Find A Penny, Pick It Up

"Find a penny, pick it up. Then all day you'll have good luck" is how the saying goes, I think. We seem to find an inordinate number of pennies when we are out on our daily walks. On the face of our money, including the penny, reads IN GOD WE TRUST. When I pick up a penny we find, I like to think about that and know that I can, and do, trust in God. But the penny also means something else to us.
When we see pennies, we think of my Dad, Bob. My Dad loved to save pennies. In 1999, my Mom was diagnosed with metastasized breast cancer and they decided it was time to move from Clarkdale, Arizona up to Tumwater, Washington by us. So, in early 2000 Bruce and I spent a lot of time at Mom and Dad's in Arizona helping them get their home ready for sale.

We spent a lot of time going through cupboards, drawers, and closets helping decide what to keep and what to get rid of. We planned for a couple of garage sales as well. While we were doing these things, we seemed to be finding a lot of pennies. My Dad was one who (for some reason) stashed pennies inside things. If we pulled a vase off the shelf in the dining room....we'd find a stash of pennies. If we pulled a collector mug out of the kitchen cupboard....we'd find a stash of pennies. If we pulled a jar or old coffee can off a shelf in the garage....we'd find a stash of pennies. And so it went. In Dad's closet and dresser he also had boxes of pennies.

I told Bruce back then that the penny shortage could be solved if we just got Dad's pennies back into circulation. Bruce went down to the Bank of America, in nearby Cottonwood, were Mom and Dad had an account. He asked them if we could bring all the pennies in, and how they wanted them. He was told that they ALL had to be rolled and could we please just bring in about 30 rolls at a time.

So each night after we had finished our chores for the day, Bruce would sit and roll pennies. Every time he thought he had finished....we'd find more! If memory serves correctly, we ended up with over $280.00 in pennies. Just pennies. By the third day of taking pennies to the bank, Bruce was known to the tellers as "the penny guy". They weren't even his pennies, and yet he still got tagged with that moniker.

It is kind of funny now. Dad is gone but his memory lives on every time we see a penny and "pick it up".

Until next time......so long for now!