Text Box: Office of the Secretary 57 East Main Street Chillicothe, Ohio 45601 Text Box: Phone: 740-774-3485 Fax: 740-774-1053 Email: sciotolodge6@horizonview.net Text Box: We are on the web at: www.sciotolodge.com or www.chillicothemasons.org Text Box: U.S. Postage PAID PRSTD STD Chillicothe, OH Permit #47 Text Box: A man was exploring caves by the seashore In one of the caves he found a canvas bag with a bunch of hardened clay balls. It was like someone had rolled clay balls and left them out in the sun to bake. They didn't look like much, but they intrigued the man, so he took the bag out of the cave with him. As he strolled along the beach, he would throw the clay balls one at a time out into the ocean as far as he could. He thought little about it, until he dropped one of the clay balls and it cracked open on a rock. Inside was a beautiful, precious stone! Excited, the man started breaking open the remaining clay balls. Each contained a similar treasure. He found thousands of dollars worth of jewels in the 20 or so clay balls he had left. Then it struck him. He had been on the beach a long time. He had thrown maybe 50 or 60 of the clay balls with their hidden treasure into the ocean waves. Instead of thousands of dollars in treasure, he could have taken home tens of thousands, but he had just thrown it away! It's like that with people. We look at someone, maybe even ourselves, and we see the external clay vessel. It doesn't look like much from the outside. It isn't always beautiful or sparkling, so we discount it. We see that person as less important than someone more beautiful or stylish or well known or wealthy but we have not taken the time to find the treasure hidden inside that person. There is a treasure in each one of us. May we not come to the end of our lives and find out that we have thrown away a fortune in friendships because the gems were hidden in bits of clay. I am so blessed by the gems of friendship I have with each of you. Thank you for looking beyond my clay vessel. Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle. Author Unknown

Clay Balls
Text Box: IDIOTS IN SERVICE: This week, all our office phones went dead and I had to contact the telephone repair people. They promised to be out between 8:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. When I asked if they could give me a smaller time window, the pleasant gentleman asked, "Would you like us to call you before we come?" I replied that I didn't see how he would be able to do that, since our phones weren't working. He also requested that we report future outages by email. Text Box: IDIOTS IN FOOD SERVICE: My daughter went to a local Taco Bell and ordered a taco. She asked the person behind the counter for "minimal lettuce." He said he was sorry, but they only had iceberg.