Dressed Alike by Margaret Duda (ONE GOOD MEMORY Series)

Dressed Alike
by Margaret Duda

Gloria resembled me with dark hair,
softly curled on a wig of mohair,
realistic dark glass eyes that blinked,
and a composition head and limbs
made of sawdust, glue and cornstarch
attached to a soft, stuffed cloth torso.

Mama decided we would surprise
Papa for his birthday and sewed
matching dresses of dark gold satin
for Gloria and me on her treadle machine.
Each dress had a wide gathered collar
and puffy short sleeves and we wore
matching patent leather shoes. Mama
called them our go to meeting outfits.

Excitement started as soon as we took
our padded seats on the train
and others passed us in the aisle.
Women stopped to stare at us
and all took time to comment.

Oh, look, she is dressed like her doll.
I love the matching dresses.
You are a very lucky little girl
to have such a clever Mama.
You and your doll are so pretty.

Matching. Lucky. Clever.
I soaked up the new words,
asking Mama the meaning of each,
as I slowly learned more English
every weekend on the hissing train,
bucking us forward on rapid stops.

When we arrived, Papa was waiting
on the platform. The door opened,
and Gloria and I ran into his arms.
“You both look beautiful,” Papa said.
“I have a clever Mama,” I told him,
showing off new linguistic skills
“Yes, you do, Mancika,” Papa agreed,
smiling at Mama with appreciation.

PHOTO: The author with her beloved doll and traveling companion, Gloria.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: In 1946, when we lived in Watertown, New York, my father took a better job in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Since I was in kindergarten, my mother said we could join him when I finished the school year. My father took the train to see us every other weekend and on alternate weekends, we took the train to Bridgeport. Since my parents immigrated from Hungary in the 1920s, we spoke Hungarian at home as we lived near Hungarian friends and relatives. My mother taught me English six months before I started school, and by the second half of the year, I spoke and read it well for a five-year-old, but learned new words every other week on the train. I always took Gloria, my favorite doll, with me, and my mother made us matching dresses to surprise my father on his birthday and gave him a photo of me in the dress. Seventy-five years later, I found Gloria tucked away safely in one of my closets. Her curls were gone from all the brushing and small cracks could be seen on her composition face and limbs, but she still wore the go-to-meeting dress and reminded me of the English words I’d learned on the train. I learned to love traveling on those trips and traveled to more than 40 countries as a travel photographer and studied six languages later in life. I had to smile when the American Girl doll with matching clothes for a little girl came out and bought a doll and a matching dress for the four granddaughters I had then.

AUTHOR’S PHOTO CAPTION: This is a photo of me and four of my six granddaughters (two were yet to be born) with the American Girl dolls I bought, as I remembered how much I’d loved the matching dresses my mother had made. To show how long ago this photo was taken, the granddaughter to my left just graduated from law school and the one on the right is in her second year of dental school, the one on the lower left is doing an MFA in creative writing at Columbia, and the one on the lower right is studying cognitive science in college.  How time does fly!

AUTHOR’S PHOTO CAPTION: This is the “go to meeting dress” that my mother made. She gave my father this photo of me — I was then known as Mancika — to keep while he was working in Connecticut. I don’t have a photo of myself and Gloria in the matching dresses.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: As a poet, Margaret Duda has had numerous poems published during the past year in Silver Birch Press, THE  POET (UK) anthology entitled Friends and Friendships (Vol. 1), the anthology Around the World: Landscapes and Cityscapes, A Love Letter (or Poem) to... anthology, several poems on Connections and Creativity in Challenging Times, and three poems in Viral Imaginations: Covid-19. As a short story writer, she has had her work published in The Kansas Quarterly, the University Review, the Michigan Quarterly Review, the South Carolina Review, Fine Arts Discovery, Crosscurrents, Venture, Green River Review, and other journals. One of her short stories made the Distinctive List of Best American Short Stories. She has written five books of nonfiction, the latest are Four Centuries of Silver and Traditional Chinese Toggles: Counterweights and Charms. Listed in Who’s Who of Emerging Writers 2021, she is currently working on the final draft of an immigrant family saga novel set in a steel mill town from 1910 to 1920.

