To say that my mom was a neat and tidy person would be a
vast understatement.
She was also careful.
Frugal, thrifty, economical.
She made do.
And stored anything that might come in handy . . . later.
There were times that her tidy habits provided me with hours
of pleasurable fun.
Well . . . one habit.
Mom always had a great supply of pins of all types and
styles, many gleaned from clothing purchases.
Any pin found was carefully saved.
If her handy-dandy pincushion wasn’t in the vicinity, she
would poke them into the crack of a window or door frame for later pick-up.
She was also careful with keeping her safety pins.
Those were strung onto a larger pin.
For easy storage and easier access.
Because safety pins could be used for anything!
Any quick repair job was a snap with a safety pin.
So to speak.
But this is where her habit of saving and storing was of
vital importance to me.
Because those little bunches of pins were magical.
Did you know that I’ve flown planes?
Well, I have.
And driven busses and tractors.
Captained boats.
Took the wheel in giant earth-movers.
Piloted spaceships.
Driven trains.
All without ever having to leave my house.
And all due to one of Mom’s collections of safety pins.
Because those bunches of pins looked, to me, like sets of
keys.
And they could start anything my imagination could come up
with.
I would insert the largest one into the imaginary keylock,
turn it with the impressive sound of “taw-aw-aw-aw-vroom!”
And I was away.
Hours of fun.
I could be driving a moon-buggy in the morning.
And be digging into the depths of the earth in a giant
corkscrew machine in the afternoon.
And all because of Mom’s habit of saving old pins.
Thanks, Mom.
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