I have had a sign. Richie is not coming back.
27 years ago, my best friend Julie and I were playing with my grandmother's old jewelry. She had a big blue metal flower pin. Julie wanted to tape it to Richie's hat in one of those huge posters of Jon and Richie that I had hung in my bedroom so we did, never expecting it would actually stick. But it did--for nearly 30 years. All my other Bon Jovi posters have come down and been packed up for years, but that one has been hanging on the back of my closet door for about 15+ years because I always refused to take off the flower pin and pack it away. Today I discovered the flower pin had fallen off.
It's truly the end of the innocence for me.
That poster and that pin on the hat symbolized youth/innocence/fun. I'm actually kind of depressed about this.