Jim Tresner, 33°, Grand Cross
PO Box 70, Guthrie, Oklahoma 73044–0070

Fox's Barbershop in Enid, Oklahoma, was a real barbershop, something few of our younger Brethren have ever experienced. You took half a flight of stairs down from the sidewalk, opened the door, where a little, spring-mounted bell rang, and it was another world. The wooden floor had long since lost its varnish, but it was polished to a patina by the leather soles of shoes and the constant sweeping of hair.

The barber's chairs were things of wonder, made of white porcelain and steel and red leather, and you knew you were a man on the day when Claude no longer had to put a board for you to sit on across the arms of the chair. There were the smells, rich, mysterious smells from tobacco and leather and bay rum and rose water and the dozens of bottles, all made of clear glass with long necks and black stoppers with little holes through which the barber could shake colorful liquids into his palm before rubbing them into your hair. They contained liquids which glittered like jewels, like rubies or emeralds or amethysts or topaz. There was the smell of lather and the particular smell of a leather razor strop. The lather was whipped up in a mug with a brush. Claude bought a small black lather machine one day (you had to keep up with the times), but all his customers were glad when he went back to the mug and brush. In those days, even when you were a kid, the barber shaved the space between the top of your ears and the hairline.

And kids came in with their fathers, but you were expected to be a man while you were in the shop, for this was a man's country. Women simply didn't enter. It would have surprised me less to see an elephant walking down Independence Street than to see a woman walk into Fox's Barbershop.

Then I looked again—and saw myself in a mirror in the beauty shop, 50 years later, and my heart cried out for Brother Claude because, and this is the point, there was brotherhood in that barber shop. It was as much a part of the background as the smells and the squeaking of the black cast-iron ceiling fan, or the gurgle of the water fountain, or the soft clatter of the black tin wire-handled dustpan into which the barbers swept the clippings after each haircut. Claude Fox had two other barbers working in the shop with him, and all of them were Masons. And so were many of the customers. Sometimes my father, grandfather, and I would all go in for haircuts together. Granddad and Claude were both on the Garfield County Scottish Rite Rose Croix funeral team, And they would "run language" while Granddad got his hair cut.

Conversation was almost always about the Lodge and what it was doing or planning. I learned early how to tell when a Reunion was coming up, because one or two days before, almost all the men I knew were in Claude's shop, getting trimmed to be ready. Two of the Degrees were staged by teams from Enid, and several men were on other teams as well. I took the Scottish Rite Degrees in Claude's Barbershop long before I took them in the Temple.

There was peace in that barbershop, and companionship, and perfect Brotherhood. These men trusted each other completely. It was many, many years afterward when I began to learn how much they had relied on each other, helped each other out, attended weddings together, celebrated births together, and borne the pall together. But I knew, even then, that it was special and real, and when these men called each other "Brother Jack," or "Brother Claude," or "Brother J.T.," in a half-teasing, half-sacred tone, I knew, somehow, that they meant it.

There are few places of Brotherhood today, few worlds which are reserved for men alone. I'm told that some athletic clubs are like that. For those of us who get our exercise bearing the pall for our friends who are health freaks, these clubs might as well be on the moon. But Masonry is such a refuge.

I don't mean that women aren't allowed in the Temple. Many ladies attend the Reunions at Guthrie. We're glad to see them, and we have special programs to encourage their attendance. But they are not and cannot be part of the Brotherhood, any more than we can be part of the sisterhood of P.E.O.

We teach Brotherhood. But I sometimes wonder if we teach it to our younger members in such a way that they understand we really mean it. And, in some cases, I wonder if we really mean it at all. I heard a Mason, the other day, dismiss the plight of another Mason by saying, "I didn't take him to raise." Oh yes, you did! We all did. We all took each other to raise. And if we lose that, we have lost everything. We must find a way to communicate to the new Mason, and to remind ourselves, that we must and will be there, no matter what. No matter how stupid a situation may be, no matter how childish we may think some reaction may be, no matter how angry we may become, no matter how tired of trying to help we may become, no matter how frustrated, or involved in our own affairs, or just simply weary we may be, we have promised to God and our Brethren that we will be there.

If we lose sight of the reality that our job is to help each other, then all the promises of Brotherhood are simply a sham. If we are Brothers only when it is convenient, we are not Brothers. If we are willing to be Brothers when our Brother has some neat and clean problem, but ready to shun him if he should develop a problem with drugs or alcohol or the law, we have no claim to fraternalism. Any stranger from the street could do that.

When it is real, Masonic Brotherhood is one of the most powerful, creative, healing, and beneficial forces in the universe. It's up to us to make it real. It's up to us to mean it.

Jim Tresner is Director of the Masonic Leadership Institute and Editor of the Oklahoma Mason. A frequent contributor to the Scottish Rite Journal and its book review editor, Illustrious Brother Tresner is also a volunteer writer for the Oklahoma Scottish Rite Mason and a video script consultant for the National Masonic Renewal Committee. He is the Director of the Thirty-third Degree Conferral Team and Director of Work at the Guthrie Scottish Rite Temple in Guthrie, Oklahoma, as well as a life member of the Scottish Rite Research Society, author of Albert Pike, The Man Beyond the Monument, and a member of the steering committee of the Masonic Information Center. In 1997, Ill. Tresner was awarded the Grand Cross, the Scottish Rite's highest honor. His latest book is Vested in Glory, The Regalia of the Ancient & Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry.