A new Worshipful Master in a small town spent the first four days making personal visits to each of the members, inviting them to come to his first Lodge meeting.

The following Thursday the Lodge was all but empty. Accordingly, the Worshipful Master placed a notice in the local newspapers, stating that, because the Lodge was dead,

it was everyone's duty to give it a decent Masonic burial. The funeral would be held the following Monday afternoon, the notice said. Morbidly curious, a large crowd turned

out for the "funeral." In front of the Altar, they saw a closed coffin, smothered in flowers. After the Chaplain delivered the eulogy, he opened the coffin and invited his

Brethren to come forward and pay their final respects to their dead Lodge. Filled with curiosity as to what would represent the corpse of a "dead Lodge," all the Brethren

eagerly lined up to look in the coffin. Each "mourner" peeped into the coffin then quickly turned away with a guilty, sheepish look. In the coffin, tilted at the correct angle,

was a large mirror. Remember the obligation we all took. Attend and support your Lodge.

Source: Author Unknown

Jed Murphy, who had been working hard all day on his farm, suddenly remembered that he was scheduled to be initiated at a small rural lodge. Being already quite late in

the day, he had no time to go home and change clothes. Rushing as fast as he could, he arrived at the lodge where another candidate was sitting on a bench outside the

building waiting to receive his EA degree (the lodge building was very small requiring candidates to wait seated on the bench until the brethren were ready for them.) Jed

knew the other fellow as a used car salesman. After a few minutes, two men came out and Jed was chosen to go first, leaving the car salesman to wait his turn. When Jed

was alone in the preparation room (which incidentally was on the second floor directly over the bench outside), after being instructed how to prepare himself, he suddenly

remembered that earlier in the day he had been castrating hogs on his farm and had forgotten about the testicles in his pocket that he had planned to feed his dogs.

Frantically, he raised the small window of the preparation room, tossing the hog balls out. Later, when they came out to get the next candidate, he was gone! Nobody ever

saw him again!