The Masons: A Personal Archaeology

I know that I am not alone in thinking that Masons are creepy.

Well, my grandpa was a Mason and he wasn´t usually creepy, so I suppose that my relationship with those aging gents in burgandy fezes is kind of complex. Let´s dig deeper. Every summer, when the distinct odor of stale popcorn and manure that travels just ahead of county fairs would first arrive on the wind in my grandparents´ hometown of Benkelman, Nebraska (learn more at e-podunk...seriously: http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/genInfo.php?locIndex=27267), there would be a big parade down Main St. As kids fresh out of the backseat of a Ford Thunderbird after a 20+ hour ride from Shreveport, Louisiana or some other far flung place that we lived growing up, we were more interested in scrapping it out for tootsie rolls than making sense of the weird adult world.

But, behind the scenes somewhere, as children dove for pennies hurled from the First National Bank float (Does anyone remember this? They used to throw rolls of pennies at children -- ¨Here, take the pennies, peasants, we´ll get your money in the end. Muhahahaha.¨), the Masons would gather quietly in a dark room just off of Main St., where they would don fezes and matching vests. And then they would all mount up on child-sized motoscooters!! Lips smeared in chocolate and hands smelling like the bottom of an old lady´s change purse, we would stare in wide-eyed disbelief as stern-faced septuagenarians rode in intricate figure-8 formations on the very motorscooters we had lusted after in the Sears catalog the previous Christmas. Where did they keep these 2-foot-tall scooters the rest of the year? And, why were they the only ones allowed to play with them?

Fast-forward a decade or so. I am now a (non)aspiring 22 year-old technical writer in Atlanta, where I ostensibly spent my days producing manuals for credit card processing machines. In reality, I spent most of my waking hours photo-shopping pictures of my friends´ heads onto midget bodies and dreaming of getting inside the pale gray, windowless Masonic Lodge next door to our office building. But, when the annual Masonic Fish Fry came around -- my one and only chance to penetrate those mysterious catacombs -- I was too busy drinking beer or participating in some other early-twentysomething nonsense. Lost opportunity.

The other day, freshly arrived in Panama City, I encountered this statue, which startles children passing a Masonic lodge in the former Canal Zone. A strange welcome.