Return To The Night Life

Not those brothers!

Yesterday, with a long weekend ahead of me, I changed into my tux and got out the door as soon as possible. As you have read, I had been rushing for the past few days/weeks to prepare for this lodge meeting and even up until the time I got in the car, I was still a little nervous. Did I get everything done? Am I missing anything? Do I remember all the details of what I need to do during the meeting? All of those questions persisted throughout the 45 minute drive to Ardmore.

Thankfully, I arrived at the lodge a little earlier than expected and I was able to slowly walk across the street and get the mail before turning around and walking up to the lodge. Before I could to the front steps I was already in the middle of conversations with a prospective candidate as well as a few of the brothers who also wanted to get a jump on the meeting. That conversation is what brought me back my focus as well as relaxed me. Something so simple and I was ready to go.

It was at this point when I was able to pinpoint the few things that I needed to get done before the meeting began and soon I found myself down in the office taking care of those things. Of course, as is commonplace before meetings, there were several brothers who had a variety of requests and questions. I did my best to take care of a number of those things on the spot and some of the other items I wrote down on my note pad to knock out following our time in the hot box.

The meeting itself was a welcomed return to normalcy for me. The job seems to have already become second nature to me as I am able to both anticipate and present the information I need to relay to the brethren without a second thought. While I was, without question, a bit rusty the meeting went smoothly and we were able to make it bring the evening to a close much sooner than I had anticipated. Of course, the shorter meeting was balanced out by the other tasks that had to be taken care of afterward.

So we are back in the swing of things. We have come back to the lodge and reconnected with many brothers whom we had not seen in a couple of months. Now the work will pick up and the meetings will get a little bigger during the next couple of month. While it will occupy much of my time but it is well worth the effort once you see everything come together. After all, we are here for one another and for the community and playing even a small role in that dynamic is really something special and something which to be tremendously proud.