Inspection has finally come and gone and I have learned something very important about myself. No matter how well I think I have something memorized and how much time I spend practicing my part, there is a factor of stage-fright that tips the scales in the favor from looking and sounding like a confident, intelligent and competent member of society to a complete and utter fool.

When I was elected as JW, three months ago at the request of the WM (because no one else wanted it), I began learning my parts so that I may be of some sort of benefit to the Lodge and to be able to give new candidates the best experience possible when coming into the fraternity. It is an honor and a responsibility that I take very seriously, simply because I believe that if you are going to do something, do it to the best of your ability and always give 100%.

We had to meet at the Lodge by 5:00pm Saturday to get everything ready for inspection. However, I had promised my boys that I would take them out Saturday to the cat shelter and adopt a kitten for their first pet. During the winter months, the shelter runs on limited hours and is only opened from 4-5 on Saturday. Thinking, of course, that I would have plenty of time to get the cat (which by the way, is a beautiful, snow-white, blue eyed, five-month-old male named Frankie) and get back home in time to make it to the Lodge, go over my lines and calm my nerves.

Without stating the evident errors of my ways, I came to a skidding halt in front of the Lodge, promptly at 6:15, a full 15 minutes till inspections started. After cramming a couple chicken-legs down my throat and sucking down a few spoonfuls of mashed potatoes and gravy I headed into an already full Lodge room.

I am a huge football fan (GO BUCKEYES!) and, up until now, I’ve always thought that “icing the kicker” was the dumbest thing I had ever seen. That extra time on the field-of-play would do nothing but help the kicker focus on the task at hand and increase his chances on making the game winning field goal. I now see why I don’t coach football.

I have attended many of the inspections in Ohio’s 12th District and if there is one theme that all of them had in common, it is the fact that they never start on time. Our inspection was no different.

Everyone was just standing around shootin’ the shit, enjoying each others company and generally having an all-around good-time, that a 6:30 start time came and went and I was left sitting there or, better yet, “icing” there in my chair, going over lines in my head, over and over and over again until 7:15 or so when the gavel fell and inspections were finally underway.
I have been performing the full opening and closing in regular stated meetings for three months now and have not had any problems to speak of; well, except my first time when I forgot “in the west, W” and instead simply pointed and said, “ummmmm, over there!”.

Expecting this to be no different, I almost lost it when we opened in short form! Flying through the super-fast, mega-powerful computer database that is my brain, I realized that I had nothing to do as JW in short form. It threw me off just a bit but I was going to be okay. All I had to do was skip a few lines ahead and get ready for the break.

When the WM called for me to send everyone on break, I quickly rapped and and started saying my lines, feeling confident and calm. That is until I started to announce the closing of a Lode of MMs! Catching my mistake, I proceeded to call the Craft from R to L! I quickly corrected myself once again, called them from L to R. Then, for what seemed like forever, I finally remembered the JDs name to have him inform the T.

This was indeed going to be a long night.

After I forgot to ask the candidate if he was duly prepared and went straight to the next line, mind you, without ever realizing that I had done it, things started getting better. I started going over my lines of the lecture in my head. Denote, represented, originate, went over and over in my head until the lecturer finally knocked on my door and the only thing I could think of was denote, represented, originate and nothing else. Luckily all he needed to do was feed me the first word of each sentence and I knew the rest.

After I finally resigned to the fact that I missed the game winning field-goal, and that I was the weak link in this inspection, I got through through the closings just fine, accepted all the congratulatory remarks and shoulder pats with the ever popular “we have all been there” statements, I slunk outside to smoke a cigarette.

Everyone else did an excellent job and the first-time lecturer only needed prompting twice, maybe three times, and all in all we got a very good rating from our inspecting officer.

Going over the events from Saturday night, I have been trying to figure out exactly what I did wrong. I know I have a fear of speaking in public, but usually that just results in me speeding up my lines to try and get it done and over with. That night, I was forcing myself to slow down, speak so that everyone could hear me, pronounce my words correctly and intelligently and trying to relax myself and not think about anything but my lines.

I think, perhaps, I over-thought it and (where I should have just went with what I knew, relaxed and had fun with it) in an effort to be perfect, made a complete fool of myself in front of a bunch of men that I wanted so desperately to impress.
I have a MM degree to give on Wednesday. I know my lines and feel confident that I can give them without fail. This time however, I will not over-think it, arrive on time and just try to have fun. Besides, I left my book at the Lodge so even if I wanted to I couldn’t.

Oh yea, and for all those other inspections that I’ve attended and, sitting on my perch high atop of Mt. Climbupandfalloff, over-critiqued all the other nervous guys stumbling on words and needing prompting, wondering why they didn’t study their book better, I need to say I’m sorry. This isn’t as easy as I thought it would be, by a long shot. Their minor mistakes seemed to pale compared to the stellar display I gave.

Until next time…

SF

YAY! only one week until I turn into a bubbling blob of bodily fluids in-front of a room full of masons!
I have never been the center of attention, as a matter of fact I have always avoided being the center of attention at all costs. I prefer to stay in the back and watch everyone else make a fool of them self.
Well, it seems that, for someone who likes to keep a low profile, telling the WM that you would like to get more involved in the Lodge, on the day of elections, isn’t such a hot idea.
When no one wanted to take the JW’s spot the WM looked at me and said “Now would be a good time to get involved!”
So, three months into being a MM, now I am the JW! Wasn’t much of a big deal until I found out that inspections were coming next week and I will be performing the FC degree to a packed house!
Public speaking is not my thing so I hope I will do OK and not have a brain fart and forget my own name…

till next time.

SF