Pin For a Day

Madeleine Albright's book, Read My Pins, has gotten me thinking about all my pins and why I don't wear any of them. I mean, if I'm not wearing them and they're just sitting around, that makes a hoarder, doesn't it?

That's not a question I'm willing to answer so I'm taking the easy way out--I'm going to start wearing my pins.


Where did all of this start? How does one woman amass over a hundred different pins? Seriously, I think I could wear a different one to work every day for six months before I had to start over.

 Interestingly, Albright's obsession with pins began with a pin from her parents and reflects her Czechoslovakian background. As for me, I still have my first two pins--amazingly, they've survived the ups and downs of my rather irregular life.

Both came from my aunt and uncle, who lived in Annapolis and provided some stability during some of the more irregular years. I can't positively date either of them but maybe my cousin can. The wooden pin is attached in my mind to a YWCA day camp I attended in Annapolis and I think my cousin was a counselor that year. Did the pin come from the camp? Why do I associate it with the camp? No clue!  (Can you see my name carved into the wooden pin? Believe me, in those days you didn't wander into the local dollar store to find a pin with your child's name on it like you do today!)



The little bird was brought back from a trip to Copenhagen by my uncle. It's a Georg Jensen and is probably the only piece of Jensen silver I'll ever own. But it's nice to have that little piece of love left over from 50 years ago.


Anyway, back to today. This is the Sterling cascading hearts pin that reminded me of Albright's cascading stars pin. The top four hearts are stable and the lower three swing loose from the fourth, giving it a little movement. Well, there would be movement if there wasn't a rather substantial bulk to hold it up at that point, but let's not go there.

Footnote: Yesterday I was talking to my coworkers David and Sandy about the whole pins thing. We all worked together at The Big Corporation before we were made redundant (to give the whole layoff thing a British spin), so we've known each other a long time.

Anyway, I said that I used to wear pins all the time, both in Virginia and once I moved to Atlanta to work for TBC. Sandy said, with her usual directness, "Oh, yeah, back in the day you looked nice every day."

Hmmm, Sandy. What'cha trying to say? Never mind, I get it.