Threads by Linda Jackson Collins (THOUGHTS ABOUT THE EARTH Series)

Threads
by Linda Jackson Collins

On the way to my mailbox, I glimpse
my neighbor heading toward his.
He’s shoeless and shirtless, sunshine
beaming off his pale, silver-haired chest and
wrinkled, white shorts – real shorts, not
boxers, thank God. There’s no reason
he shouldn’t be undressed like this
in his own driveway but still I’m shocked,
having only ever seen him wearing
super-person clothes such as surgical scrubs
or full-dress blues. It’s only now I realize
how I’d taken comfort in his sturdy,
next-door competence, presuming
that a man who sews people up,
who “sustained forward presence,”
could save everyone around.
That’s a lot to put on a guy, I know,
and now I’m feeling queasy like I do
when I consider all those Suits seated
in Glasgow, quibbling over words
and degrees and dollars and gasses,
when what I want to know is: who’s
going to make sure no more polar bears
float adrift on iceberg chunks? Who will splice
live coral fragments onto dying reefs?
It won’t be Boris or John or Ursula or
Felix in their tailored jackets and
button-down shirts. Maybe Greta,
if only they’d put her in charge.
But she, slight of build, long of braid,
in her t-shirt and jeans,
isn’t dressed to kill.
*****
REFERENCES: Boris Johnson (UK Prime Minister), John Kerry (US Climate Envoy), Ursula von der Leyen (EU Commission President), Felix Tshisekedi (Congolese President), Greta Thunberg (Environmental Activist, Sweden).

PAINTING: High Society (Le Beau Monde) by René Magritte (1962).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Recently, I have been enjoying poems in which quotidian scenes blossom into serious themes. I wanted to try that technique myself using a conversational style while, I hope, capturing the vulnerability many of us feel at what seems like slow or no international progress fending off environmental crises.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Linda Jackson Collins has been writing and editing in the Sacramento community for over 10 years. She is a five-time editor of the Sacramento Poetry Center’s journal, Tule Review, and participates in various writing groups and workshops. Her collection, Painting Trees, published by Random Lane Press, won the Gold Medal in poetry from Northern California Publishers and Authors (NCPA) in its 2019 contest. In addition, she has had individual poems published in numerous literary journals, including Silver Birch Press. Visit her at ljcreviews.com.

Sweater Logic by Darrell Petska (HOW TO HEAL THE EARTH Series)

Sweater Logic
by Darrell Petska

They’re ratty, baggy, frayed,
threadbare at the elbows,
pilled and past their prime,

so I rest them each summer:
the tweed, the wools,
the Redford-esque turtleneck and fleece.

But at the chills of spring and fall
and winter’s icy incursions,
I raise an urgent call to arms,

waylaying cold before it strikes,
thus keeping the thermostat’s needle
in the climate-saving range.

My family groan and sigh,
blaming my sweater tastes on old age,
but dowdy doesn’t mean unserviceable—

they’re a boon to gas and electric bills,
and Earth’s environment catches a break
each moment my furnace sits idle.

Far better the family see me
donning a cozy cotton or blend
I’ve had since god knows when,

than learn what lies beneath: dingy, antediluvian
long johns—to think even sweaters and such
can have a role in healing our Earth!

PHOTO: Pendleton sweater made famous by Jeff Bridges as the title character in the Coen Brothers’ 1998 film The Big Lebowski. 

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Even our clothing choices have environmental impacts. Small choices, small acts add up like layers of clothing. Not everyone has Greta Thunberg’s podium and energy or David Attenborough’s gravitas regarding all things nature, but every individual can do something—maybe much more than previously imagined—to ensure Earth remains a hospitable home for the generations that succeed us.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Darrell Petska publishes fiction, poetry and nonfiction. View his work in Buddhist Poetry Review, Nixes Mate Review, Boston Literary Magazine, Verse-Virtual, 3rd Wednesday, and elsewhere. Darrell has tallied more than 30 years as an editor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, 41 years as father (nine years a grandfather), and longer still as husband. Visit him at conservancies.wordpress.com.

