One for the Glass Cases

I was talking to my students today about Holden's red hunting cap in The Catcher in the Rye and how he gives it to his litter sister Phoebe to somehow protect and preserve her even though she is clearly growing up. That hat, to Holden, is a retreat and a reminder of childhood and he would put it on in vain attempts to be someone he used to be in a world that used to exist; it allows him to act like a child, and it protects him from the wind and cold in what he sees as a cruel world. As the kids were drawing Phoebe, they asked me to draw the hat, and as I was doing so, I remembered for the first time that I used to have a tan cap with ear flaps that I bought specifically for campfires with my friends in the cold, which were quite often. So as the kids were working on their assignments, I found myself thinking of that hat and that time period and getting sentimental and longing for those years during and right after high school. Maybe it was because those memories had been so long stored that the smell was fresh, but they were so vivid and real when they rushed back that I just wanted that hat, and those friends and a campfire. But that is not how it works. But it was nice to remember anyway. See you guys soon.