For Fact's Sake: Boys to men - the circle of life?

For Fact's Sake: Boys to men – the circle of life?

By Murray Stewart

The For Fact’s Sake columns are – according to Google and The Duck ‘n Fiddle’s archives – based in truth.

Girls don’t do it till they’re older. But boys, from a fairly young age, do. We somehow find it necessary to form little ‘gangs’ and build tree-house dens and secret fortresses and have furtive meetings for ‘members only’.

At these early indabas, we’d discuss serious tactical manoeuvres, like raiding the rival gang’s headquarters and snaffling their skateboards, or how to booby trap their tree-house ladder, and who should steal their gang-leader’s bicycle saddle during lunch break.

These junior school cliques are the seedlings that will flourish within some boys through their adolescence and manhood. This feeling of camaraderie, and the urge to belong is the glue that would bind them into fraternities, fellowships, gangs and societies, like the Round Table, Rotary Club, Masons or Hell’s Angels.

Some of these fellowships are altruistic, but others were formed for their own benefit, their very survival. Many Vietnam war vets were left to fend for themselves, which led to the formation of various support groups. These sometimes became the foundations of motorcycle gangs that offered the security of a brotherhood. To survive, and in fact flourish, they peddled drugs and killed rival gang members who got in their way. Skates and ladders had progressed to bikes and bullets. But on to more cheerful fellowships and fraternities...

Take, for example, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, founded in 1819 in Baltimore. Objective? To “promote personal and social development by helping those in need”. Yummy, nè? They, like the Masons, also have nudge-nudge wink-wink secret passwords, handshakes and rituals, but oddly enough, even people who are not odd can join.

Click on the newspaper below to read more (see page 4).