How to Clean Out Your Closet by Allison B. Kelly (HOW TO Series)

How to Clean Out Your Closet
by Allison B. Kelly

First, empty everything out.
Even (especially) the dust bunnies
scurrying in dark corners behind the dusty heels of those slingbacks
you just had to have.
Gently wipe down all surfaces.
Let her breathe.

Now, try everything on. Leave no item of clothing uninterrogated.
Ask, “What do you represent?”

Choose what to let go:

Slouchy suede boots that slump by mid-afternoon like your posture.
So what if they were expensive?
Give them away.
Give them the opportunity to be someone else’s treasure.

Sweaters with pills clinging like unwanted hitchhikers,
Sweaters with three-quarter length sleeves.
If the temperature demands a sweater, your arms deserve warmth too.

Those heels that pinch? That cocktail party dress?
Anything too tight.
“But if I just lost five pounds…”
No.
Life is too short for constricting relationships.

The shirt you “keep meaning to” iron.
Actually, anything containing the phrase “keep meaning to.”

Let go of the sensible pumps. No one’s life goal is to be sensible.

The dry clean only blouse accidentally thrown in the wash.
Let it go.
Let go of mistakes.

Clothes that symbolize ambition and anxiety
don’t fit you anymore.

Choose what to keep:

That navy blue turtleneck looks good with everything.
Choose wardrobe pieces that play well with others.

Keep the pants, their deep cabernet color rich with capaciousness and imagination.
Keep the black and white loafers whose syncopated footsteps sound like dancing.

And the sweater with whimsical threads hanging carefree who asks, “What’s possible?”

Keep the fringed jean jacket
(even if it’s impractical and you rarely wear it)
because the sound of your swishing sleeves
gives you the confidence of a cowgirl.

Edit your wardrobe the way you edit the narrative of your life.
Find the things that are important to keep.

IMAGE: Coat Hanger II by Jasper Johns (lithograph, 1960).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Writing is one of my creative outlets. For me, the fun is not just telling a story but considering how our stories might be connected. In the beginning, it starts with an idea. Or maybe several scraps of ideas scribbled on sticky notes on my otherwise organized desk. The paper is a place for my rambling, scattered thoughts. They roll around on the page where I can see them. Gradually ideas take shape, growing and developing. I choose my words carefully — pretty ones, sweet ones, feeling the words on my tongue before they touch the page. That one is bitter. This one tastes like childhood. Soon I have lost track of time, giddy with excitement as my thoughts come together like a puzzle, until finally I lock the last piece into place. When I share my writing, I share a part of myself. Maybe something I wrote made you think or laugh out loud. Maybe you learned something new or found we have something in common.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Allison B. Kelly is the author of the memoir-in-essays There’s Spaghetti on My Ceiling: And Other Confessions of a Reformed Perfectionist and blogs at Pretending I’m Retired. She is an elementary school teacher with a master’s degree in education and endorsements in gifted education and ESL. She’s an early riser and list maker who survived raising two teenagers while keeping sane by running, traveling, and cleaning out her closets. Allison lives in Virginia with her family.

PHOTO: The author at Waterman’s Way, a public art installation of oversized boots celebrating the footwear worn by seafood workers in Chesapeake Bay. In the art installation, each sculpture was personalized by a local artist, drawing from themes that reflect the lives of the people who work the water, harvesting crabs, oysters, and fish from the Bay, rivers, and creek. Pictured is Crabber’s Paradise by David Witbeck. The exhibit ran from July 2017-August 2018.

