‘National Brotherhood Week’

     

Yes, Magpie coverage of Masonic Week 2013 is still to come. I haven’t had five minutes to download the photos yet, as renovation of the bathroom at Magpie headquarters continues at a snail’s pace and other obligations nag. But here’s a little something in honor of another February week.

Once upon a time in a more innocent age, when it was only other countries that had communists as their heads of state and people thought it natural to pay their own bills, there was a movement to instill brotherly love and mutual respect among all citizens. This was not by government edict, but by bringing real people together to provide, as President Kennedy put it, “harmonious living among our different religious groups.”

The concept was made manifest – and remember we’re referring to a simple time of political assassinations, race riots, draft resistance, liberations of so-and-so’s, and mass shootings by the government – by an observance called National Brotherhood Week at the third week of February. Human nature is what it is, which is why you may not have heard of it before.

(I am indebted to my parents for having comedy albums in their record collection when I was a kid, allowing me to learn directly from and about Lenny Bruce and Tom Lehrer.)

Take it away Maestro!