Chicken and Beer:
My days as a Bogus Mason
By Bro. Ron Robinson
Chicken and Beer, this is what I was told being a mason was about. This was told to me and others who left Smooth Ashlar Grand Lodge by a Worshipful Master of our bogus lodge. He told us being a mason was about going to BW3 “back in the day” (a now defunct sports bar in Atlanta) and eating chicken wings and drinking beer and meeting all of the other bogus groups. Doing community services was okay but BW3 was were it was at. Everyone would get together and talk about “being masons” and the sisters loved them. This brother talked about how he would get numbers from all of the sisters just by going to eat chicken and drink beer. This is what the lodge needed to do more of, we needed to get to know each other and after months of that we could talk about community service, fund raisers, ritual work, and the initiation of candidates. Some candidates had been kept waiting for a year or more until we “got tight” with each other. Who decided when we were tight? Why would you stop community service? Fund raisers and ritual work stopped, for what?
Well, as all of you would have done this got me to thinking about this situation. I had never heard so much nonsense in my life. I tried to speak to two of the past masters in the lodge about the situation and they told me that we just need to keep doing what we do. One of the P.M.s was still disgruntled because he was voted out of office and made it his duty to critique every action of the brothers whom he felt voted him out. The other P.M. made it his duty to hold a church service whenever he showed up to a meeting. I have seen this brother catch the Holy Ghost on many occasions. When the W.M. gave a lecture it was in the form of homework questions which were taken out of a catch-e-kism book. The W.M. and the P.M.s were unable to answer many of my questions about ritual work. They would give me made up answers and then try to change their responses when I showed them proof in the ritual. I was told that I was getting my information from those Prince Hall boys and that it was wrong. But, were we not Prince Hall also? Didn’t the O in PHO stand for origin? Prince Hall was a Compact Mason was he not? No he was not! Someone please pass the chicken and pour me a beer.
I decided to join the FAAYM e-group started by my lodge brother Bernard Bethea. Brother Bethea was under attack by PHA masons on the list and to my surprise by SAGL’s web team. Why would the grand lodge be attacking Brother Bethea? I thought they should be supporting him to the very end. They did not support him because they knew the truth would be revealed on a national level. I tried to argue with brothers on the list about the compact and how we too were legit. They sent me documented proof that we were not. I could never get a straight answer from my lodge, SAGL, or from NGL officers. I asked for the history of SAGL and was told that they were working on it and would get it to me as soon as possible. I looked on the SAGL website to find the history and what I found in the guestbook was a history from Brother Joe Snow from Eureka Lodge #1 PHA. Now, I had argued with Brother Snow on the e-group and was familiar with his views. I e-mailed Bro. Snow and asked him how he could know more about SAGL’s history than them. Bro. Snow informed me that he had the written minutes from his lodge and his grand lodge from when African-American Masonry was started in this state. Bro. Snow let the members of SAGL know that their history was wrong and the web team, which consisted of the thieving Grand Treasurer only, would post messages stating that Bro. Snow was crazy and that PHA is the bogus group. Would you like fries or celery and blue cheese with those wings?
This past Holiday Season, the brothers of my lodge collected toys to give to needed families. As we were in the parking lot of the G.L. I was holding a basketball which was to be a gift for a young boy. Another brother asked to see the ball and as he commented on how it would make someone happy another brother grabbed the ball out of his hands and began to dribble the ball on the wet pavement. Being that this was a gift I had picked out for a needy child, I informed him that it was a gift. The “brother” kept dribbling the ball until he heard me a second time. At this point this “brother” called me a nigger and told me to shut up. All of us were in shock that this “brother” would act in this fashion. I told him that he was out of line by referring to me by anything other than Brother Robinson, and in anger he hurled the ball at my head. Now, I was disgusted as well as many of the brothers that witnessed this event. Two Past Masters and the current W.M. witnessed this event yet took no action against this “brother”. The W.M. felt that since this was his cable-tow it was acceptable for him to behave in any fashion he so desired.
We were told in open lodge by the W.M. that we (the brothers who left the compact) were trying to bring in candidates for initiation for the sole purpose of voting the W.M. out of office. This statement here shows the mindset of many of the compact masons. They are in it for the titles and the “prestige” that comes with holding any office on the lodge, grand lodge, or national level. I have heard national officers state that they should not have to pay any dues in any house because they are N.G.L. officers. These same brothers would show up for lodge meetings when they wanted to disrupt the peace and harmony of the lodge. Well, let me take that back, there never was peace and harmony in that lodge. Just chicken and beer!
For any irregular, bogus, or clandestine mason out there, I beg you to seriously think about what you are doing. Would you go to a doctor who could not practice medicine legally in your state? Then why would you practice masonry in a body that does not have a legal charter to work. Masonry is so much more than the chicken and beer that my past bogus W.M. thinks it is. Do your own research about the legitimacy of your organization and find out what you need to do to be healed. The brothers of Exodus Lodge UD have shown you that it can be done; now it is up to you to make a change.