HISTORY OF THE WORLD TRAVELING GAVEL
I first conceived of this gavel during my second tenure as Master of Roscoe Lodge #75, A. F. & A. M,
in Roscoe, Illinois (1990-1991). I had my son make it and the box it is contained within, and used it
throughout my term. I had originally planed to request gavel bearers to report its travels and working life
back to me by the old methods of snail mail. Then in the year 2000 I took a course in WEB site programming and
over ceh next few years I wrote web sites for the Masonic Lodges of my District plus one for the District its self.
This kept me pretty busy. Although the thought of using a WEB page to display the travels of the World Traveling
Gavel occurred to me, just how to go about this eluded me. Then I had a couple of attacks of angina (small heart attacks)
thought maybe I should call the paramedics who quickly whisked me off to the emergency room. After several hours lying
around there I was taken into an operating room and an angiogram was performed and three stainless steel stents
were placed in the arteries leading to my heart. Then two years later I got another small attack of angina and another
Stent was added inside one of the earlier ones. Well this got me to thinking that if I ever wanted to see the WTG
project get out of the planing stages during my lifetime I had better get it started. A couple of days ago I found
out that a young Mason from Canada has recently started a similar project with pretty much the same objectives as mine.
His project is documentated on a BLOG which is linked to here and below.
This has kind of energized me to get the project off the ground and into modes of transportation. I will start it off by
carrying it personally around my home District to as many Working meetings as possible, then entrust it to the District
Deputy Grand Master, and he to others. It is indeed exciting to have finally made this plan come together.
I wrote the above last night thenwent to bed as I had to take my Grand Daughter to her Initiation into the Jobes Daughters at 2:00PM today. While awating sleep to come I thought why not take the gavel to the Initiation and get it re-started there, after all nothing in the rule book says that it can only be used in a Lodge of Masons. So, on Sunday May 20, 2007 the World Traveling Gavel was taken to the Initiation and was well received and used to good effect. Photos will be posted later. Monday I am due to participate in a Master Mason degree as the third Tyrian, at E. F. W. Ellis Lodge #633 in Rockford, Illinois USA. I will take the WTG along to be used for the night.