Bottle Caps

Twenty years ago, every bottle cap we saw in the street is like finding a dollar bill in the floor. Before, there's no Ipad, xbox, android or touch screen phone. We play marbles, elastic bands of different colors, chinese garter (elastic) flip-flop games, bottle caps and more that we do not have to spend hundreds of dollars just to enjoy and have fun with friends, although marbles and elastic bands cost us a little over a penny.

On November, me and my friends start collecting bottle caps. On those times a lot of kids like me also gather bottle caps, picking them on the street, in the store or in our school canteen. We used it to make a tambourine or instrument for carolings on coming December. We flattened the bottle caps and make a hole in the middle, insert it to the metal string and we got music. We sing Christmas carols in every house every night. We are not scared of crimes before nor child abduction for that never happen in my good ol' days, two decades ago. Our group, 5 or more of my friends use our hand made instruments out of bottle caps. Some houses especially our neighbors give us a penny or more and some do not. But At the end of the night we go home with money in our pocket. Sometimes, we plan on having a Christmas party and we just save what we made every night till the eve of Christmas. All the money we save we would buy it with food and presents (we mostly wrapped candies) for smaller kids and we have a little party and games in our playground.

And we had the best Christmas ever.

Twenty years after, things change. Technology arrive and everywhere you see is just about Ipad, touch screen, skype, facebook and connecting everywhere in the world thru all the hi tech gadgets. But there is one thing I know that will never change from me is when seeing these bottle caps I pop every day behind my bar in Ameristar Casino, is the feeling I had twenty years ago, the excitement, the happiness the laugh banging these flattened bottle caps to make a music while we sing Christmas Carols in our neighborhood.