A sure sign of aging is when you realize that many of the things you grew up with are long gone.
My list is getting longer. The transistor radio that was attached to my ear, soon to be followed by a cassette tape recorder. The wall-mounted telephone with that gloriously long cord. The electric typewriter with the magic correction tape. The VCR that allowed me to watch a TV show or movie, over and over. The film projector that made it possible to watch home movies just a few weeks after they were filmed.
And now, the penny. Who could ever have imagined the penny would not be a part of our lives? It has been a part of America since the 18th century. Perhaps you have heard of the guy who invented it, Benjamin Franklin. He also “coined” the phrase, “A penny saved is a penny earned.” Let’s face it, in Ben’s day, it was worth it to bend over and pick up a penny. Today we see a penny on the ground, and we’re like, “Nah. It’s not worth the effort.”
The once coveted “pretty penny” has fallen out of favor. In 2013, then-president Barack Obama suggested that discontinuing the penny would be a good idea, because it cost more than a penny to produce a penny. In other words, the nation was losing money by making money. Even penny pinchers would agree that’s bad business.
Since then, we’ve gotten used to “rounding it off.” If your fast food tab was $9.91, and you gave the clerk a $10 bill, neither you nor they wanted to waste time rounding up four pennies and a nickel. Both sides were happy to grab a quick dime. Unless, of course, you wanted to impress the cashier with a hearty, “Keep the change!” (That sounds like something a Rockefeller would have done, but Rockefellers are also a thing of the past.)
Now it appears the 232-year-old copper coin is at the end of the line. Despite its sentimental value, I must admit that I won’t miss the added weight of pennies in my pocket.
I don’t say this lightly. Pennies were once near and dear to me. My first paying job was in my father’s general store. In an effort to get some work out of his TV-addicted 10-year-old son, he offered to pay me two cents for each gallon of gas I pumped. This was before the self-service era. Gas was selling for 30 cents a gallon, and my piece of the action took out a big chunk of the 6 cents of profit he was taking in. I guess he thought it was worth it to offer some incentive for me to get off my butt. I didn’t get paid in actual pennies, but the 10 or 15 bucks I cleared each week was enough to start a bank account, which grew into the empire of junk I preside over today.
I suppose some day I’ll show my grandchildren some dear old pennies and explain why we used to toss them into fountains. We would make a wish. I never kept track of whether any of those wishes came true, but it sure was fun as long as it was pennies. Never quarters. That seemed like a bad investment.
Did anyone ever ask you, “A penny for your thoughts?” Did you wear penny loafers? Ever heard of a penny arcade? I never put a penny on a railroad track, but I knew a lot of people who did. I used to hear someone was a “bad penny.” I was supposed to stay away from those folks. On the other hand, a good worker was “worth every penny.”
One time I got an unexpected birthday gift from a relative in California I barely knew. As I expressed my excitement about the surprise five-dollar check, my mother described it as “pennies from heaven.” I still use that term when I get an unexpected refund.
Yes, I’ll miss the penny, but the numbers don’t lie. Pennies have become too expensive to produce. Now they say our 5-cent coins actually cost 14 cents each. So don’t get too attached to your nickels, they’re next.