Retail — From the Inside, poem by Joan Leotta (MY FIRST JOB Poetry and Prose Series)

Retail — From the Inside
by Joan Leotta

Shopping was my hobby.
So when at 16, I wanted summer
employment,
retail seemed perfect.
Downtown department stores
were not hiring, so
my Aunt Helen convinced
the owner of her favorite
East Liberty dress shop.
to give me Saturday hours.
I imagined myself
an instant fashion expert,
coolly, enhancing women’s looks
with wise suggestions.
My first Saturday I was
hidden in the stockroom
hanging a new shipment
by size, by color. Hot.
“May I help you?”
I practiced, as I shook out blouses,
skirts, dresses.
Second Saturday saw me selling.
The first woman, slim, young,
asked “blue shirtwaist dress in
size ten, please.”
I plucked it from the rack,
showed her to the dressing room.
In minutes, my first sale!
Ringing it up on the old
register the change came out wrong — twice..
My next fashion seeker
was middle-aged,
a bit chubby. She marched to
the dressing room and told me to
bring her skirts and blouses
in size twelve — my choices!
Proudly, I selected tailored items
she promptly rejected.
“Yooo hoo,” she called, “I want smaller sizes,
and don’t you have anything newer, cuter?
She tossed her discards over the door for
me to turn right-side out and rehang.
At last she opened the dressing room door
to model an A-line skirt and ladybug blouse —
high school clothes!
“Well, how do I look?”
I gulped. Sausage came to mind.
Florid face clashing with floral shirt.
“Wouldn’t you rather . . . ” I began
The owner stepped up.
“It’s a lovely outfit.”
The woman bought the ensemble.
Before Saturday rolled around again,
the owner called my Aunt. “We are not busy
enough to have your niece come in anymore.”
I didn’t really mind.
Shopping was not as much fun
from ” inside.” And,
ever since that job,
I never ask a sales person
to tell me how I look.

AUTHOR’S PHOTO CAPTION: This me a couple of years after the events in the poem. My sense of fashion was not nearly as developed as I then thought it was!

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: What to consider a “first” job? That was hard to decide. Would I consider as “first” a job my job as a clerk in a dress shop in the summer? Or my work shelving records in the college radio station? Or my summer sojourn in the planning department at the University of Pittsburgh between my first and second years of graduate school, a fun internship that gave me experience and a killer recipe for egg roll? I decided to go with chronological order and share with you why I decided not to remain in the retail world.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joan Leotta has been playing with words on page and stage since childhood in Pittsburgh. She is a writer and story performer. Her poetry and essays appear or are forthcoming in Gnarled Oak, the A-3 Review, Hobart Literary Review, Silver Birch, Peacock,Postcard Poems and Prose among others. Her first poetry chapbook, Languid Lusciousness with Lemon, was recently released by Finishing Line Press. She also has written a series of novels, Legacy of Honor, and a set of four picture books, Rosa’s Shell is the latest. A group of her short stories, Simply a Smile is available in paper and on Kindle. You can find more about her work on her blog at joanleotta.wordpress.com, follow her on twitter @beachwriter12 or on Facebook at Joan Leotta, Author and Story Performer.

Miss Humphrey, story by Leslie Sittner (MY FIRST JOB Poetry and Prose Series)

Miss Humphrey
by Leslie Sittner

She was tall, broad, quietly forceful. Mostly intimidating. And, as a 17-year-old, I thought, ancient, uncool, and wore dreadful sensible shoes. Definitely not fashionable. I was a freshman at Cornell in the early1960s in the College of Human Ecology. She was the stern taskmaster of the Textiles and Clothing Department.

But I loved the classes she taught. I learned plenty and performed well.

Junior year she invited me to her home for tea. By myself. Nervous? Absolutely. To my surprise she didn’t seem so very old; she was charming. And funny.

After graduating, moving to New Your City, and beginning my first professional fashion designer job, she invited me to return and lecture on my “design experience” in the Big Apple. She was impressed that I, as a children’s sleepwear designer, had several full page ads in the New York Times featuring my creations. I felt like a successful graduate and creative person!

Apparently the lecture was worthwhile because soon she notified me that she’d be coming to the City to visit me at my job. The company was located in the famous Little Singer (sewing machine!) Building on lower Broadway. It’s a magnificent edifice that enjoys landmark status. Even the elevator was remarkable.

