Hudson Masonic Lodge No. 510 F&AM

04/18/2026

Saturday May 2, 2026 -- 150 year Reconsecration of Hudson Lodge No. 510 at 1:00 PM at the Lodge. Dress is formal attire. Refreshments will be served afterwards.

49 E Streetsboro St, Hudson, OH 44236

https://hudsonlodge510.org/

https://masonicoh21.com/calendar-of-events/

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04/07/2026

Public Service Announcement

I received a new Medicare card with a new Medicare number in the mail. Given the unsettled overall state of things and thinking this might be a scam, I called Social Security and was informed the card and number change are legit.

I was told new cards and numbers were sent to a randomly selected sample of Medicare enrollees (not all of them, strangely enough), in order to reduce the possibility of future data theft.

I asked if my Medicare number had been compromised and was informed it was not. However, I do have my doubts.

As Freemasons, we are taught that time, patience and perseverance accomplish all things. This has never been more true.

There is so much confusion around us. Scammers and others with nefarious agendas thrive in this environment, so it's not unusual to be constantly vigilant and to have a first impression that requests by mail, email or phone are something that might not be on the level.

This constant "being on high alert" can be overwhelmingly negative and, let's face it, tiresome and depressing. So, remember our values -- Brotherly Love, Relief and Truth. Keep checking with reliable objective sources to confirm what's happening before you respond and / or click.

And, be kind to others, practice daily self-care and stay hopeful for better days ahead.

01/02/2026

Happy New Year, Brethren. As we look forward to new beginnings, rededication to Masonic Values and to self-improvement, here is a hopeful piece on aging. As many of us are "long in the tooth", I thought we might benefit from it.

I remember the afternoon clearly because it caught me off guard in a way I didn’t expect.
I had been sitting beside an elderly man on a wooden bench outside a small café, the kind of place where time seems to slow down on purpose. He was well dressed but not flashy, his shoes polished, his posture careful, as if his body required more thought than it once did. His hands rested on a cane, not gripping it tightly, just letting it be there.
We had exchanged polite conversation at first. Weather. Coffee. The simple things people say when they don’t yet know whether silence or words will feel kinder.
Then, without fully planning to, I asked him a question I had never asked anyone before.
“What is it like,” I said carefully, “to be old and to know that most of your life is already behind you?”
I immediately worried I had crossed a line. It sounded heavier out loud than it had in my head. But he didn’t look offended. He didn’t even look surprised.
Instead, he smiled.
Not a sad smile. Not a nostalgic one. Just gentle.
“That’s an interesting way to put it,” he said. “Because I don’t experience it that way at all.”
I looked at him, confused. “How do you mean?”
He leaned back slightly and stared ahead, not at anything in particular.
“I’ve been the same age my entire life,” he said.
I laughed softly, thinking he was joking, but he wasn’t.
“The voice inside my head,” he continued, tapping his chest lightly, “never got old. It sounds exactly the same as it did when I was a boy.”
He paused, choosing his words carefully.
“I’ve always felt like myself. The same curious kid. My mother’s son. The same person wondering when adulthood would finally arrive.”
That caught my attention in a way nothing else had.
“All those years,” he went on, “I kept thinking one day I’d wake up and feel different. Wiser, maybe. Slower inside. Older. But it never happened.”
He looked down at his hands, thin now, spotted with age.
“My body changed,” he said. “My reflection changed. My memory isn’t what it used to be. My knees remind me every morning that time has passed.”
Then he looked back at me, eyes clear.
“But the person inside,” he said quietly, “never aged. He never got tired. He never became someone else.”
I didn’t interrupt him. I didn’t want to break the moment.
“I watched myself grow older,” he continued. “Watched my hair turn gray. Watched my friends disappear one by one. Watched the world change faster than I could keep up with.”
He sighed, but it wasn’t heavy.
“And yet, I still feel like the same boy who once sat on the front steps waiting for his father to come home. The same boy who wondered how adults knew what to do. The same boy who thought grown men had everything figured out.”
He shook his head softly.
“I kept waiting to grow up into an old man,” he said. “But inside, it never happened.”
We sat in silence for a moment after that.
I thought about how often we talk about aging as if it changes who someone is. As if years pile up and slowly erase the person underneath.
But listening to him, I realized something important.
We don’t become different people.
We become older versions of the same soul.
He turned toward me again. “That’s why it’s strange,” he said, “when people look at me and only see age. Because inside, I still want to be seen. Still want to be useful. Still want to matter.”
That sentence stayed with me.
I thought about how we rush past elderly people. How we talk over them. How we assume they are fragile in ways that go beyond their bodies. How we forget that the same need for love, attention, and purpose lives inside them exactly as it does inside us.
We don’t outgrow that need.
Children need love because they are learning who they are.
Adults need love because they are carrying who they’ve been.
The elderly need love because they are still the same child who once needed it too.
Before we parted ways, he smiled again.
“Remember this,” he said. “When you see someone old, don’t think of them as someone who used to be something else. They are still themselves. Just wearing time.”
I thanked him, not just for the conversation, but for the gift he didn’t realize he had given me.
Since that day, I look at elderly people differently.
When I see a woman moving slowly through a grocery store, I imagine the girl she once was, running barefoot through summer grass.
When I see an old man sitting quietly on a park bench, I remember that inside him lives a boy who once wondered what his life would become.
And when I catch myself fearing the idea of growing old, I remember his words.
Our bodies change.
Our abilities shift.
But the core of who we are remains untouched.
Our spirits do not age the way our skin does.
Our souls do not tire the way our joints do.
They stay. They remember. They wait to be seen.
So the next time you encounter an elderly person, pause for a moment.
Look at them not as someone at the end of something, but as someone who has carried a lifetime while remaining the same inside.
Look at them and know they are still a child of someone. Still someone who once wondered when they would grow up. Still someone who needs kindness, patience, and purpose.
Just like you.
Just like me.
Because no matter how many years pass, the person inside never truly leaves childhood.
They only gather stories along the way.

