An Odd Publication

The world is a very strange place and strange things happen in it. One that I didn't expect is that one of my very first publications, a pamphlet I self-published in the days when that meant staplebound photocopies, is back in print.

Between 1992 and 2004 I was deeply involved in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Once the largest fraternal order in North America, Odd Fellowship had dwindled to a tiny fraction of its former size by 1992, and mostly consisted of small groups of retirees meeting in vast brick halls meant for meetings ten and twenty times the size. I was one of a number of younger men who joined one of the Seattle lodges. One of the things that interested me was the symbolism of the Odd Fellow degrees of initiation, and for the benefit of fellow members, I put together a pamphlet called The Emblems of Odd Fellowship and sold it for a little over cost.

Then life happened; I left Seattle, moved to a part of the country where Odd Fellowship had gone extinct decades before, and I got a withdrawal card from my lodge -- that's what you do if you're an Odd Fellow and are traveling to a different state. It's still in my filing cabinet, along with a whole mess of other IOOF certificates -- I went through various offices, including a term as state head of one of the branches of the order. Meanwhile my pamphlet went quietly out of print.

Fast forward to last year. The movement of younger people into Odd Felowship -- it admits women as well as men these days -- has continued, and I was contacted by a brother Odd Fellow who's set up a small publishing house to produce books of interest to Odd Fellows. My pamphlet hadn't quite dropped completely out of memory, it turned out. and a second edition duly followed. If you're interested, copies can be had here; if you'd just like to know more about the Odd Fellows, the order's website is here.