09/10/2026
A few years ago, I stood at the Ground Zero Reflecting Pool in front of a single rose placed into a name cut out of the bronze — a symbol of one person's birthday, marked the only way it still could be.
Sept 11, 2001 and the sacred ground as it stands now, inspired this hat - a reclaimed Resistol wool felt - a part of the The Texas 46 Connection 9-11 hat challenge inspired in part by Darryl Worley’s Have You Forgotten?"
The band and brim: asymmetrical black and gray leather, rough-edged — the rubble, the fall, the day itself. The towers. The Pentagon. A field in Shanksville.
The crown: lined with silver light, clean, calm — the Ground Zero Reflecting Pool as it is today.
Twenty-five stars circle the band, for twenty-five years. A single floral concho marks the band — for the rose, for those lost.
Thank you to Texas 46 Connection for the 9-11 hat challenge, and for giving makers a reason to sit with this day and put something real into our hands.
I will never forget