When Miss Humphrey arrived at our fifth floor, she was slightly rattled, slightly disheveled, slightly tongue-tied. It was a Friday, payday, and we hadn’t yet been informed that there’d been an armed robbery in the building. She casually mentioned that the elevator exhibited telltale blood spatter. She matter-of-factly related the lobby-police-elevator experience. Then requested to meet my boss and see my design room. Just like that. And here I thought I was the blasé cool city girl.

Suddenly this tough gracious woman wasn’t ancient or uncool; I cared not a whit that she wasn’t fashionable.

IMAGE: Little Singer Building, 561 Broadway, New York City.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: As hip1960’s students, we weren’t necessarily kind when discussing Miss Humphrey the Spinster. It was only hindsight that made us appreciate all she’d had to offer us. Most of us went on to successful careers in some field or another.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Leslie Sittner has been turning to the written word as a form of self-expression and reflection. Her stories are available in print in The Apple Tree by Third Age Press, and will be featured in Adirondack Life magazine. On-line prose can be seen at 101Words, 50 Word Challenge, 50 Word Stories as well as many selections of prose and poetry at Silver Birch Press. She has finished a memoir about travels with her ex-husband and hopes a publisher will find it as humorous as she and her writer-friends do.

Taking stock (Perth Amboy, NJ, 1962), poem by Carolyn Martin (MY FIRST JOB Poetry and Prose Series)

Taking stock
(Perth Amboy, NJ, 1962)
by Carolyn Martin

A feel for finery? I mastered it at seventeen
in Stein’s Boutique unwrapping taffeta, silk shantung
and lacy overlays, racking them along the aisles
where salesgirls worked their pitch
and matrons needed hours of pampering.

Mrs. Sixteen-Plus? Curvaceous in the satin twill.
Mrs. Husband-Cheats? Blossoms in the floral print.
Mrs. Mousy-Hair? Floats in beige chiffon
to cocktails at the Rotary, dances at the Elks.

Conspiracy of words or well-placed compliments?
I wasn’t sure. When Mr. Stein, master
of the fashion scene, perused from top
to toe and grinned, Exquisite taste!
Perfect style! blushing faces beamed.

But what’s true? I asked myself — scavenging
through dressing rooms for lipstick stains,
armpit smells, seams that stretched.

I’d gather up the garments left behind —
assuring them some day they’d host a swank event —
while salesgirls rang up hard-wrought sales
and Mrs. So-and-So strutted out
the dress shop door indulged, convinced.

SOURCE: Previously published in Star 82 Review.

AUTHOR’S PHOTO CAPTION: The stock girl gets ready to graduate from St. Mary’s High School, Perth Amboy, New Jersey, in 1963. She hasn’t written one line of poetry yet.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: As a shy teenager, I worked for two years as a stock girl in a women’s dress shop — Friday nights and Saturdays at $1.00 an hour. The saleswomen were much older and well-versed in the art of fashion and flattery.  Sometimes I felt they talked women into buying dresses that weren’t quite that smart or appropriate — or, at least, that was how my untrained eye interpreted it. In any event, they were very kind and even allowed me to handle a customer or two.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: From English teacher to management trainer to retiree, Carolyn Martin has journeyed from New Jersey to Oregon to discover Douglas firs, months of rain, and perfect summers. Her poems and book reviews have appeared in publications throughout North America and the UK, and her third poetry collection, Thin Places, is slated for release by Aldrich Press in Fall 2017.

Loehmann’s, My Mother’s Favorite Store, Becomes My First Employer, poem by Phyllis Klein (MY FIRST JOB Poetry and Prose Series)

Loehmann’s, My Mother’s Favorite Store, Becomes My First Employer
by Phyllis Klein

I was the one who took the fallen dresses, the designer pants
and shirts hanging or lying in clumps on the benches inside

the large dressing room, took them back out to the racks so
another woman could try them. I was the one who cleaned

up the racks, rearranged the sizes where they should go.
It was a comfort to be amongst all those beautiful silks,

rayons, plaids, stripes. Trying to make some sense out of
childhood, to wear the questions I hoped clothes could answer.

