Friday, April 3, 5:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Spaghetti Dinner
Masonic Club of Lyndhurst
All you can eat! Donation $7.50
All Are Welcome.
Monday, April 6, 7:00 p.m.
Regular Communication.
Summoned matter to deal with.
Birthday Night
Officers Dress—Casual
April 14, 15, & 16
Grand Lodge Annual Communication
Bally’s Casino & Hotel
We will be staying in the Day’s Inn.
THE END
“When you come to the fork in the road, take it.”—Yogi Berra
Brothers:
I know that by this time you have received the letter dealing with the consolidation of our lodge with the brothers of Adoniram, Highland, Wakefield, Rising Star Lodge. They are going to change the name of their lodge, with our agreeing to the change, to simply Adoniram Lodge Number 80—thus we are consolidating with them, not merging. The name Adoniram is the name on the corner stone of the Masonic Temple in which we will continue to meet.
The action that we will be voting on has been in the works for well over ten years—it may be even closer to sixteen or more years that we had to have Masters serve more than one year—the first being Jim O’Toole (2) who sat in the East for a Master who never showed up and then, was elected Master, then Norman Salvesen (3), Richard Childs (2), John Perez (2), me (4), Ed Gasior (3), Robert Rawding (2), and Jim Lind (2). While serving in the East, these men never really had a line made up of completely white apron brothers. It has been a struggle to find people to sit in officers’ chairs and it has been a losing struggle as a number of people have agreed to serve and never show up. On the rolls, we are a good size lodge, but as for attendance, we are really in sad shape. The factors being as they are, the people who have been serving the line for the past years, including Hank Way, who has been either our Senior Warden and our Junior Warden for well over ten years, after much thought, have petitioned me to start the process of consolidation. The culmination of this process will be the voting on April 6 and the handing in of our Warrant on April 15 to the Grand Lodge. To prolong the inevitable would be futile—this is something that must be done. The Grand Master is in favor of this consolidation and has given us and Adoniram, Highland, Wakefield, Rising Star Lodge dispensation on the process to expedite the consolidation by April 15.
We have had Eighty-One years of existence and that is a good thing. We have raised a great number of Masons and we have donated large sums of money to various charities. We made our mark in North Arlington and now, we will continue to make a Masonic mark as members of a newly named lodge—one that has been our host since 1999.
Writing this massage has not been an easy task. To say that we have come to our ending is not something said with joy. We had a meeting with the consolidation committees of both lodges on Friday the Thirteenth of March—Friday the Thirteenth is a date considered to be one of bad fortune—Jacques DeMolay’s demise. But I consider our meeting date to be one of good fortune—we will become an even greater lodge with great members. A Lodge made up of Masons like you and me.
We have come to the fork in the road and we are going to take the correct direction—the one to the land of continued Masonic greatness.
Fraternally,
John Lacki, Jr.
