Occoneechee 104 ZF1?

Occoneechee 104 is a large lodge in North Carolina with an active patch collecting community.  It has been for years.   Most are hones and upright people.    It helps that most of the lodge’s issues are readily available to lodge members for trading in reasonable quantities.  However, in recent years there have been a few collectors who feel a need to have something “special” of their own to trade and are not reluctant to use the lodge name for their own personal gain.

In the last several months a flap, round and CSP have been appearing and hawked as 2010 Jamboree and BSA centennial issues from this lodge and council.   The flap and round are listed on this site and pictured here.   Let me be clear: these items are not official issues of neither Occoneechee council nor lodge.    They are private issues and were traded freely at the National Jamboree.   I do not know, at this time, with certainty who the creator of these items was.

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Popularity: 5% [?]

(Here’s a second one for this Thanksgiving morning.)

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful years and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the Source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

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WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me “to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANKSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:”
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Popularity: 2% [?]

Mystery White Buffalo Patch

Greg Grimes recently sent me this image of a patch that we cannot identify. He says rumor has it it may have been a Yamni Wakpa chapter piece, Occoneechee lodge 104, from the 60′s – 70′s era. A group of us here in North Carolina are skeptical.

Occoneechee lodge has been fortunate in recent decades to have many active patch collectors who have well documented what the lodge has issued and produced. Even though chapter patches tend to be less well documented, it seems unlikely something possibly as recent as the 1970s would have been missed by the local collectors. Also, the white buffalo has been used by several other lodges. In fact this looked familiar to us but we could not place it.
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Popularity: 3% [?]

I don’t know how it works at OA Section Conclaves elsewhere around the country, but here in SR-7B (eastern and central North Carolina), it is customary to have a special Vigil Breakfast, followed by a rededication, early on Saturday morning. For years I have said if I were in charge this would become the Vigil brunch, allowing the Vigil brothers to sleep in, followed by a siesta. I was only partly joking.

In addition to having to get up in the dark and trudge to a breakfast long before others are awake, and often only a few hours after the patch trading has finally wound down, this creates logistical and staffing challenges. The six lodges in our section bring about 1000 brothers to conclave every year. Camp facilities are stretched to their limits. The cook crew already has a challenge in feeding this many people. Having to serve a breakfast for about 200 at 6am (and plenty of hot coffee!), while meeting the expectations that it be something “special”, can quickly become and irksome task.
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Popularity: 3% [?]

David Hultberg reports a new lodge has been formed from the consolidation of Susquehannock XI and Tuckahoe 386. According to him, the new lodge will be known as Sasquesahanough Lodge #11, Home of the Phoenix.

The word “Sasquesahanough” is the 1612 spelling of Susquehanna.

I have no further news yet on when any patches will appear for this new lodge

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“In Flanders Fields”, by John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Popularity: 1% [?]