12/16/2025

I read this post this morning and it struck me that, not only does everyone have a story, but also there is value in pretty much every honest job. No matter what career is chosen, regardless of how it is acquired and actioned, hopefully it not only brings personal satisfaction, security and happiness; it also brings value to society. Comparison of trade schools versus colleges, on-the-job learning versus formal academic environments, starting and managing a business versus inheritance of a going concern -- it is, IMHO, arguing about these differences are distractions from the real task of helping people to learn and apply that learning.

My Masonic experience has helped me to focus on clarifying my values and priorities, to internalize them and to know myself -- strengths, weaknesses and the many flaws and wounds -- in greater and objective depth. The goal being to travel a never-ending journey of nobler deeds, higher thoughts and greater achievements. Knowing that I will invariably fall, to resolve to pick myself up, learn from my mistakes and to try harder.

We are at our best when we “Meet on the Level, Part on the Square”. It is a reminder of the importance of treating others with humility and respect -- that all Masons are equal and that they should treat each other as such.

As we move through the holidays toward 2026, perhaps we might rededicate ourselves to our Masonic Values and to make the world a better place for all.

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From Mr Commonsense...

The man in the three-thousand-dollar suit glanced at my hands before he even looked at my face.
“Maintenance is down the hall,” he said politely. “Air conditioning issue?”
I knew exactly what he saw.
Knuckles scarred from decades of wrench work.
Hands thick from turning bolts in freezing truck stops.
A permanent line of grease beneath my nails that even my best scrubbing can’t erase.
I looked at his hands—smooth, manicured, topped off with a heavy gold watch.
“No, sir,” I said, my voice a little too loud for the pristine high-school library. “I’m here for Career Day. I’m Jason’s father.”
He blinked, gave a stiff smile, but his eyes said what he didn’t:
You? Really?
My name is Mike Riley. I’m 58 years old. I’ve been a long-haul truck driver for thirty years. I’m a widower, a veteran, and a dad who tries his best. My son Jason attends this polished suburban school where everything smells like new textbooks and wealth.
This was Sarah’s school—my late wife. She taught here, loved here, lived here. After she passed, the school created a scholarship in her name.
So when Jason told his teacher I was a “logistics and supply chain specialist” and should speak at Career Day, I felt like saying yes was a way of honoring her.
I parked my old F-150 between a luxury SUV and a spotless German sedan. I walked in wearing my best jeans, a fresh flannel, and boots I’d shined twice.
Inside the library, the lineup of presenters read like a magazine cover.
Dr. Chen, neurosurgeon, opened with a futuristic video on brain mapping.
Mr. Davies, the finance dad with the gold watch, followed with stock charts and phrases like “leveraging capital” and “Q4 positioning.”
Jason sat in the back row, shoulders hunched, wishing he could disappear.
Then the principal touched my arm.
“Mr. Riley? You’re next.”
I walked to the front with nothing but my own voice. No slides. No videos. Just the truth.
“Good morning,” I began. “My name is Mike Riley. I’m not a doctor or an investor. I didn’t finish college. I’m a truck driver.”
Murmurs. Curious glances. A few raised eyebrows.
“My son calls me a logistics expert. Which I guess means I drive a very big truck a very long way. And I figure I’m here to explain why that matters.”
I turned to Dr. Chen.
“What you do saves lives. But the tools you use—every circuit, every wire, every plastic casing—those didn’t appear out of thin air. Someone packed them in a crate. Someone loaded that crate on a truck. Someone drove it across the country.”
Then I nodded toward the finance dad.
“And sir, those numbers you showed? They represent real things—food, medicine, steel, supplies. This country doesn’t run on unlimited Wi-Fi and spreadsheets. It runs on wheels. On people willing to travel thousands of miles so shelves stay full and hospitals stay stocked.”
The room grew still.
