Letter: On aging and pennies under radiators

I’m old enough to remember pennies - To value pennies
Penny candy, penny for your thoughts, a penny saved is
Pennies from heaven.
I’m old enough to remember heaven. To value heaven.
Heaven can wait, my blue heaven. Heavens to Betsy.
I am not old enough to remember Betsy. But I still value Betsy Betsy sewed the flag, Betsy was a hurricane, none called Elizabeth Betsy Betsy to her face.
I am old enough to remember faces. To value faces. Faces from ago, faces with warm spasms, collected over decades faces
Faces some are haunting.
I am old enough to know what a radiator is. To know what it does and how.
I am old enough o remember trolleys on rails in city center, electrified above like a rock star;
To remember ice boxes. Chips picked to treat fever, a man with tongs; To remember route sales:
Bread, produce, ice and eggs; “Warmelon, warmelon,” music.
All these memories, these mental pennies, bright with continued use or  dull toward forgetfulness.
All sit below my mental radiator - gathering dust bunnies until gathered up by some obsessive housecleaner I don’t know.
My greatest weakness was not the waste of time but rather the too frequent display of my collection.
Silence is golden and has left me a poor man of my own creation.
“The only thing worse than growing old is not growing old,” he said.
The aches and pains, the gradual dysfunction are trophies won, and truly earned. Parts refuse where enthusiasm once played.
Garments fray and fall apart but trigger memories as I wash the car.
When it is clear that there is nothing new under the sun the middling mind reverts to when all was new;
Thus childhood has its second regency, and love its second authority.
I am old enough to remember there’s a penny under the radiator.

George Richardson
Millsboro