Delano Wasco Masonic Lodge #309

08/04/2025

01/09/2025

Was President Jimmy Carter a Freemason? 🤔 The answer might surprise you! While Carter himself *was not a Mason*, his life and legacy are deeply intertwined ...

10/29/2024

Happy Birthday to Master Mason, 32nd Degree Scottish Rite, and Noble Shriner Country Superstar Brad Paisley! He and his wife run a free grocery store in Nashville to get folks back on their feet.

He lives his Masonic values.

10/13/2024

October 13, 1792, the cornerstone of the White House was laid. Present were Brothers George Washington, Collen Williamson (who in addition to being a Freemason was also an operative mason and was hired by Washington to manage the masonry for the White House), and many other masons. The normal ceremonies were performed, speeches were given, and a brass plate was placed on the cornerstone.

Brother Pierre L’Enfant (initiated in Holland Lodge #8 in New York in 1789) laid out the design for Washington DC with it's crossing streets, angles, and circles, and fixed the location of the White House. The design for the White House was based upon the Leinster House in Dublin which was built by the Earl James Fitzgerald who founded the Grand Master’s Lodge of Ireland.

Shown below are pictures of the White House and the Leinster House.

09/25/2024

TODAY IN MASONIC HISTORY (9/26/1872): The Shriners began with the first official meeting at Mecca Temple, now known as Mecca Shriners, in New York.

Shriners adopted Turkish fezzes, name-dropped Muhammad, Allah, and Islam as part of their rituals. The reason being that Shriners back then wanted to project for themselves an image of being the “playground of Masons,” and that back in 1872, all things Middle-Eastern or pseudo-Arabic were deemed wildly "exotic" and "fun", far from the modern-day perception that such images now conjure. In fact, after the September 11 terror attack in New York, some Shrine branches have allegedly changed their names to get rid of any Islamic reference. However, though their main rituals still have Islamic elements, such were obviously used without any real intent of promoting or mocking Islam whatsoever. Such were merely injected from the very beginning in order to add an air of vague mysticism and therefore attract membership.

Some Shriners believed that their organization can be traced to some ancient Persian crime-watch group, not realizing that, in actuality, their organization was merely set-up for the sake of "fun." In fact, the group’s lengthy name, "Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine" was chosen specifically to fill out the initials AAONMS that serve as an anagram for "A MASON."

Despite the "fun" objective, Shriners International has now become the most charitable institution ever spawned in the entire history of organized Freemasonry, providing complete medical care to burned and crippled children wherever they are found.

09/20/2024

Today is the 231st anniversary of George Washington laying the cornerstone of the United States Capitol building on September 18, 1793. It was a singularly important Masonic event in the history of our nation. This was done using the traditional Masonic ceremony, in which corn, wine, and oil—symbols of divine blessing from the book of Psalms—are poured upon the stone to dedicate the building to positive purposes.

09/14/2024

04/17/2024

On this day in 1790, Benjamin Franklin passes away. “[P]erhaps no person in American history has taken on such emblematic and imaginative significance for Americans as has Franklin,” historian Gordon S. Wood once observed.

You may know Franklin the diplomat, Franklin the inventor, and Franklin the intellectual, but do you know about this American icon’s humble beginnings?

Franklin called his own childhood the “poverty and obscurity in which I was born and bred,” noting that he was the “youngest Son of the youngest son for 5 Generations back.” At least one of his biographers found that statement a bit melodramatic, but Franklin’s childhood was certainly a modest one.

Benjamin’s father Josiah initially thought his youngest son could serve the church. That thought didn’t last long, given the expense of a college education. Or did Josiah mostly find Benjamin too irreverent to be a minister? Either way, by the time he was 10, Benjamin’s schooling was over.

He helped with his dad’s business instead.

Josiah was a candle and soap maker, which Benjamin found extremely boring. He wanted to leave. “[I] had a strong inclination for the sea,” he remembered, “but my father declared against it.”

Things took a turn for the better about the time Benjamin turned 12. His older brothers had been apprenticed to different trades, and Josiah decided that Benjamin should do the same. He still worried that Benjamin would go to sea if he didn’t find something to interest the boy.