PHOTO: Shoppers in 1988 look through the long racks of designer sportswear and casual dresses in Loehmann’s main room during the chain’s annual fall fashion preview (Houston Chronicle).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: This prompt brought back memories of something I hadn’t thought much about in such a long time. I have a life-long love of clothes and dressing up that goes back to the times I spent in that store, long before I worked there. I can remember so clearly the large dressing room, and the camaraderie of women trying things on, brought together to find luxury bargains. I thought Loehmann’s had gone out of business but discovered it is still there, online. Not the same, but glad it’s still around.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Phyllis Klein believes in poetry. Her work has appeared in the Pharos of Alpha Omega Medical Society Journal,  Qarrtsiluni online literary magazine, Silver Birch Press, New Verse News, Crosswinds Poetry Journal, Chiron Review, The American Journal of Nursing, and  Dovetails, an International Journal of the Arts. She is very interested in the conversation between poets and readers of poetry. She sees artistic dialogue as an intimate relationship-building process that fosters healing on many levels. She lives and works in the San Francisco Bay area as a psychotherapist and poetry therapist. Learn more at phyllisklein.com.

My Cowboy Hat, poem by Gary Campanella (LOST AND FOUND Poetry and Prose Series)

My Cowboy Hat
by Gary Campanella

I had this hat.
It was my favorite hat,
a leather cowboy hat,
handmade in Mexico.
I bought it from a migrant worker
I worked with one summer
in a Wisconsin canning factory.
This was many years ago.

It was roughly but sturdily sown
with thick leather lace
and a braided hat band
was held together with a tin clasp
and, when I bought it,
it had a wide flat brim.

I oiled it religiously, once a week,
and I wore it around the room I rented
to give it fit and shape.
By the end of the summer
it was soft and curled at the sides
and waterproof,
and it fit me, and no one else.

2.

It was my outlaw hat.
I couldn’t wear it in public
without looking silly or unbalanced,
but I wore it in the hills,
and I wore it on the frequent
road trips I took those years,
and, more commonly, I wore it
camping on the bluff
that overlooked that Wisconsin town.

I went to that bluff
when I needed space,
or a fire,
or a sunset,
and once, as I watched the cornfields
and church spires fade into silhouette,
a doe stepped lightly up behind me
and nosed the hat
down over my eyes.

(I wonder now if it was the same doe
I hit with my car,
And had to kill, a year or two later).

3.

Another time in Montana
I camped with a friend’s girlfriend
on the shores of Lake Elizabeth
a week after a Christian hiker
had been killed there,
eaten by a grizzly bear.
Though the bear had been killed
(and maybe eaten) a day later,
the local newspaper interviewed us
for our supposed fearlessness.

She and I made love that night
(our only fearless act)
and in the morning, while climbing
high in the rocks of Going-to-the-Sun Mountain,
she found an eagle feather
and stuck it in my hat band.
She and I never told anyone
we made love, and we never
made love again.
Today she’s a born-again Christian
somewhere in the Arizona desert,
far away from grizzly bears.

4.

I also kept two seagull feathers
in the hat band.
These I found in a ten-day storm
on the shore of Lake Superior.
I was trapped
in a broken-down, mouse infested
Quonset hut. I uprighted a rusted
potbelly stove and improvised
a chimney for a fire. I chopped
wood til the hatchet broke,
then cut wood til the saw broke,
then snatched driftwood from the waves
and dried it alongside the stove
before burning it. After five days
I was low on food and lived
on flour biscuits, whiskey
and some blueberries
I braved the storm to pick.

On the ninth day the weather cleared
enough to walk along the lakeshore.
There I found the feathers – and I thought
how those gulls had made their way,
over the hills and over the years,
all the way
from the Atlantic –
like me –
to this westernmost Great Lake.

5.

