The morning is just perfect. The sun is shining. A small breeze is blowing. It is only 77°. It is quiet. I hear only insects and birds. My den is dark as the sun doesn’t hit it until afternoon. The house is cool. The coffee is hot. The dogs are asleep in their usual spots, Henry on my left and Nala on my right. I can hear them breathing, the deep breathing which comes in sleep.

My street is small. There are eight houses. Only two of them have the original owners, mine and the house down the street. In three of the houses, the original owners have passed away. The other houses were sold and the owners moved. Some have been sold twice, but each time, good neighbors moved into those houses.

I have a pin hat. It is a baseball cap covered in pins, so many pins there is no room left on the hat. Most of the pins I bought on my travels. Others were given to me, and I haven’t been to every place. Many of the pins carry memories. I have some from Santa Fe, where we, my mother and sisters and I, went for a short holiday. Two of those are Fiesta 2003 pins, one is a Texas pin and another is from the Alamo. I have a First Night 1989 pin. My mother and I did first night in Reading, the next town over from where she lived. One says I saw Sue at the Field Museum. That is from my trip to Chicago when I was Massachusetts assistant principal of the year. At the museum, a man was chipping Sue’s bones to clean them. Sue is the largest, best preserved T-Rex. From that same trip, I have several McDonald’s pins from McDonald University, where McDonald’s hosted and feted us.

I have favorite pins, the ones with so many memories: Costa Rica from a family trip, the Football Hall of fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame from a trip with friends in Cleveland of all places, a Boston Marathon pin, San Diego Zoo, Colorado and New Hampshire where family and friends live, a PanAm pin, a World Series pin from when the Sox played Colorado, Iceland, Columbia and so many more. Two of the pins I love more than others. One says Dia de los Muertos and on it are two skeletons wearing sombreros and smiling at each other. The other one is Killer Klowns from Outer Space with some of the scariest of the clowns on it.

I have had no occasion to wear my hat. Maybe I just need to make one.

This entry was posted on July 19, 2025 at 11:26 am and is filed under Musings. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.