Free Regarding Freemasonry: Everything You Wanted to Know About Masonic Conspiracies, by Bernard Schaffer Page B

you join up thinking people are doing keg stands behind closed doors.     
     Until recently, none of the Masonic instruction was allowed to be written down.  It had to be taught verbally from instructor to student over a period of months, and practiced relentlessly until the degree could be imparted without flaw.  The trouble is that there is no other specific instruction on how to be a “Good Freemason” aside from that which is imparted during the degree. 
     Of course there are hundreds of books and websites that tell you to BE a good Freemason, but the parts that say, “A good freemason wakes up early on Sunday, mows his grass, eats a few fruits and grains and feeds stray dogs.  On Monday he toils in the field, builds a tree house, and learns to play the kazoo," do not exist. 
     If the concern is that this group of mainly old men and curious young upstarts that meets once a month is somehow conspiring to control the World Bank, you are seriously deluded.  The most controversial thing I’ve seen is a debate about who’s going to cater the next meeting and what members will volunteer to wash the dishes during the pancake breakfast. 
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    Inauspicious Beginnings
     Real masons are referred to as Operative Masons.  Those are the guys who point, grout, lay concrete and build foundations. 
     Speculative Masons, like me, are the guys who meet at the lodge and discuss the formation of building temples within each individual member. 
     Looking back, it’s always been pretty clear which type of Mason I would wind up being.  When I was fifteen years old, my dad hired a stonemason to build a new front deck on our house. 
     My dad, ever the spendthrift, graciously offered my services to this man free of charge.  He did this, of course, without bothering to ask me or ever even tell me about it.    
     I got off of the school bus one sunny afternoon to see this very large, burly man covered in concrete dust standing by my front door.  “Hey kid,” he said.  “Pick up that wheelbarrow and make me some mud.”
    I set down my schoolbag and said, "Excuse me?"  All I had wanted to do that day was pour myself a nice glass of lemonade and read a few comic books.  The prospect of getting filthy for no pay did not seem very appealing.  
    He grunted at me when he said, “Pick up that wheelbarrow right there, and go make me a batch of mud.  I need it quick.  Your dad said you were working with me, so get to it.”
    I looked up at him.  “Mud?”
    He looked at me like I was an idiot.  I shrugged my shoulders and said, “Okay.”  
    I wheeled the wheelbarrow into the backyard and found a shovel in the barn.  I found a nice patch of soft grass and started to dig and dig until there were piles of dirt and grass inside the wheelbarrow’s bucket.  After it was full, I picked up the handles and drove the thing back into the front yard.  The mason was up on a ladder, carefully setting a stone in place. 
    I grabbed a hose from the side of the house and started spraying it into the bucket, until there was so much water inside the wheelbarrow that clumps of dirt started to spill over the side.  I grabbed one of the mason’s hammers and began to stir. 
    At some point, this enormous man looked down at what I was doing from high up on the ladder.  All I remember is looking back up at him and seeing his amazed, wide-eyed expression, to which I dutifully responded, “Your mud is almost ready, sir!”
    And that was how my career as an Operative Mason began and ended.  I picked up my schoolbag and went inside to set about doing what I’d wanted to do in the first place.  It was not until my father came home that I was finally told that “mud” meant concrete to some people.  Luckily, the mason was not interested in my returning to his worksite and opted to forge ahead without me.
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    History: Quick and Dirty
     More than anything else, the Masonic connection to the Knights Templar has always