The Bulletin, Bend / Central Oregon News
FEBRUARY 09, 2010 07:52 PM
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more photosWorshipful Master Bryan Martin, 31, sits among pictures of past worshipful masters at the Bend Masonic Lodge on Thursday. Each serves a one-year term, he says.
Pete Erickson / The Bulletin
Freemasons build for the future
By David Jasper / The Bulletin
Published: April 14. 2009 4:00AM PSTWebster’s New World College Dictionary defines a Freemason as “a member of an international secret society.” But Ed Bousquet, 66, and a 42-year member of the Freemasons, likes to quote Benjamin Franklin, who said the great secret of freemasonry is that there is no secret.
Well, no secrets except for the handshakes, or “grips,” as well as certain phrases that will instantly let two masons easily, and quickly, identify each other.
Welcome to the underworld of Freemasonry in Bend. Well, it’s not an “underworld,” per se: more like the basement of the Bend Masonic Lodge, near the intersection of Eighth Street and Greenwood Avenue in Bend.
The Bulletin sat down Thursday with Bousquet, a retired CPA, as well as several of his fraternal brothers in the basement dining hall of the building, the Masons’ home since 1956.
Masons have been in Bend almost as long as it’s been a city. One of five Masonic Lodges in Central Oregon — the oldest being Prineville, chartered in 1880 — the Bend Masonic Lodge is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. The organization is opening its doors to the media, and in May, the public, with a picnic and treasure hunt playing off of films such as “National Treasure,” in which Masonic themes figure into the plots. (“Da Vinci Code” author Dan Brown describes Freemasonry as an “enigmatic brotherhood” on his Web site.)
Even as it celebrates its past, one that included such prominent Bend citizens as Urling Coe, the first doctor in Bend and in 1910 its master, Bend Masons are looking toward the future, with an eye trained on younger members.
Bryan Martin embodies this youth infusion. At 31, the self-described “out-of-work contractor playing farmer” is the “worshipful master” of the lodge, a one-year term.
“That’s the only place he’s the master,” quips Bousquet. Photos of past masters line the wall of the Lodge Room upstairs.
Another young member is 23-year-old Bob Ward, a Bend tattoo artist who, after inking so many Masonic symbols on members, became one himself.
“Ink is the new jewelry” among Masons, says Dave Johnson, senior warden and a retired satellite systems engineer (“even rocket scientists” are Freemasons, quips another). When not showing off skin, Masons can also identify one another via rings depicting the Masonic square and compass.
According to Derek Stevens, 44, a Bend furniture-maker and woodworker, there’s a new wave of people coming into the Bend Masonic Lodge.
He’s one himself with just three months’ membership in the international fraternal organization, which traces its origins back to the Middle Ages and stone masons of Europe and attracted, among other famous Americans, George Washington, Davy Crockett, Henry Ford, Clark Gable and Thurgood Marshall, according to masonicinfo.com.
“I’m one of the fairly new ones that have come in the lodge,” says Stevens, a self-described history geek. “I love it,” he says. “That’s part of the draw.”
His great-great-grandfather was a Mason and a friend of Andrew Carnegie, “and the two of them together put a library in our hometown” back east.
“It’s a neat group. I find the biggest question I have these days is why I waited so long” to join, says Stevens, who’s in the process of building a time capsule for the organization’s next 100 years.
His geek tendencies came to the fore after his father died and he found “all these very interesting old documents, and with that it really piqued my interest about what drew my grandfather into this.”
There are about 130 members in Bend, with anywhere from 30 to 50 members showing up for meetings. But in the last month, there have been 11 petitions for new members, a 9 percent increase in growth should all of them follow through, says Stevens.
“It is something that is definitely on the uptick. … It’s speaking to a lot of people. You have an organization that prides (itself on) learning, intelligence and seeking knowledge, you know, that’s not a bad thing.”
To join, prospective members need only ask a current member. After putting in a petition to be accepted for the degree work, one can begin working toward the three degrees of Masonry, “which is where the phrase ‘giving someone the third degree comes from.’”
A lot of jargon from Masonry has made its way into wider usage, says Stevens. “The idea of someone’s been ‘blackballed’ in Hollywood, or blackballed in life, actually comes from the voting process in the Masonic Lodge. If somebody’s voted on, and they receive a black ball, they’re out.”
Jim Magoon, 33, a Bend Realtor, is another younger member and officer in the Masonic Lodge. He’s the senior deacon.
“(When I was) growing up, my grandfather (in Wisconsin) had a lot to do with the lodge; a past master,” Magoon says. “He’d always talk about going and being at the lodge, having such a great time at the lodge, and talking about the other members of the lodge. I didn’t really get it until I was about 30 and decided, ‘Grandpa had such a great time at the lodge. What is it that he found at the lodge that I’m missing?’
“That’s what led me to petitioning the lodge: seeking more information.” (Contact the Bend Masonic Lodge at 541-389-7407.)
He says the self-improvement components of the Masons, whose tenets are “Brotherly Love, Relief and Truth,” are a big draw for him, as are the varied backgrounds of its members. The group’s philanthropic efforts include Bikes for Books, a partnership with Bend-La Pine Schools in which elementary school students can earn a bicycle by reading 12 age-appropriate books approved by teachers. In 2007, 29 kids received a bike.
Further, Shriners, as in Shriners Hospitals, are Masons.
“Not all Masons are Shriners, but all Shriners are Masons,” says Stevens. He jokes a couple of times about goat sacrifices and The New World Order, playing off of myths about Freemasons.
“A lot of (the prejudice) is based on little bits and pieces in movies, little bits and pieces you can find on the Internet,” he explains. “But most of it comes from misunderstanding … there are just some bits so that there are ways to know a Mason from another Mason, that aren’t public. But other than that, the doors are open to any man who wants to apply and go through the degree work.”
And what of the secret handshakes?
“We’d show you, but we’d have to kill you,” jokes Stevens. (“That’s OK. We can move on,” I reply.)
The Freemasons’ long history seems to point the way forward, even for — especially for — new members who are discovering the organization.
“I tend to look at it as, with the instability we have in all facets of society these days, something that’s lasted for centuries. There’s a permanence to it that they don’t find in a lot of places,” Stevens says.
“It speaks to people. It draws them in, that common ground, that touchstone, something that has lasted the centuries and really hasn’t changed.”
David Jasper can be reached at 541-383-0349 or djasper@bendbulletin.com.
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