The Three Links Odd Cast

In a secluded corner of the wilderness around Mount Shasta in Northern California, a secret rite has been taking place for generations.  No, it's not something from the latest thriller novel, it's the Cave Degree!  In a natural cave that faces east toward Mount Shasta, Odd Fellows (and before them, Knights of Pythias) have been performing degree work.  The Odd Fellows of Yreka Lodge No....

Tucked away in a secluded corner of Oregon's rolling farmland northwest of Portland sits the Hahn Farm. Owned by Gary Hahn, a third-generation Odd Fellow and fourth-generation owner of the farm, it has become a beacon for Odd Fellowship in the jurisdiction of Oregon.  Every year since the early 1990s, on the third weekend of September, the farm hosts a Degree Weekend unlike most others in Odd...

Civic life in America has been in decline for decades.  A prescient few, including noted author Robert Putnam, have chronicled that decline.  In his book "Bowling Alone," Putnam explored the link between civic engagement and the function of government and described the nature of the decline in participation in clubs, churches, and other groups.  Pete and Rebecca Davis, a brother and sist...

Odd Fellowship has found many spaces in which to adapt its Degree work.  Our beginnings were in pubs and taverns so Degrees were originally performed there.  Eventually we built lodge halls but we still looked for more interesting and unusual places to perform Degrees.  Caves became a popular choice in the 20th Century.  California's Cave Degree near Yreka is the most well-known, but other lo...

Hard to believe, but it's been three years since the launch of the Three Links Odd Cast.  Way back when, Sergio, Ainslie, and Toby could hardly imagine the cultural touchstone this podcast would become.  Here we are at the beginning of Season Four and we're just as excited to make new episodes as we were when we started in 2020.  We take a look back at the episodes that made Season 3 spe...

Insurance can be a touchy subject that's all too easy to avoid.  There are multiple different reasons to avoid it including cost, complication, and just a general desire to not think about bad things that might happen.  Those bad things are a fact of life, however, and lodges need to be prepared for whatever kind of bad things may occur.  Fortunately, Sister Malia Murchison of Morning Star Lo...

Take one seventy-year Odd Fellow, his great grandson, a twenty-year Odd Fellow from Indiana, a guy from the neighborhood looking for a "thirty-year project" and a few other new folks and put them together and you have the recipe for reviving a lodge that had become profoundly inactive as they retreated from the community and membership had shrunk.  They had become a "kitchen-table l...

Like many western jurisdictions, Nevada is small.  The bigger cities—Las Vegas, Reno, Carson City—have lodges and there are a few scattered around the rest of the state as well.  Recently, though, activity and interest has been building in the Silver State as younger members have joined and been appointed to various jobs to help build Odd Fellowship.  Our guest, Brother Jonathan Wettig, is an enth...

Odd Fellowship, like many fraternal groups, is predominantly full of older members.  For retirees and others in the later stages of life, our traditional focus on things like death benefits makes sense.  However, for younger members, it's a lot harder to see the value of a benefit they may not take advantage of for decades.  In this episode, Mike and Toby are joined by Brother Brandon Clark a...

For the past couple of years, despite the challenges of the pandemic, something has been brewing in Upstate New York.  Two Masons and and Odd Fellow, all beekeepers, found themselves together on a mission to charter a new Odd Fellows Lodge.  Brother Kevin, a member of Wawayanda Lodge #34, was ready to fulfill his destiny as "lodge curmudgeon" with nearly thirty years of membership.  Brot...

Music enriches every aspect of life so why should it not enrich our lodge meetings as well?  Brother Mike has been adding music into the meeting of his lodge—Kanawha #25 in West Virginia—to great success.  Obviously, music can be used in all the places indicated in the ritual, like singing the Odes, but this episode goes further and talks about some of the musical background of Odd Fellowship and...

Brother George Glover III, Past Sovereign Grand Master, joins us on this episode to pull back the curtains on the inner workings of the Sovereign Grand Lodge and share how legislation makes its way through the Legislative Committee and onto the floor for a vote by the Sovereign Grand Lodge as a whole.  Brother George has over thirty years' experience working at the Sovereign Grand Lodge, much...

