Remembrance Poppies? Forget It!

My officemate, who is half Canadian and has spent time in Canada, is even more into World War I than I am. She collects vintage posters and other WWI memorabilia. The two of us decided that, since the hospital we work at is adjacent to a VA Hospital, we would go buy some poppies to commmemorate the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. And if you could find Remembrance Poppies anywhere, you'd think it would be a Veterans' Affairs Hospital, right?

We went to the VA Hospital on our coffee break, full of optimism and soon full of coffee as well. (There are many coffee shops all over the hospital complex, but our favorite is the one in the VA Hospital, Etes-Vous Pretes Coffee.) Off we went to the gift shop, which sold toothbrushes (teethbrushes?) but no poppies. The gift shop suggested we go to the front lobby.

In the front lobby we saw yet more coffee and an information desk, behind which were several gentlemen, one wearing a Remembrance Poppy. When we asked where he had gotten it, he said a town halfway to the next state over! Not the answer we had been looking for. He suggested we go up to Volunteer Services, so off we went.

When we walked into Volunteer Services, the people in there (who all looked like vintage WWII era) looked up in surprise and asked what we wanted. When we said poppies, we wondered if they thought we were looking for drugs or something. (In my childhood we had next door neighbors who actually cut the buds off our ornamental poppies because they thought they were opium poppies. Surprise! They never made that mistake again.) Volunteer Services stared at us like we had three heads, until we started to wonder ourselves. Finally one of them said Remembrance Poppies are only sold on Memorial Day, not Veterans' Day. So back to our office we went.

Our solution to this deplorable lack of poppies was this: we found a picture on the Internet (see above), printed it on a color printer with the poem "In Flanders Field" below it, and hung it up prominently in our office. I don't want to hear anyone saying how the younger generation doesn't care about the sacrifices made by our elders! When two Gen Xer's try to find poppies and can't do it, how would you expect anyone younger to remember what they have never been told? My officemate says they had to memorize "In Flanders Field" in Canada, and I remember poppies being sold when I was a child, but have we all forgotten? What a terrible thing to do, when even now young men and women are being sacrificed in this deplorable war (not to mention all the Iraqi civilians!). Let us never forget what any of them have done for us.

Famous Hat