I’d like to say I knew exactly what was going to happen this year, but that’s not why I did it. But last year, I saved the center from my poppy.
I had managed to find one of the new poppies last year. The one with the plastic center. Instead of a piece of black felt and and a bent straight pin, it had a black plastic center with a short pin with a locking clip on the back. It did not fall off. It did not try to stab me. Even the seatbelt in my car failed to rip it from my coat. I really liked it. So I saved the center. Just in case.
To be honest, I still kind of miss the old three colour poppies. The ones that had the black felt and a smaller piece of green felt. I don’t know the full story on all the changes that happened to the poppy over the years. But there have been changes. Years ago, there were those with the two colours in the center. Then for a while, the centers were green. I believe there was symbolism attached to all these, but the overall symbolism is what really counts
But last year I started to notice the ones with the plastic centers, and managed to locate one. For whatever reason, I decided to keep the center, and put it with my small collection of Remembrance Day pins. I got a new poppy this year, but put the old center back into use. Largely for safety reasons.
The other item I sort of miss this year… the selection of various pins. I was building up a nice collection of the pins. In many places where they had actual people selling the poppies, they would also have a selection of different pins available. I have picked up a few over the years. This year, we may not have too many of those around. But I can wait.
While it’s great that the Legion has made sure to get poppies out there for us this year, I do miss some of those little extras. But as I say, I hope to have more years to pick up some of those things.
I got my poppy for this year. Please, pick one up for yourself if you haven’t yet.
