When someone asked me a couple of years ago if I had any lucky talismans, the first thing that came to mind was my big red Pee Wee Herman Bicycle. It's true: I still ride a vintage Leave it to Beaver style of red boys' bicycle that I bought at a yard sale in 1978 (don't know how old it was at that time, maybe 15 years). When I was at Notre Dame (1984), I encountered one of my wackiest professors as I was riding across campus. He hailed me to a stop so that he could admire my bike and said, "This bike must be your talisman." I've never been sure exactly what he meant by that (for one thing, I always thought that a talisman was something small) but the idea has stuck with me -- and so has the bike! A few years later, also at Notre Dame, I was riding my bike, through the neighborhood near campus, and I encountered another wacky biking professor, who would designate one of his bicycle handles “Life” and the other “Art." This was in the early years of the Walkman, and he was wearing earphones, which he promptly took off and handed to me and said, "Listen." I put the earphones on and, I swear, I could hear nothing. However, as one does in both life and art, I handed them back and said, "Wow, that sounds great!" Knowing full well, I heard nothing . . .
So -- if asked -- for good luck, there's my bike, "an object marked by magic and believed to confer supernatural powers or protection upon its owner" (American Heritage Dictionary). Also my special turquoise earrings and a little pewter Gemini necklace -- both gifts from my older sister on my 19th birthday. The endearing necklace charm resembles not twins so much as it does two parents holding up a baby, an image which continues to hold my attention. As for the earrings, when I was wearing them on a visit to my sister, her granddaughter (8 years old at the time) was drawn to them and kept pushing my hair back to get a closer look. I told her why she was feeling the magic-- because her very own grandmother had picked them out for me twenty - some years before -- very talismanic!
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