When J.M. Barrie created the fictional character of Captain Hook in 1904, I’m quite sure he never expected him to show up in the crawlspace under my house 122 years later.

Yet, there he was, the captain of the pirate ship, The Jolly Roger, in Barrie’s original play, “Peter Pan or the Boy Who Would not Grow Up.”

I was feeling quite an affinity for that boy as the rusty old pirate’s trunk was pulled from its shelter. Like Peter Pan, I guess I had not grown up that much either, as I was so excited to meet the captain that I imagined him into being, sitting atop the trunk, laughing.

“Got you, didn’t I?” he said, his one uncovered eye glinting next to one with the patch.

Here’s what had happened: A workman, who had been inspecting the underbelly of the place where I have lived most of my adult life, shouted up to me, “Hey, you have to come see this!”

Terrified it might be a dead rodent or a hibernating bear, I stepped cautiously onto the deck and peeked over the railing.

 “Did you know there was a treasure chest under your house?” the workman called out, laughing. He suggested maybe stacks of money were inside.

I was thinking of a dead body. 

“Do you want me to open it?” he asked.

I was wary, but I didn’t want a stranger claiming finder’s keepers in case there was a pile of green stuff inside.

That’s when I imagined Captain Hook into being, winking at me with his good eye from his spot just above the lock.

“Go for it!” I shouted.

And he was still there after the trunk had been forced open, my imaginary friend.

“Nothing here,” Mr. Worker said, looking disappointed. This made more more acutely aware that I was the only one seeing a pirate on top of the oval hooded chest.

“Do you know what this chest was used for?” I asked my new pirate friend.

“Aye,” he replied. “But that’s not important. Now that it has come into your hands, what are you going to do with it?”

Then he evaporated, leaving me with my thoughts.

At that moment, I knew what I would do. I would house my treasures there. This month, on March 4, I began my 17th year of writing Senior Moments.

Mentally, I started stacking my columns, one notebook of clippings for each year, lined up on the lavender bookcase in my office. I added books that contained essays I had written. The poetry magazines I had edited and published, stacks of notebooks with story ideas, poems published, and poems waiting. 

I finished with letters and messages from my readers.

Little missives that reminded me that I am doing exactly what I should be doing, a part of the ongoing conversation of my life. If you have ever sent me a message, thought about, smiled, cried, laughed or were even upset by something I wrote, you are my rewards. You will live in my treasure chest.

And I promise not to hide you under the house.