Bill Chin found this squash with a rather interesting label and shared it on Facebook.   He has granted permission for me to share this with you all.   Many will find the logo on the label rather interesting.   I find the similarity to a former OA logo too great to have happened by chance.    I wonder if executives in the company, or whoever designed the logo, were ever members of the Order of the Arrow.

If we follow the recipe on the label, must we use official BSA cider, nutmeg and eggs?   Would it have been more appropriate for this logo to have been used on a brand of bowling balls, or for a tomato farm?

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Are there any readers here that use sbcglobal.net as their email provider?   If so, please write me at either jpannell@triad.rr.com or jpannell@oaimages.com.

There is someone out there who is probably getting very frustrated thinking I am not answering his emails.  He keeps writing looking for a response.  I have responded several times, now from three different email addresses at three different domains, and he still continues to write looking for a response from me.   The original issue revolved around him giving a bad email address when he subscribed to the members area of the site.   However further emails to the correct address are not getting through.  It would be helpful to know if the issue is one of sbcglobal.net blocking my various addresses or if it is a matter of his not being able to receive emails from me.

If you use this provider, please take a moment to write me and then let me know if you receive my response.   Thanks.

Update (2/11/2011 6am): Thanks to kind readers it appears that mail from me is getting through to sbcglobal.net.   I expected this to be the case.  It would seem this is an issue only with the person who is apparently not receiving replies from me,  and not the provider in general.

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Sparky, A Scout Mug Collector

Mugs and mug collectors are the Rodney Dangerfields of Scout memorabilia collecting.   They get no respect.  Mugs are difficult to transport and display, and costly to ship.  Only a few people collect them.   Others think of them as not much more than clay pigeons.

I found a new mug collector my home one recent night!  I was typing on my computer and heard a plaintive “meow” from my den.   Upon investigation, I found Sparky as you see him in the picture here.   Cats like to climb and he just had to admire some of my mugs up close!

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(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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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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“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.

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Finally I was able to spend some time making a dent in the backlog of images and email I have accumulated.   It’s rough to keep up this site when you have a job that doesn’t allow you to work on personal stuff during work hours!  One email address is down to about 600 emails, the other still has more.

Then disaster hit yesterday evening.   A friend of mine sent me a link to an interesting story on an known European news website.   It appears that site was compromised and my computer was soon infected with some nasty bits of malware.   After working on it for over 24 hours now, the computer is almost clean.

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I’ve  been tinkering a  lot lately both on and with computers.   A lot of it has had nothing to do with this site.   I also recently replaced my failing Blackberry Storm with a Droid 2.   The “gee, whiz!” effect is still in active.  So far, I generally love my Droid.   I’ve been downloading some apps and wondering how some day they could transform our hobby.   Already laptops are becoming common place but this is only the beginning.

The app that really has me dreaming right now is Google Goggles.

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Dirge For Two Veterans

By Walt Whitman

THE last sunbeam
Lightly falls from the finish’d Sabbath,
On the pavement here, and there beyond it is looking,
Down a new-made double grave.

Lo, the moon ascending,
Up from the east the silvery round moon,
Beautiful over the house-tops, ghastly, phantom moon,
Immense and silent moon.

I see a sad procession,
And I hear the sound of coming full-key’d bugles,
All the channels of the city streets they’re flooding,
As with voices and with tears.

I hear the great drums pounding,
And the small drums steady whirring,
And every blow of the great convulsive drums,
Strikes me through and through.

For the son is brought with the father,
(In the foremost ranks of the fierce assault they fell,
Two veterans son and father dropt together,
And the double grave awaits them.)

Now nearer blow the bugles,
And the drums strike more convulsive,
And the daylight o’er the pavement quite has faded,
And the strong dead-march enwraps me.

In the eastern sky up-buoying,
The sorrowful vast phantom moves illumin’d,
(‘Tis some mother’s large transparent face,
In heaven brighter growing.)

O strong dead-march you please me!
O moon immense with your silvery face you soothe me!
O my soldiers twain! O my veterans passing to burial!
What I have I also give you.

The moon gives you light,
And the bugles and the drums give you music,
And my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans,
My heart gives you love.

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