitation. 

I also want to add my special appreciation to Most Worshipful S. Eugene Herritt, Grand Master of Pennsylvania, and his First Lady Sally for their kind forbearance in sitting through one of my windier orations in what was an extraordinarily packed schedule for them. It was also great to spend time with Tom Jackson, who was scheduled to fly out to Romania several days later. 

(I since discovered that Tom wasn't able to make that trip due to some unforeseen health issues. Please keep him in your prayers this holiday season, and drop him a line or a phone call if you know him. He's missing the December Grand Communication for Pennsylvania for the first time in 50 years, and he's not a bit happy about it.)

Grand Master S. Eugene Herritt

Finally, a special note of thanks to WB Ronald Dennis and his lovely bride Beverly for taking me to dinner at The First Post - which I include in this post as a reminder for the next time I'm in York.

After departing York, I returned home to "supervise" the final packing. Since we had to say our sad farewells to our longterm buddy, Wiley the Wonder Poodle back in late October, we weren't willing to cope with an entire winter dogless. So, just because there weren't enough things turned upside down in our household for the last two months, we have adopted our newest addition to the family, Sophie the Flying Poodle. And you haven't lived until you've attempted to train a three-month old puppy in a trailer. (She's capable of supersonic flight, though she suffers the occasional mishap and midair collision, generally due to pilot error). 

Sophie guarding my fuel supply

Consequently, once again we are packed three to a can and shipped across America in aluminum. We've been moseying westward along Route 66 to Southern California for two and a half weeks, and we are now spending the Christmas holidays with my family in Orange County.

So again, please forgive the absence of recent Masonic news postings. I hope to catch up in the next few days with a couple of stories I've been watching. And I will be flying back to Indianapolis for the Grand Lodge of Indiana's annual Founders Day celebration on Saturday, January 11th. 

Hopefully, we'll all be back home by the beginning of February, when we will discover that our house still looks like the missile testing range we left behind in some forlorn, magical fantasy that the pixies would finish the remodeling whilst we were away.

Vain hope.

In the meantime, may each of you have the merriest and brightest of Christmases and the greatest joy this holiday season can bring.