By Andrew Hawes — Jr. Warden
October is, from my personal Masonic officer perspective, a relief. Up through now, we’ve been working hard to learn the necessary work to prepare for the new roles we hope to be elected into next year. We’ve been planning and executing degrees (for which there are always practices to be scheduled and executed and for which the degree team is often in flux) events such as the car show, picnic and travelling degree. These have all needed to be scheduled, juggled, planned for and around.
This all changes a bit in October. Proficiencies for next year’s officers are done. Degrees for the year are done. Most of our Masonic events are behind us, with just the installation left on the major event list for the year. We get the occasional Thursday off in the fourth quarter of the year and the focus turns to planning next year, looking forward to repeating the busy schedule with a new set of officers and events.
October is one of my favorite months of the year for many reasons. It’s when the proper crisp cold fall starts in New York, in my mind, which is where I spent most of my childhood. It’s a month when there are usually no lingering “dog days of summer” that come around and make us all sweat. And I enjoy seeing each year the first of the “holiday season” (As annoying as retail advertising for “the holidays” may be as municipalities and individuals start to set up holiday decorations, that will stay up and merely rotate through iterations through the end of the year, rather than just being for one select day.) The frenzy of “back-to-school” has passed, and “Halloweenksgivingannukahristmas” time has arrived! I think of the last three months of the year as a time when there is a general trend towards everyone feeling more of at least two of those truly Masonic virtues – brotherly love, and relief. Sure, it’s annoying to have to start listening to Christmas carols playing on the radio before the Halloween decorations are down, and we all know that the motivation for it isn’t what we would like – but if it helps people to feel “the Christmas Spirit” in their hearts, and leads them to taking more friendly actions and to feeling more generous... then I’m all for it.