The Old Coot is penniless?

When was the last time you walked around in a store or across a parking lot and found a quarter, a dime, or a nickel? Oh, sure, there’s an errant penny lying on the ground here and there; hardly worth bending down to pick up anymore.

Not like it used to be. A kid could get rich with found pennies. If you got your hands on two pennies when I was growing up you could get a piece of Bazooka Bubble gum and a foot long licorice stick at the penny candy counter in a neighborhood store.

If you found a soda bottle, you didn’t need the two pennies. You could trade it in for 2 cents. If you found a prized, quart bottle, you got a nickel and that would buy you a full size Milky Way or Baby Ruth Bar. Today those 5-cent “full size” candy bars are smaller, and cost well over a dollar. 

As a kid I counted on those discarded bottles and lost coins. Not anymore. I throw the pennies in a box; when it’s full I put them in a plastic bag and slip them in with things I take to the Open Door Mission.

You just don’t find coins lying on the ground these days. I know. I look. I ride my bike through empty parking lots most every day on my way to coffee. Ten years ago I usually found something on my journey. People don’t use cash; they use plastic. Bummer, they don’t drop coins when fumbling around in their pocket, often for car keys; keys that are disappearing from common use as well.

When I first had a credit card, it was a Mastercard. You could use it in most major chain stores. But, there was a catch; you had to buy at least twenty-five dollar’s worth of merchandise. Today, people use plastic to buy a single bottle of soda.

 When I was a young kid and couldn’t find loose change in the retail area near my house, I could always count on some at Saint John’s Church, several blocks away. I’d search, row by row, until I came up with enough to buy a bag of penny candy; or on a good day, the twenty-five cent price of admission to see a movie. It never dawned on me that I was stealing from the church.

I lived in a “finders keepers, losers weepers” world. I’m glad I’m not a kid today. I’d be broke. No penny candy, no Milky Ways, no free movies. 

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