As a special for the Presidents Day Holiday in the US, we interviewed Dustin McLochlin, PhD of the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums .  Brother Rud is frequently maligned in popular imagination (if he's remembered at all).  Tagged unfairly with nicknames like "His Fraudulency" or "Rutherfraud" by detractors, he has earned a reputation as a self-interes...

What do backpacks for the homeless, a late 70s Chevy Nova, and a "Sausage Grind" have in common?  Earnie Taylor of Chester Lodge #281 in Virginia, that's what!  Brother Earnie joins us to talk about how he's been able to apply his skills of bringing people together for various charitable projects to building Odd Fellowship in the Jurisdiction of Virginia.  One of the current pr...

Inspired by a recent series of emails from a listener, Ainslie and Toby discuss the phenomenon of "kitchen table lodges"—those lodges which don't do any ritual or hold formal meetings.  Instead, they meet informally around a table to do the minimum amount of business.  As more and more people are finding their way to Odd Fellowship, more new members are running into the discourageme...

What happens when a barber in an old river city on the Mississippi finds a bunch of Odd Fellows collectibles?  He starts a lodge, of course!  That was the genesis of the newly-rechartered Gem City #357 in Quincy, Illinois.  Members Matthew Roegge and Jacob Bertram joined us to talk about the beginning of their lodge which was chartered in June 2022.  They tell some great stories of learning, camar...

Our annual Christmas episode has become the place where we look back on the year in Oddcasting and this year was certainly delightful.  We brought on a new co-host, Mike Duminiak, and continued our tradition of making meaningful and relevant episodes for our Odd Fellow brothers and sisters.  This particular episode includes a greeting from Brother Torbjörn in Sweden, a Hanukkah message from Brothe...

Despite recent growth, Odd Fellowship is still predominantly full of retirees.  While they present a wealth of knowledge and experience, they can also be resistant to change and adaptation.  That can become even more of a challenge when young leaders emerge and try to work with entrenched members.  In this episode we talk to PGM Buddy Goetsch of Colorado and DGM Erik Fearing of Massachusetts.  Wit...

With the Thanksgiving holiday here in the US, we thought it would be an excellent time to talk turkey about one of the great New Year's Day traditions—The Tournament of Roses in Pasadena, California.  The celebration includes the famous college football game The Rose Bowl and the accompanying Rose Parade.  Brother Mel Astrahan, PGM of California, joins us to give an exhaustive look at the his...

Our colleagues Billy and Tara from Modern Goat Rider join us to continue the crossover begun on their show.  If you've not heard it yet, you'll want to hit up the URL above and listen to it so you've got some continuity.  The episode rolls on with more comments about marketing Odd Fellowship in unconventional ways, discussion of the impact that podcasting is having on Odd Fellowship...

Just in time for Halloween, we take a look into the death care industry through the eyes of Sister Kait Osman of Emerald Bay Lodge #50 in California.  Sister Kait had a somewhat roundabout way of getting to the funeral world, going through studies of forensic anthropology and other subjects along her way.  Eventually she found herself in California with an interest in helping people as they face t...

Ainslie, Mike, and Toby are all experienced Odd Fellows.  They like to *think* they have a handle on what new members are looking for, but do they really?  To test that theory, they invited Josh Dandurand from Oregon and Randy & Caylee Chorrushi from West Virginia to come on the podcast and offer their insights.  All three are members who have joined within the last six months so their hot tak...

At its beginning, Odd Fellowship was just for men (though some groups of Odd Fellows retain that tradition).  In 2001 the Independent Order opened up membership to women.  Since that time, women have risen to the highest ranks in Odd Fellowship, including our current Sovereign Grand Master.  There are some lodges, however, that still maintain a (mostly) single-gender membership.  Brother Roger Sit...

We've all been there—years of neglect to important lodge business has left a huge mess behind and we've just walked into that void of neglect.  That happened to Brother Jack Crispin Cain of Upper Lake Lodge #241 in California several years ago when he started looking into the lodge finances and discovered that the lodge had lost its non-profit status.  Being a clever and resourceful pers...

On a dark, rainy September evening in Sweden, a young man stood on a curb as a nondescript sedan pulled over to meet him.  The rear door opened and he was beckoned into the car.  Inside were three gentlemen, all in dark suits.  While this sounds like it could be the beginning of a spy thriller novel, it was actually the beginning of the journey into Odd Fellowship for our guest, Brother Torbjörn A...