The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks - Donald Harington [121]
“F. & A. M.” was easy: “Free and Accepted Masons.” So was “A.D.” for year of the Lord, and “W.M.” for Worshipful Master. They solved “S.T.M.,” Second Tuesday of the Month, and they even solved “M.O.V.P.E.R.,” Mystic Order Veiled Prophets of the Enchanted Realm, but they were stumped by “T.G.A.O.T.U.” For hours they considered several possibilities: The Goddamn Alliance of Tear-Uppers, The Gentleman’s Association Opposed to Usury, The Greasy As Oil Tonic Unguent, Timid Geese Always Open Their Umbrellas, Tom’s Goat Ate Oliver’s Turnips Up, The Grinning and Ogling Tipplers’ Union—on into the night the steadfast brethren labored, so obsessed with their object that even when they conversed among themselves their sentences could be abbreviated in the same letters. “They got all our thoughts unstrung,” complained one. “To guess abbreviations often takes understandin,” observed another. “Try givin another one to unravel,” another requested.
The following day John Ingledew wrote to headquarters complaining that the abbreviations had come without any explanation, and he, for one, would sure like to know what the hell T.G.A.O.T.U. stood for. The reply was curt and consisted only of the words themselves: The Grand Architect of the Universe. This struck the brethren of the Lodge as an anticlimactic comedown from some of the more fanciful meanings they had imagined; they liked The Grinning and Ogling Tipplers’ Union a lot better. Some of them wished that John had not bothered to find out the meaning, and now that he had, what was the use of it?
What was the Grand Architect of the Universe? What was an “architect”? For the first time in the history of our study of Ozarks architecture, the Stay Morons began to discuss architects. One of the Masons was certain that an architect is an assemblage of musicians. Another was just as convinced that an architect is a place where weapons and ammunition are stored. A third man scoffed at them and said that to architect means to speak clearly and expressively. A fourth thought that architect is a poison. Another was certain that architect was just a fancy word for mathematics. Another who had done well in geography in school explained that the Architect is the name for the region around the north pole; the region around the south pole is the Antarchitect. Willis Ingledew recalled having seen an architect in the giant bird cage at the World’s Fair in St. Louis; he described its colors and plumage and wingspread, but nobody listened because nobody believed Willis anymore.
Once again, John Ingledew went off to Jasper to seek an answer, but the county treasurer thought an architect was just a member of the architocracy, or upper class; the county coroner discreetly explained than an architect is a portion of the rectum that has slipped out of place; the county surveyor was certain that Architect was a town over in Madison County, but he couldn’t find it on the map; the sheriff had the honesty to admit that he didn’t know, although it sounded like it probably came off of a hay baling machine; the county clerk declared that the architect is the place where archives are kept, and he showed John the architect in the courthouse basement; the county judge knew that “arch” was an indication of highest rank, as in arch-duke or archbishop, so an architect was the highest ranking itect, and an itect is a kind of itch mite that causes scabies.
There was only one thing John could do. Reluctant as he was, he returned to Stay More and knocked on the door of his grandfather’s house, where the woman Whom We Cannot Name now lived alone, on Jacob’s legacy, which had easily borne the expense of replacing all the windows shattered by the ruffians and the lynch mob. John knew the woman only as “Grammaw’s friend,” but he had never before spoken to her. It was known that she had been a city woman and was educated, but that alone made her strange and remote to John. Now she came to the door, and