Imagining Connections?
Posted in Patch Collecting by John E. Pannell on June 8th, 2008 at 5:02 am 
Maybe I have some sort of sixth sense. No, I don’t see dead people. It would seem I have a predilection to see things that aren’t there, making connections that do not exist Sometimes it’s very easy.
Bill Mulrenin recently sent me the image of Suanhacky’s new Executive Board flap. I had commented that the flap design seemed rather similar to a recent Gila lodge issue. See the image at the start of this message. Do you see what I see? I thought the Gila lodge flap may have inspired the design from Suanhacky.
Bill Mulrenin took my question to the lodge chief of Suanhacky lodge. It turns out I was wrong. Bill writes about this on his New York OA Trader blog. Maybe there is a very oblique connection, due to possibility of the same artist at Stadri refining both design, but there is no intentional connection between these two flaps.
There was another flap whose design intrigued me. It’s the first flap, S1, from Wenasa Quenhotan 23. To me the design seemed to be an obvious allusion to something in the ceremonies of a fraternal organization I used to be active in. A fellow brother in that same organization also made the same connection and wrote me about it. Given the connections between Scouting, the Order of the Arrow, and this organization it all made sense.
I had talked to members of this lodge at a couple of NOACs. I had to be vague as they were not members of the same group. They insisted the design was just what it appears to be: a landscape with a stalk of corn growing by a river. I was not convinved and kept seeing other connections. Finally, someone connected with the lodge at the time of its founding was able to convince me I was wrong. Once again, I was seeing something that was not there.
Sometimes things are really just what they seem to be. Similar patch designs just happen. Flaps don’t have hidden meanings. Sometimes a rose is just a rose.
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Actually, the concept of the dollar bill design is not that original. Check out the Southwest Florida Council 2008 Friends of Scouting (FO$) CSP at http://floridacsp.com/fos_2008.htm.
Wagion 6 also has a $6 dollar bill flap that they did for an event.