To You Josie and our promise:
I’m officially old in calendar years, but I feel in my prime, somewhere in my beginning forties where I had a sufficient background on which to stand firm and build more height in my thinking.
This is the front of my jacket and at the end of this quagmire, is a photo of the back of my jacket. Why am I talking about birthdays, being old, feeling quit positive about building thinking for the future? Why make such a big deal over the jacket front and back? The answer is quit simple. When you have writers block you take a desperate leap. I promised my lifelong friend I would do some writing by Sunday or else. Or else what? I would break my promise. I never make promises because I refuse to break them. I am oh so very careful not to make even myself a promise. How would anyone know I broke a promise to myself? Me, I would know.
The jacket you see before you holds bits and pieces of my life. Remember, it’s my birthday and I get the top billing. One gold and white porcelain pin has my first initial painted on it in 24K gold. What a big deal when I was presented with this pin.
It was my tenth birthday and I was having a party in our backyard with all of my friends. One little beige box stood out from all of the rest. The card said, Happy Birthday to my best friend. Signed, Guess Who? Dear Best Friend, I wrote many times in my head to thank you, but, who are you?
The two teddy bear gold scatter pins belonged to my mother. I lost time for a time after they became mine and drove myself nuts trying to find them. Whew. There they are forever! Perhaps.
The cow pins remind me of my cow collection. The cows in my collection are mostly cow creamers. You fill the cavity with cream and hold the cow by its tail, tip and pour the cream into coffee or tea. The big earthquake in ’94 wiped out my collection and now I have only a few unbroken ones to remind me of my now non-existent cow creamers collection.
I notice that several of the pins I fashioned myself. I pinned them on the jacket for safekeeping. I have made a few more and must find them in drawers about and pin them on the jacket. I really did think I was finished with Jacket pinning and collecting. But as I now see it, not yet!
I remember being pinned in College. It was a marvelous catch to have someone’s pin on your shirt, blouse, sweater, apron, or on your evening gown. I nick named it a badge of courage, which to me it did so indicate, and it certainly gave you the security that someone cared for you. His pin announced that there was no doubt about it! She’s mine!
There is a pin that says: Good Morning Class. I Love You! This pin is very important because I always loved my classes, and each year brought new challenges. Whatever came into my doors, I began to love. Individually some were harder to love, but as the days rolled by and the class began to formulate, I loved them all and I love them still.
There is a panda bear pin from China and a lady pin from France. I have travel pins from many places, but I have them on a vest. We were on a rather intriguing cruise with many and varied stops. I started with an empty vest, wore it to dinner, and asked our dinner partners to remember the emptiness of the vest. On the last evening of our voyage, I wore the vest full of pins I collected at every stop. There was quite a bit of excitement at the presentation. I’ll find it and tack it on to the end of this post. I do not promise, but I will…
I hope to be adding more pins on both back and front of jacket, plus the arms. I will also add to the travel pins.
If you ask, I will continue to post the progress on the jackets
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