Mudpuppie, were you gone? If not, you've been way too quiet.

Yep, was gone. Am back, and catching up. Also, hungry.

Yay, pup.
that website was too painful to look at.

The Clampers used to march in the 4th of July parade in my hometown back in the 70's (might still do so, for all I know) - fifteen or twenty guys dressed in red and black, five abreast, firing shotgun blanks into the air in unison. It made a big impression on us kids, I can tell you.

I seem to recall my father being asked to join. I'm not sure why he declined, as booze and weaponry run in our family. I'll ask him next time I talk to him.

Yay mupduppie's back!

That goes without saying.

Interesting mudpuppie. There's a meeting just 90 minutes away from me in Salida. I should check it out for investigative purposes.

And there was actually a branch here in Georgia? How cool is this? Like a 19th century version of the Church of the SubGenius, it seems.

"I'm oilin' up my whoozits!"

boring: oddly, there were plenty of almost-as-insane social clubs everywhere in the 19th century. It was a huge fad, or at least something that made highly mobile and industrial-revo upwardly-mobile people feel more successful. The handful of them that survive -- like the Elks, the Oddfellows, and so on -- barely scratch the surface of the choices available to a working or business man of the Victorian era. In a typical Midwestern town, perhaps half or more of the adult males would belong to (usually) one of these organizations.