Texas Masons

I am planning to travel home to Texas over Thanksgiving and would like to visit a lodge in Amarillo.

Even though I grew up around there I moved to IL a few years back and joined freemasonry up here.

This will be the first time I have visited another lodge and I don't even know if there will be any lodges meeting that week.

Anybody got advice about visiting an out of state lodge? I know I should bring my dues card, know the passwords and the oath but not sure what else.

Also what is the appropriate dress for visiting? We wear casual clothes in our lodge but visitors always dress formally.

We had some Prince Hall brothers visit a couple of times and they were dressed out in the full tuxedo, white glove look. It was impressive and their ritual was very precise. It sort of made us look bad as we sat around in our jeans.

Thanks!

reply to post by emsed1


I think your dues cards, signs and words are all you need to know.

In my experiences you sometimes run into what I call "The Inquisitor" - every lodge has one - and if hes there that night you may play a game of 20 questions from one of the degree catechisms. Frankly I always tell any lodge I'm visiting that I am not a ritualist and its been years since I've memorized everything and my memory is horrible, most people don't expect anyone except the officers to know even the bulk of the ritual by memory.

As far as dress - its so hit and miss that I recommend you just go business formal. That way if its casual no one really cares, but if it was formal and you went casual it would be odd. Of course if you know where your going ahead of time just call the lodge secretary and ask him what the normal dress code is. Personally I despise dressing up unless its absolutely required (I already do it at work, and thats enough for me), but some brethren really enjoy it.

I second contacting the lodge secretary. Looks like there are a handful of Amarillo lodges showing up on Google, so it should be semi-easy to find some contact info and meeting dates.

Edit

Thanks for all the advice!

[edit on 10/8/08 by emsed1]

reply to post by emsed1


Answered in U2U