Sometime later
I was on the West Coast,
walking it. The hat
was my only luxury.
It earned its keep
in the Mojave Desert sun.

There were three of us,
and we were three weeks across the desert
when we stumbled into a frontier town,
at the foot of the Sierra Nevada.

We were hot and dry and wearing out.
We were low on food, out of money,
with three more days to walk.
The Sierra loomed over us
like a jail sentence.
I found a box of supplies
left by others
in the corner of the post office.
The idea was You take something,
you leave something,
so I took a bag of rice,
a bag of dried apples,
and some instant coffee.
It was enough for three days.
It was all we would need.

In return I left my hat.

Reaching the door
I looked back and saw
dusty rays of sun glancing
off its worn, oiled skin.
It was shining.
I turned and walked
into the harsh white light.

I search for it now and again.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I write most days, and most days I work on making my memoir or my novel better, more ready for publication. This creative process, like most creative endeavors, like much of the traveling I have done over the years, takes many twists and turns. While working last year on a section about hiking in the Mojave Desert I came across an old journal passage where I said goodbye to the cowboy hat described in the poem. I put down my pen, backed away from my keyboard, and reflected on my history with the hat, both before and after I intentionally lost it. And so I wrote it down, not in prose, which is the business of my memoir, but in rhythm and verse, which is the business of my memory. I hope you enjoy it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Gary Campanella is a Senior Manager and Vice President in Office Services for The Capital Group Companies.  He is a career operations manager and leader, rising most days before 6:00 and working until after 5:00. After that he squeezes in parenting time with his two children, quality time with his wife, and then an hour or two squeezing out a few words. Some of his avocational achievements have included hiking the 2700-mile Pacific Crest Trail, volunteering as a backpacking instructor and wilderness first responder for the Appalachian Mountain Club, and extensive travel throughout the United States (he has slept at least one night in 49 of the 50 states), Europe, and the Middle East. Most recently he has completed two book-length manuscripts, a novel about a murder, and a memoir about traveling. He resides in Los Angeles, California. Samples of his writing can be found at GaryCampanella.com.

AUTHOR’S PHOTO CAPTION: This photo was taken five years ago from the summit of Mt. Whitney, tallest mountain in the lower 48, after losing cowboy hat.

Hat Heaven, poem by Karen Eastlund (LOST AND FOUND Poetry and Prose Series)

Hat Heaven
by Karen Eastlund

The hat shop caught my attention
But I couldn’t stop at the time
We were in mid-tour
In a foreign country
We didn’t speak the language
Nor would we know where to meet at end of day
We had to stay the course
But I was determined to find that shop again
Later, when I voiced my plan
My husband clasped my arm
With both hands, protesting
“No, you’ll get lost…
You don’t know where you’re going…
I don’t want to lose you….”
Sweet, I thought,
But heedless of my quest for
The perfect hat shop

To be fair, I had been disoriented
A few times on our trip
Had turned right instead of left
So I listened to him
But also convinced him
Until finally
I led us straight to the desired shop

And there they were
Beautiful hats
Shapely and neat
Wool for warmth
In many colors
Accessible for trying on
Plenty of mirrors
Ready assistants
Bringing more and more hats
Gently suggesting an appropriate fit
The hat shop of my dreams!

I walked out in a new woolen cloche,
Navy blue with a bow at one ear,
And a confident smile
That only a well-chosen hat can bring

The next day
When several appeared in new hats
We smiled demurely at one another
Sharing an unspoken sentiment
Great hat!

AUTHOR’S PHOTO CAPTION: Me in my hat, taken in January 2017.

NOTES FROM THE AUTHOR: This took place in Cesky Krumlov, a UNESCO town in Czech Republic that we visited while cruising the Danube. The shop mentioned is without a doubt the best hat shop I have ever found.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Karen Eastlund lives in New Jersey. She is retired after teaching preschool and providing children’s programs at her local library. Karen enjoys her grandchildren, travel, music, reading, gardening, and the practice of writing. She posts regularly on various children’s poetry blogs.