I haven’t won the lottery, but if I did, I’d like to think I
would still pick up a penny on the sidewalk.
I haven’t won the lottery, but if I did, I’d like to think I would still pick up a penny on the sidewalk. I think no matter how much money I have in the bank, I’ll always stoop down to pick up a penny. I’m always surprised by how many coins lay on the ground and are stepped on and passed over. Pennies, nickels, dimes and even a quarter once in a while. I can’t resist the urge to pick it up, and it’s not because I’m starving or poor. I guess I just feel obligated to give it some dignity. Abraham Lincoln was a rather important founder of this nation. As the 16th president, he dedicated his life to making this country great. How can I feel good about seeing his face down there on the blacktop?
When I see money on the ground, no matter what denomination, it’s like seeing an American flag on the ground. I have to pick it up. I reflect on my forefathers. I think about my grandparents struggling to feed their children during the depression. I see commercials every day about starving children all over the world and how my loose pocket change can feed them. What if every penny had the face of a hungry child on it? Would we still walk right by and leave it abandoned? There are people right here in this community that are hungry and yet people walk right past those coins as if they are worthless.
A penny here, a nickel there, pretty soon you have a dollar. I’ll take another dollar. It all counts! If you saw a bum pick up a coin would you think it was odd? No, probably not. But if you saw a well dressed woman step out of a fifty thousand dollar (or more) car and bend down to pick up a coin in the parking lot, would you think it was strange? Why is she considered “above that”? It took a lot of coins to buy that car she is driving. Would Paris Hilton pick up a nickel? I seriously doubt it. What about Donald Trump? Would he pick up a penny? Oprah? George Clooney? Julia Roberts? Tom Cruise?
It makes me wonder exactly what is the magic number (earned as income) that causes a person to change their perspective on stray coins. I don’t know anyone here in Gilroy that fits the Oprah, Trump or Hilton income bracket. I don’t know anyone who is relatively close to that kind of income, but even moving the decimal point down to your average Gilroy resident yields the same result: We middle class people don’t pick up our loose change.
Even further down the line, what about the people who are “struggling” and qualify for food stamps and section eight housing? Are they living it up so well on Santa Clara County tax dollars that they can afford to throw money on the ground or walk right past it? We are a very spoiled culture if this is how we handle our money when even the “poor” don’t bother with pennies.
I don’t know how coins become viewed as worthless in our culture, but I’m going to keep on picking up the money. I will continue to lift Mr. Lincoln out of the dirt, dust him off and add him to my ever-filling change jar. Someday I’ll take a tropical vacation and when I’m sipping pina coladas, gently swaying in a hammock under a coconut tree on some isolated beach, I’ll be thinking of how I got there… on your loose change and Abe Lincoln’s thoughtful gaze.
