Nearly 50 years ago, when my mother was in high school, every girl had a set of these two pins. When they were “going steady” with a guy, girls wore the whale pin. The duck was reserved to mark availability. Why whale and duck?? Where did they get them? And why does the whale look so… dismal? My mother doesn’t know; please leave me a comment below to inform or speculate.
When I was in high school we either wore a guy’s jacket (for me, this was the Husband’s maroon nylon windbreaker with elastic wrists and aluminum snaps up the front, oooh wee) or their class ring. Guys’ moms hated the latter, I’m sure; after shelling out $300 for a Balfour that said “Craigmont Chiefs” on one side and “Class of ’84” on the other, some fritzy-headed teenage girl leaves it in the school bathroom and it’s gone forever.
I didn’t do that, I swear.
I mean, I did do it, but I remembered and ran back to the restroom (risking a detention slip) and found one of the nice cleaning ladies just then picking it up.
I never told.
PS: Thanks, Alex, for taking the macro photo : )
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