Christmas Shopping

You'll put your eye out

For the past dozen years or so, Christmas shopping has become a one stop experience for me. Because, everyone gets booze. I head to the area’s best liquor store, with an amazing variety, and everyone on the list gets an interesting bottle.

All I have to remember is what kinds of booze each person likes. Some weird flavored liquor for Chelsea, something to serve as a great base in fancy drinks for Bethany, a smokey whiskey or tequila for Amber, and so on, and so on…

But, this year, things got a little more complicated. Because Amber has granddaughter No. 2 growing in her belly. So apparently, booze would be a less than ideal gift.

(Now as an aside, I have no idea why this might be, for when I myself was in the womb, apparently such dangers weren’t known, so I’m pretty sure that mother kept right on drinkin’ and father kept right on smokin’ his Camel Regulars and I guess I turned out OK. But whatever, apparently the drinkin’ is a bad thing when pregnant, so no booze for Amber.)

Photo by Andrew Seaman on Unsplash

(Now as another aside, you may be asking yourself: “What on earth does any of this have to do with Freemasonry?” I can only answer: “I don’t know, beats me, and why are you asking me? I just told ya, mother had a drink while I was in the womb!”)

OK, back to the story…

So Amber necessitated a trip to a second store. A cool outdoorsy type store. I got her some cool shoes instead of booze.

But…

As long as I was there, my granddaughter needed a present too. Because apparently the rest of the family objects to giving bottles of tequila to seven year old girls. I don’t know why, ‘cause I figure she would be awfully popular if she snuck it to school, but whatever.

So, I’m wandering around, wandering around, and what caught my eye?

A Red Ryder BB Gun!

Now, I never had a Red Ryder BB Gun when I was a kid. My brother did, but I had a Crossman pump action.

The thing is, speaking seriously for just a moment, I know, without a doubt, that the granddaughter will encounter guns while growing up. They are in most of the homes of people she knows. So, I think it is vitally important to teach her gun safety, and I’ve done my best to do that since she was extremely young, but the best way to learn it is to actually shoot, and I’ve not taken her shooting. The Red Ryder will allow me to do that.

Continuing in that serious vein, my own father, and grandfather would have disagreed a bit. My brother and I didn’t get BB guns, until after we had become experienced with shooting real firearms. They felt that BB guns were a bit too toylike to properly teach safe gun handling.

But, things are different now with my granddaughter. We live in a city now, not on my family’s large farm, so there is little opportunity, need, or desire to shoot, and we don’t keep loaded long guns by the exterior doors like we did when I was a kid on the farm.

So, I think the Red Ryder is a perfect teaching tool.

All that serious junk out of the way, on with the story…

I see the fabled Red Ryder BB gun sitting right there on the shelf. All nestled in its cool vintage looking box. I was drawn towards it, magnetism, magick of some sort, I had to have it!

So, I snagged it. Then, of course, one needs BB’s. A small jar containing a few hundred. A medium jar containing a couple thousand. A big jar containing a few thousand. You know what I had to have! And let me tell ya, a big jar filled with those little steel balls is heavy!

I’ve got the gun slung under one arm, the jar of BB’s in hand. Mrs. Bailey is nowhere in sight. That’s good, it means that she can’t object!

She’s off, looking at who knows what. I wander a bit, who knows, maybe the kid needs a big ol’ Buck knife too. Nah, probably not, the women of the family are still new to the idea of not worrying themselves to death when she uses the scissors, maybe better wait on a Buck knife.

Eventually I find Mrs. Bailey. She says nothing about the fine, traditional, American, Red Ryder BB gun slung under my arm. Walnut stock and deep blue steel. I’m not sure if she is ignoring it out of utter bafflement, or hasn’t recognized what it is. We wander up to the checkout counter, get in line.

Another guy gets behind us in line. Let’s the cat out’a the bag, so to speak. He says:

“You’ll shoot your eye out.”

I smile and agree. Pleased to know that we all share such cultural touchstones. What child hasn’t despaired right along with Ralph in the Christmas Story as he hears those fatal words to boyhood excitement again and again.

I don’t know, between friends and school chums, I grew up with a lot of boys. And I’ve met a lot of men in the decades since. For some reason, I’ve never met a single boy or man who shot his eye out with a BB gun. Alas, I think that maybe the fairer sex worries a bit too much. The way they worry, one would think that at least a third of the Freemasons of Washington should be down to a single eye.

We check out and are heading to the car.

Finally Mrs. Bailey speaks. “It’ll be good to teach the Baby how to shoot.” She says.

(I confess, we call the granddaughter the Baby. She doesn’t seem to mind right now, as she is after all seven. I figure by the time she’s fourteen she’ll shoot me in the ass with the Red Ryder BB gun if I ever utter that nickname in front of any of her friends.)

“Yep.” I agree. “You know that sooner or later she and some friend will be playing and run across a gun somewhere. Best if she knows how to handle it.” The words sound wise to my ear, as if they are coming from a sage atop a mountain. See, I told you that the womb drinkin’ didn’t hurt me any.

We get home and I carefully open the box. Get rid of all the packaging, oil the thing up, then carefully replace it in the box. It’ll be a great present under the tree!

Plus, you know, we’ve got a big city type relative or two. The best part might just be getting to see their faces when the Baby unwraps her very own Red Ryder BB gun. ‘Take that ya’ long hair commie relatives!’

So, how does all of this tie into Freemasonry?

I declare it tradition. The Christmas Story tells me that every child since the 1940’s in America has needed a Red Ryder BB gun. A fine and old tradition.

Just like Freemasonry. Another fine, old, American tradition. After all, didn’t I just learn earlier today that the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts might just be the third oldest Grand Lodge in the world? Or maybe second, depending on how old one considers the United Grand Lodge of England to be, or maybe fourth, depending on the situation in Pennsylvania. Or maybe third again if one goes with Penn early and UGLE late.

This is why it’s just easier to say that our origins are lost to the mists of time. Too darn much math otherwise.

So there you go, and I close with a tip o’ the hat to the Magpie Mason for making me wonder about the age of Grand Lodges! Read his linked article, it’s very good, and unlike this one, free of nonsense.

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Need a good Christmas gift for that impossible to buy for Freemason on your list? Well, if you aren’t getting him booze, and you aren’t getting him a BB gun, might I suggest the gift of Emeth?

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In other news, if you are inclined towards Tarot, I wrote a little something about it a few days ago:

Tarot Books

Lastly, just as an FYI, I’ve made a modification to Emeth’s moderation policy. Point No. 5 is new. This was required by an anti-semitic comment posted here by a non-subscriber and I assume a non-Mason: