Posted on 01/05/2019 1:37:16 AM PST by vannrox
PITTSBURGH -- It's just before 7 p.m. on a frigid December night, and already the Allegheny Elks Lodge No. 339 on the city's North Side is filling up quickly -- both the long bar and the tables in the adjacent hall.
There's a woman collecting for a 50-50 raffle. (You may as well give in; she won't take no for an answer.) Elks volunteers young and old are manning the bar and the kitchen, where the special tonight is a gourmet grilled cheese (black forest honey ham, Gouda cheese and bacon).
Upstairs a six-lane sparkling white and red art deco bowling alley straight out of the 1920s is filled with young people from a local league. The floor above that is where lodge meetings are held; it is a beautiful ballroom also straight out of the Roaring '20s.
The beer is cheap and cold. The food is cheap and tasty. Soon the entire building is packed to the rafters, people lining the walls in the hall and the bar. It's as if Frank Capra made a movie in this century.
Tonight is Banjo Night, the weekly event when the Pittsburgh Banjo Club takes to the stage in the 90-year-old building. The event attracts an eclectic mix of college students; suburbanites; pink-haired, inked, multi-pierced artists; and octogenarians all joining in to sing along to tunes like "Daisy, Daisy" and "You are my Sunshine."
There's even a free song sheet, but it carries a stern warning: "Thou shall not take with you."
This is not an Elks event, as the Banjo Club rents the hall every week. Still, its presence at the lodge has helped reignite interest in the civic organization that first came into being just after the Civil War. A group of young actors initially formed a social club to elude New York City's strict Sunday tavern hours of operation. Theatrical shows would end too late for them to grab a drink after a show. CARTOONS | Henry Payne View Cartoon
The Jolly Corks, as they were originally called, evolved into a charitable civic group through tragedy. One of the original members died, leaving his widow and children destitute, and they all chipped in to ease her financial stress. This moment transformed their organization from the social Jolly Corks to the service-oriented Elks.
Memberships in civic organizations such as the Elks or Masons or Rotary Clubs peaked across America after both world wars, and they began falling in the 1960s when Americans began shedding fraternal socialization and front porches for television shows in their living rooms and backyard decks.
Since the late '90s, all of them have rapidly faced near extinction, thanks to the isolating effects of gaming and smartphones, and the anti-social components of social media. These things erase that sense of community, security and civic duty that fraternal organizations can cultivate.
By 2012, the membership at this Elks had hit a low, only 340 members remaining, and most of them were closer in age to 80 than to 70. The community was ebbing in fast-forward, and that social capital was evaporating.
And something else was fading: the tradition of elders sharing stories, sometimes tall tales, passing on their wisdom and experiences to the young people in the community. It's the kind of knowledge and information you can't Google or ask Alexa to find for you, the kind of knowledge that shapes the character of men and women and a community.
Today the membership is nearly double its 2012 low point. Weekly outside events like Banjo Night and the monthly jazz and bluegrass nights bring the crowds. Annual events like the Lenten Fish Fry and the very popular Johnny Cash Night, which always falls on the late crooner's birthday and typically features several Cash cover bands, have raised enough awareness about what Elks actually do that membership has soared.
And the scope of its work, all volunteer, is astounding, from supplementing federal food stamp deficiencies for the local poor, to summer day camps for at-risk kids, to youth drug-awareness programs, to veterans programs, to visiting nurses, to a holiday charity drive.
There was even a luggage charity drive to collect gently used luggage, totes and book bags for foster children transitioning between homes and women transitioning in or out of women's shelters. This provided a bit more dignity than the black trash bag Health and Human Services provides.
They also raised money for the victims of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and for the Tree of Life Synagogue Victims & Families Fund in the aftermath of the mass shooting this fall.
All of these only touch the tip of the iceberg of the philanthropic work this one lodge does, with many of the new members having first walked through the lodge doors on Banjo Night, looking for a place that could become a second home of sorts, a place to connect with people they were somehow missing in their lives.
Too often people think that to make significant change in the world they have to get involved in global issues or lobbying the central government. What they miss is that most things that improve the world begin in a small community civic organization like this Elks -- even something like helping homeless veterans get a free haircut, interview clothing and housing until they get on their feet.
That vet or the kid who gets a scholarship through the Elks will in turn keep alive the notion of service and go on to improve the world in his or her own way.
Ray Link, the young "exalted ruler" of this lodge, says there are a dozen or so new members about to be sworn in to this Elks beginning in 2019. Even the mayor of Pittsburgh, Bill Peduto, has been a member in good standing for a couple of years.
Joining has been something Americans have been doing for centuries. In the past decade, we've sadly replaced our participation in churches and civic organizations with a heavy participation in politics and social media, neither of which really does much for us or our communities.
Interesting......young people are NOT joining these orgs for the most part.
I would be great to see church groups get active again.
At one time or another I have visited Elks, Vets, Legion, fire houses and probably others clubs. My impression of most, if not all, was that they were were dark smoked filled holes for drunks to gather and waste money on ripoff tickets.
3 things that greatly impact private clubs.
Most young people, actually any age, avoid clubs that allow smoking.
DUI laws.
Gambling venues are popping up everywhere. Also, in PA, gambling laws favor State provided games and casinos.
Posted 4 days ago by Kaslin, the reliable informer on all things at Townhall.com.
Never mind just young people; middle-aged people have little use for them as well. We’re taxed to death to give free sh!t to a swelling population of people that won’t do things for themselves, and the last thing I want to do when not working to pay for that is hear about more people who need my time and/or money.
Demographics play a big role here as well; the foreigners we’ve imported to replace lost generations of white babies don’t tend to be makers or givers; they are here to take. The white working class was the backbone of these groups, and it is rapidly disappearing due to attrition. Just as widening swathes of this country have no taxpayers left, they also have no volunteers either (for the same reasons).
We are living the Civic life. Our Civic is 20 years old, runs like a top and with a new paint job, sparkles on the lot.
My town has plenty of old Protestant and Catholic churches that are either without a congregation (they rent out the space to newer non-denominational congregations) or they simply burn up their money until they close.
A neighboring town has an old Dutch church that pre-dates the American Revolution; the congregation died off and it was sold to a Hispanic evangelical group. Years ago a storm broke the cross off the steeple, and they’ve had fundraising signs for it ever since (and it isn’t fixed). These “replacement Americans” aren’t here to contribute; they are here to take. When those Hispanic children line up for “free” school supplies every September or “free” Christmas presents every December, I see old white women handing them out - pictures worth a thousand words. True “charity” is a “white thing”...
It isn’t the “trend” (in majority movement, anyhow).
Some people who infilitrate these organizations want to eventually get control of the (now valuable) properties.
And there are preservationists who want them to remain.
But there was a great falling away from church memberships and church attendence which was a component of such charitable organizations.
It started at the beginning of Obama's terms. Coincidence?
“Most young people, actually any age, avoid clubs that allow smoking.”
I’ve never seen that. The ‘young people’ are there in huge numbers, when they aren’t stepping out to smoke a joint.
Speaking as an Elk, our membership is healthy and growing. We are now non-smoking (except for a designated outside area) and members ages go from 30’s to 90’s.
“We are now non-smoking (except for a designated outside area) “
—
Just curious——did you kick them out if they move outside of the designated outdoor non-smoking area?
.
Up until about ten years ago our little community would have a monthly dance with volunteer live music. Folks would come from a hundred or more miles away to come get together and catch up. People just can’t afford the time to do this anymore. They are all too busy trying to get by.
Is that because they are trying to put food on the table while maintaining a house that is forty years old and keeping two ten year old cars on the road?
Or, are they paying for a McMansion while keeping up the payments on two leased BMWs and making health club membership and country club dues, while trying to pay off last winter’s trip to Bermuda that was put on a maxed out Visa card.
Many Americans are trying to get by because they have no concept of financial planning, an idea of what saving is, the inability to distinguish between wants and needs.
People ought to be paying off debt and providing for childrens education needs before digging their holes deeper, especially in a full employment economy.
Shalom Aleichem
As a practical minimalist I absolutely agree. These are all down home country folk who were forced to get a second job and cut back on expenses when the economy tanked just to get by and keep food on the table let alone fill their gas tanks at the price fuel was at the time and for quite awhile. The O-man really did a number on these folks who lived rural.
But I’m with you, There is a huge difference in perception and rationality about what makes one “comfortable”. No one lives within their means anymore and this has bolstered the living on credit and consumerism issues that now cost us all because of it. “Extravagant” is accepted by society as the new “practical”.
We are now at least two generations removed from reality and the true definition of practicality. We have ignorantly fallen for the consumerism illusion and sales pitch hook line and sinker.
Townhall version posted here
https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3716647/posts
Examiner here:
https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3716580/posts
for those interested in earlier comments.
Third times’ a charm?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3716647/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3716580/posts
Long running issue. This book is almost 20 years old now.
Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community is a 2000 nonfiction book by Robert D. Putnam. It was developed from his 1995 essay entitled “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital”. Putnam surveys the decline of social capital in the United States since 1950. He has described the reduction in all the forms of in-person social intercourse upon which Americans used to found, educate, and enrich the fabric of their social lives. He argues that this undermines the active civil engagement, which a strong democracy requires from its citizens.
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