Catherine Nieves

Massapequa, NY

I nominate the ubiquitous bottle cap: soda or beer, but NOT POP.

My mother was born in 1921 in the Bronx. As a child she and the neighborhood kids flattened them in the grooves of the trolley tracks under the weight of the moving trolley cars, or they filled them with wax or tar in both cases to make playing pieces for games that are mysterious to me such as "skelzies" or others I have to admit knowing like "pitching". Later in the 1960's she crocheted tiny colorful slipcovers encasing and then sewing them together to make artistic hot pot mats. In the more innocent days of Sesame Street when Bert still lived with Ernie, Bert collected them to Ernies total disinterest. Today because they are not recyclable along with the bottles from whence they come, my daughter's school collects them for art projects. Indeed, there is a whole new genre of recycled bottle cap craft-ing available for your browsing pleasure on the internet. Ignoble but omnipresent, I nominate the bottle cap. But in New York City don't dare refer to them with the adjective "pop."