“In March 2020,” I said, “when everything shut down, you stayed home. You did puzzles. You baked bread. But drivers were told to keep going. It felt like I was the only person on the highway some days. I delivered 40,000 pounds of toilet paper once. My dispatcher cried on the phone because her own mom couldn’t find any. You can’t Zoom a bag of flour. You can’t download hand soap.”
Students leaned forward. Teachers nodded.
“Two winters ago, I was hauling insulin across Wyoming. A blizzard shut the interstate. I sat in that cab for three days—twenty below zero—listening to the hum of the refrigeration unit. If that unit died, so did the medicine. I wasn’t thinking about the cost. I was thinking about the family waiting for it.”
I scanned the room. Jason was sitting up straight now.
A student in a “Future CEO” shirt raised his hand.
“Sir… don’t you regret not going to college? My dad says jobs like yours mean people didn’t have other choices.”
The room froze.
I smiled gently. “Son, when the lights go out, you call a lineman, not a business professor. When the pipes burst, you don’t reach for a textbook—you call a plumber. And when you walk into a store expecting food on the shelf, you’re relying on farmers, factory workers, warehouse crews, dispatchers, and drivers like me.”
I paused.
“Those careers aren’t fallbacks. They’re foundations.”
A voice spoke from the back. Quiet at first.
“My mom’s a dispatcher.”
A skinny kid stood up, eyes shining.
“She works nights. Holidays. She’s the one who finds drivers when hospitals need supplies. People yell at her all the time when packages are late, but she keeps going. She isn’t less important than anyone else.”
He looked at the CEO shirt kid.
“She’s a hero. And so is he.”
He pointed at me.
The room fell silent. Then applause. Real, heartfelt applause.
Jason walked up and stood beside me. He didn’t speak—he just put his arm around me. And that was enough.
Later, on the drive home, he finally said, “Dad… I had no idea about what you’ve done out there.”
“It’s just the job,” I said.
“No,” he whispered. “It’s so much more.”
Here’s the truth:
This country isn’t held up by titles or corner offices. It’s held up by callused hands, tired feet, and people who show up in storms, in shutdowns, in the middle of the night when no one else can.
We are not the backup plan.
We are the backbone.
So next time you ask a young person what they want to be, don’t just say, “Where are you going to college?”
Try asking, “What do you want to build? What do you want to keep running? What will you help carry?”
And if that kid says,
“I want to weld,”
“I want to fix engines,”
“I want to deliver supplies,”
“I want to drive trucks like my dad,”
look them in the eye and say:
“This country needs you. We’re counting on you.”

12/02/2025

As we enter the winter season, inclement weather can present various challenges when walking. The article from the The Ohio Masonic Communities Resource Center provides excellent background information on the seriousness of falls, especially for seniors. The article also provides suggestions for fall prevention on fall prevention.

In addition, further information on fall prevention and classes at Steady U , including Matter of Balance, can be found at The Ohio Department of Aging website. https://aging.ohio.gov/care-and-living/health-and-safety/staying-healthy/health-and-safety-classes-1

06/06/2025

From The Grand Lodge of Ohio... https://www.freemason.com/nick-offerman-blog/ I have personally enjoyed the roles Nick Offerman plays. And I really enjoyed his book,
Gumption: Relighting the Torch of Freedom with America's Gutsiest Troublemakers

https://nickofferman.co/books/gumption/ -content

“… the mission statement of the Masons involves treating your neighbor with generosity and being benevolent … I really like that notion.” – Nick Offerman in an interview to NPR.

Nick Offerman: actor, comedian, author, and proud Freemason. Best known for his iconic portrayal of Ron Swanson on Parks and Recreation, Brother Offerman has charmed audiences with his dry wit, unmistakable voice, and love of woodworking. While the Supreme Council is working to confirm Brother Offerman’s lodge details, he did confirm his membership during an interview with Wired magazine in 2020.

Book details, table of contents, dimensions, reviews and more. Nick Offerman writes about the lives of 21 Americans who’ve rocked his world. From George Washington to Willie Nelson, he describes how and why these heroic figures have inspired in him such great meaning. Includes discussion on religi...

