In Copper We Trusted
đșđžMy first experience with money mustâve been the neighborhood park. Not a piggy bank, not a passbook, and not even first grade. Just me, that curious glint catching the sun, and a warm summer day under the monkey bars. One lone penny, half-sunk in the grass and dirt like it had tried to escape the economy and almost made it. I was maybe five, still young enough to believe the world was fair, bubble gum was a food group, and sidewalk cracks were not to be stepped on if you loved your mother. I picked up the penny, brushed it off and examined it in awe. I had my very own money!
Back then, a lone penny had gravitas. You could march it right up to the corner store and make a proud choice from the bottom shelf treasure trove. Tootsie Rolls the size of your pinky, a wax bottle full of colored mystery juice, or those chalky little candy cigarettes that made us feel all grown up, until we actually tried a real one. You could buy a Bazooka Joe bubblegum, complete with a comic strip so corny it could make your grandpa snort coffee through his nose.
If Aunt Alma had been by for her monthly visit, accompanied by the faint scent of Wind Song, and a roll of Lifesavers in her purse, I might be flush with a nickel or even a whole quarter. There was the real jackpot! You could ride that fortune clear up to the 2nd shelf where the Hershey Bars, Chick-O-Sticks, Rope Licorice, and Milky-Way's resided.
By first grade, pennies werenât just cash, they were curriculum. You learned to count, add, and trade like a tiny little capitalist in Buster Brown's. All us kids learned our math with Mom at the kitchen table and a sack of real coin. We stacked pennies like bricks and laid out nickels like silver stepping stones. Then by sixth grade science, every kid had made a potato battery using a copper penny and a zinc slug. It was magic.
In high school, when cars came with half dozen ashtrays strategically placed around the interior, one of those ashtrays became your official emergency bank account. Every clink of coin into that little chrome tray could mean lunch money, Maybe jukebox change. Or just a gallon or two of gas to limp through the rest of the week. A paying of the piper for burning through your tank of gas cruising the gut with a hot date Friday night. At thirty-one cents a gallon, at least a tankful didnât require an apology, or a co-signer.
Mr. Lincoln was hit hard, along with the rest of us, when inflation roared through the door wearing waffle stompers and bad intentions during the Carter years. By the time I staggered out of college with mathematics on the brain, Emerson in my heart, and lint in my pockets, our poor penny couldnât buy a wad of gum without calling in a few friends. Even the gumball machines had turned their backs in favor of the nickel.
Still, retail wasnât done with olâ Abe. He found a second career helping stores psyop customers. Because .97 cents feels so much cheaper than 1.00, even though you know theyâre just making change more annoying on purpose.
Then in 1982, the government did the penny dirty. Quietly swapped his copper guts for zinc. No letter, no retirement party, not even a free Jell-O cup. Just hollowed him out, dipped him in copper-wash, and kept his face. Now when you drop a post-â82 penny on the counter, it doesnât ring...it plops. Like itâs embarrassed.
Our beloved penny has not let us down, it is we, who have let it down. We've allowed the whole damn system to deflate him into irrelevance. We let them shift the ground under our feet and didnât say a word. You know, it wasn't that long ago, that a dollar was a dayâs pay for a man with a strong back, and a penny had bite. Now it doesn't even cover the tax on a Snicker's Bar.
Goodbye, Mr. Lincoln. America loves you. You were our first real treasure. A symbol of good luck, of bubblegum fortunes, and the great American childhood hustle. You stood tall in our pockets. You taught us to count. You lit up science fairs, fueled our card games, Levelled out the legs of the coffee table, and made a generation of kids feel rich just finding you lying in the grass. You taught us the value of whatâs small, the benefit of thrift and saving, and how to dream modest but mighty.
Now theyâre taking you away. Not because you failed, but because we stopped paying attention. You didn't lose value. We lost our sense of what value is. The penny didnât vanish. We just got too distracted to bend down and pick you up. Too quick to trade substance for swipe cards, phantom dollars, and prices that always round up. But some of us still remember. Some of us still hear that familiar copper ping echoing off the monkey bars, kitchen floor, ash trays, and that special jingle in a jeans pocket.
My first coin.
You will be sorely missed.
And truth be told, Iâd rather find a real copper penny in the grass than trust a Cheshire cat-looking banker with an imaginary Bitcoin to sell me!
Have a great Memorial weekend and remember those who gave their last measure, so that we could live our lives in freedom.
-SourdoughSam đșđžđđșđž
AZcharlie
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