Thus, Benjamin found himself indentured to his brother James, a printer. The young boy made the most of it. His new position gave him access to books, and he read voraciously. He took notes and, by study and sheer force of will, turned himself into a good writer. It was a valuable skill in that day and age, as so many could not afford a good education.

Things changed again in 1721 when James decided that he didn’t want to print other people’s papers—he wanted to publish his own! His new paper, the New England Courant, would differentiate itself from its competition.

“The [Boston] Gazette boasted that it was published ‘by authority,’” historian H. W. Brands explains, “it read as though it were published by the authorities. James Franklin thought Boston deserved better . . . . [The Courant] would be lively, opinionated, and not averse to challenging the establishment.”

Franklin was 16 by then, and he wanted to contribute, too.

“[S]uspecting that my brother would object to printing anything of mine in his paper if he knew it to be mine,” Franklin later explained, “I contrived to disguise my hand, and writing an anonymous paper, I put it in at night under the door of the printing-house.”

He’d used an alias, Mrs. Silence Dogood. The first essay, Franklin biographer Nick Bunker writes, “carried a sharp edge of satire aimed at the pious heart of Boston.” The editorial staff liked it and published it, little knowing that the 16-year-old among them was the author.

Franklin would ultimately write fifteen of these essays. “Had they come from the pen of a mature writer,” Brands concludes, “the Dogood letters would deserve to be considered a delightful example of social satire. Coming as they did from the pen of a mere youth, they reveal emerging genius.”

Matters soon took a surprising turn when James landed in legal trouble for something he’d published. Franklin ended up in charge of his brother’s paper for a time—or, at least, he was until the two had a falling out and he ran away.

At that point, Franklin was effectively a fugitive because he’d run away before his apprenticeship was finished.

That is a story for another day.

-Tara Ross

Franklin was initiated into Masonry in 1731; probably at the February meeting of St. John’s Lodge in Philadelphia. The esteem in which he was held is evidenced by the fact that he was elected Grand Master just a few short years later in 1735.

04/07/2024

Or make a pinhole camera that will let you see an image of the Sun that is safe to look at. But remember to never look directly at the Sun without equipment that's specifically designed for looking at the Sun. Note that sunglasses, binoculars, and telescopes do NOT count as proper protection.

03/31/2024

The world lost an icon.

Brother Louis Cameron Gossett Jr. "The King of Brooklyn"

Born May 27, 1936 in Brooklyn, NY, Lou had a flair for projecting quiet authority and has scored well personally in a string of diverse and occasionally challenging roles.

The aspiring actor caught a break at his first Broadway audition for "Take A Giant Step" (1953), where, beating out 400 other candidates, the then 16-year-old landed the lead.

His acting career soon flourished and his work in the stage and film versions of the groundbreaking drama about African-American family life in Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun" (1961) proved a watershed. This led to numerous appearances on network series in the 1960s and 70s culminating in 1977, when he picked up an Emmy for his eloquent portrayal of Fiddler in the landmark ABC miniseries "Roots".

Meanwhile, his big screen reputation grew with critically acclaimed work in such comedies as "The Landlord" (1970) "The Skin Game"(1971) with James Garner, "Travels with My Aunt" (1972) and the film adaptation of the Tony Award-winning drama "The River Niger" (1975). A riveting performance as a drug-dealing cutthroat stalking Nick Nolte and Jacqueline Bisset in "The Deep" (1977) catapulted him to wider popularity, but the tough by-the-book drill sergeant in "An Officer and a Gentleman" (1982) won him a Best Supporting Oscar that consolidated his place in the Hollywood hierarchy.

Brother Louis Gossett, Jr. Raised to the Sublime Degree of Master Mason October 4, 2016
Soria City Lodge No. 542 F&AM Gulfport, MS
Most Worshipful Stringer Grand Lodge of Mississippi, Prince Hall Affiliated.

No cause of death has been given.

May Brother Louis Cameron Gossett Jr. Rest In Peace