03/26/2025

While watching TV last night, I ran across the film The Man Who Would Be King, a 1975 adventure film adapted from Rudyard Kipling's 1888 novella. It was adapted and directed by John Huston and starred Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Saeed Jaffrey and Christopher Plummer as Kipling (giving a name to the novella's anonymous narrator). The film follows two rogue ex-soldiers, former non-commissioned officers in the British Army, who set off from late 19th century British India in search of adventure and end up in faraway Kafiristan, where one is taken for a god and made their king.
As a Freemason and former motion picture projectionist with a lifelong appreciation of film, I appreciate when the fraternity is appropriately showcased (per Masonic requirements) in writing and portrayed on film. I also appreciate the more recent National Treasure, but this is first among equals.
And while some might object to the historical context, IMHO, still remains a timeless masterpiece.
The messages in the film highlight adventure, friendship, humor, loyalty, self-awareness, courage and the value of a timely and authentic apology (and how to receive it).
Daniel Dravot: Peachy, I'm heartily ashamed for gettin' you killed instead of going home rich like you deserved to, on account of me bein' so bleedin' high and bloody mighty. Can you forgive me?
Peachy Carnehan: That I can and that I do, Danny, free and full and without let or hindrance.
Daniel Dravot: Everything's all right then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apfaDqcf2FA

Do not try to strip Sean Connery of his nobility.Extraordinary sequence from John Huston's 1975 depiction of Rudyard Kipling's classic adventure tale, The Ma...

03/26/2025

Grand Lodge F&AM of Ohio
March 17, 2025
·
Today’s Mason Monday is Bro. Mike Gemberling from Hudson Lodge #510. Bro. Gemberling is an HR professional, father, husband, and proud Freemason.

What does the Grand Master’s theme mean to you? “To me, the Grand Master’s theme is a reminder that Freemasonry isn’t just about tradition, it’s about responsibility. It calls us to be men of action, to stand for what’s right, and to use our influence to make a real difference. Brotherly love means recognizing the worth and dignity of every person, not just those who look, think, or live like we do. Relief isn’t just charity, it’s about stepping up when others need us most. Truth? Truth requires more than words. It demands courage, integrity, and the willingness to challenge injustice when we see it. Our legacy isn’t just in what we preserve, it’s in what we build. If we live these principles every day, both inside and outside the Lodge, we ensure that Freemasonry remains a force for good in the world.”

Brethren, what does Brotherly Love, Relief, and Truth mean to you?

03/26/2025

While watching TV last night, I ran across the film The Man Who Would Be King, a 1975 adventure film adapted from Rudyard Kipling's 1888 novella. It was adapted and directed by John Huston and starred Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Saeed Jaffrey and Christopher Plummer as Kipling (giving a name to the novella's anonymous narrator). The film follows two rogue ex-soldiers, former non-commissioned officers in the British Army, who set off from late 19th century British India in search of adventure and end up in faraway Kafiristan, where one is taken for a god and made their king.
As a Freemason and former motion picture projectionist with a lifelong appreciation of film, I appreciate when the fraternity is appropriately showcased (per Masonic requirements) in writing and portrayed on film. I also appreciate the more recent National Treasure, but this is first among equals.
And while some might object to the historical context, IMHO, still remains a timeless masterpiece.
The messages in the film highlight adventure, friendship, humor, loyalty, self-awareness, courage and the value of a timely and authentic apology (and how to receive it).

Daniel Dravot: Peachy, I'm heartily ashamed for gettin' you killed instead of going home rich like you deserved to, on account of me bein' so bleedin' high and bloody mighty. Can you forgive me?
Peachy Carnehan: That I can and that I do, Danny, free and full and without let or hindrance.
Daniel Dravot: Everything's all right then.

Do not try to strip Sean Connery of his nobility.Extraordinary sequence from John Huston's 1975 depiction of Rudyard Kipling's classic adventure tale, The Ma...

01/03/2025

From The Grand Lodge of Ohio Conversation opened.

Brethren all!
Brother Kenneth J. David of Cortland Lodge No. 529 is scheduled to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor today, January 3, 2025, at 4:50pm. Here is a link where you can view the event.

https://www.dvidshub.net/webcast/35632

Happy New Year!
Keith W. Newton, Grand Secretary

As background, this Brother distinguished himself on May 7, 1970 in Vietnam. Brother David saved numerous lives on the morning of May 7th, 1970 when his company came under attack in Vietnam. He held off enemy forces and secured a landing zone so casualties could be extracted.

https://506infantry.org/page-18196

https://www.wfmj.com/story/42105095/efforts-being-made-to-award-medal-of-honor-to-girard-veteranKenneth

It is with all military and Masonic honors that we recognize this most distinguished Brother.

Kenneth David saved numerous lives on the morning of May 7th, 1970 when his company came under attack in Vietnam. He held off enemy forces and secured a landing zone so casualties could be extracted.