![]() And at some point no one now recalls-but probably during the ’20s-some Shriner came up with the idea of driving around in the equivalent of modern go-karts. Often they simply put on their fezzes and marched. So Shriners dressed as clowns and marched. And marching in parades-about as close as the early 20th century had to putting up a Web site-was their way of letting the public know about the hospitals and recruiting new members. It’s your call.īut when the Shriners established the children’s hospitals in 1922 as their official charity, their fundraising took on urgency. That’s because they don’t have nefarious power, or perhaps it just proves how sinister the conspiracy really is. From the outside, it all sounds determinedly goofball.įor the record, despite significant grilling, none of these Shriners would admit to fixing any elections, fluoridating anyone’s water supply, or otherwise secretly controlling the world. It was a few Masons who liked to extend their lodge-meeting camaraderie into the local taverns who decided on the fraternity’s Near East theme, conjured up the bylaws (there are a lot of bylaws) and rituals (and there are a lot of rituals) and decided the fez would be the official headgear. “We like to have a good time.” In fact, that’s not just a casual comment but the reason the first chapter of the Imperial Council of the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine was formed in 1872 in New York City. “We’re the party-animal Masons,” one Shriner explained in a glancing comment as they unloaded their dinky cars. He explained the rationale behind the little cars quite simply: “Everything we do is for the hospitals.”Īll Shriners must first be at least third-degree Master Masons-the highest degree of Masonry. “It’s all about showing the fez,” said Cleveland, 71, a member of the Corona Riverside Shrine Club. ![]() That took, the Shriners say, $721 million during 2007. It’s up to the 400,000 or so Shriners organized in 191 clubs to keep those hospitals solvent. ![]() The Shriners Hospitals for Children specialize in orthopedic, burn, and spinal-cord-injury care, and they treat-without any charge-all patients under 18 without consideration of their parents’ financial condition or connection to the Shriners. and one each in Montreal and Mexico City. Today, fraternal organizations whose members wear goofy hats seem like throwbacks to old episodes of “The Honeymooners” or “The Flintstones.” But Ralph Kramden’s Raccoon Lodge and Fred Flintstone’s Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes never had the real-world responsibility of sustaining 20 pediatric hospitals scattered around the U.S. After all, younger Shriners have to work on weekday mornings. The 20 or so Shriners were wearing shiny jackets identifying their units, and what hair they had was gray. And no one had bothered to put them on a racetrack and figure out what they could do.Ĭar and Driver invited three Shriner motor patrols from around Southern California to Willow Springs International Motorsports Park on a chilly weekday morning, and they were there before we were-circling their RVs into a sort of Shriner village at the base of the “Streets” course and unloading about 30 twerp-mobiles. But at the same time, they’re a part of America’s ingrained car culture, and until this- ahem-“comparison test,” they’ve gone virtually unnoticed in the media. There is no established Shriner-car land speed record at Bonneville, and “classic” Shriner cars don’t bring huge sums at a Barrett-Jackson auction. There’s nothing technically sophisticated about a Shriner car. In sum, they’re both beloved and completely taken for granted. They drive the motorized midgets in figure eights, they loop around themselves, and they look cheerfully ridiculous at all times. They whirl around the street in formation-or something approaching formation. These “motor patrols” usually consist of up to a dozen middle-aged to undeniably old guys wearing fezzes in miniature Corvettes, shrunken pickups, itty-bitty Indy cars, or whatever (including minibikes and motorcycles). 'There are 10,000 horses in Norco,’ Shriner Lee Cleveland said about the perils of driving his little car in that California town’s Fourth of July parade, ‘and 9990 of them are in front of us.’Įvery time there’s a parade in virtually any town in America, expect to see a contingent of Shriners in it, driving tiny cars.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |