Hokey was troubled.
He watched as he stood in line at the old, red-painted
country store in the Vermont valley he called home. The store had been there as
long as he could remember and it had not changed much. It still carried a big,
motley variety of necessities (duct tape, bread, milk, stove pipe) and a few
items that one maybe did not need but wanted to make life a little more
pleasant. When he could barely look over the top of the curling linoleum on the
counter, it was a stick of licorice-flavored Black Jack gum or a paper of candy
dots costing a precious penny that would give him a little joy on the weekly
trip to the store.
Now there was a shallow dish on the counter by the
computerized cash register that urged folks to "leave a penny" or
"take a penny." He was so very old school and couldn't quite wrap his
grizzled, aged head around the fact that a penny had so little value that
people would toss them willy-nilly into a dish for others to take. Yet almost
every customer in the line tossed a penny -- or two or three -- into the little
dish with no more thought than they would give to throwing away a gum wrapper
or a used Kleenex.
Hokey grew up in an era where a penny was important. Hokey
grew up with a Papa who told him to: "Watch the pennies and the dollars
will take care of themselves." He took this advice to his childhood heart
and had saved almost every coppery coin he could since he was six years old,
only spending one or two on a Saturday trip to the store. Hokey did not get an
allowance like kids today, for he was expected to help with chores simply
because he was part of the family ... every member meant more work so every
member had to share in that work. What pennies he gathered came from selling
eggs or helping old Mrs. Cooper weed her garden. He was a willing worker and he
wanted those pennies because he wanted them to turn into dollars. Dollars! What
a magical word and what power he would have when he had dollars!
And here he was, 86 years old, bent by time and gravity,
still living in the old creaky house with the hollyhocks by door, same as it
had been all his life. He couldn't understand much about the modern era and had
long ago given up trying, just as the young ‘uns had given up trying to
understand his unusual moniker. He didn't bother to tell them that
"Hokey" was short for Horatio, just as his pal Corny's name was short
for Cornelius. They didn't know how to use a scythe and he didn't know how to
use a cell phone. He didn't think either of them cared.
But all generations surely understood money, didn't
they? Didn't everyone know you had to
save for what you wanted or for a rainy day?
Hokey's dollars had not brought him magic or power but evaporated like
drops of water on a hot stove lid in a series of rainy days comprised of sick
kids and broken down tractors. He had spent the pennies that had turned into
dollars to pay for what he felt was important. And what he had felt was
important was the kids, some biological and some orphans taken in and given a
home out of the kindness of his heart and their enormous need to be somewhere
where the rules were known and stable. Hokey was not a particularly proud man
but he was pretty sure that his penny/dollars had been well spent on the kids,
now decent adults. And to take care of them he had to keep his income coming in
and repair the tractors and plows and presses that kept his hardscrabble farm
producing cider and hay and whatever else he could glean from his land and
labor.
Now he watched with more amazement than amusement as the
shallow plastic dish by the computerized cash register overflowed with coppery
coins so disdained that they were in jeopardy of being discontinued altogether.
Hokey waited patiently as the line at the old country store
was moving along slowly, the clerk checking IDs for underage beer drinkers and
trying to answer the questions of the tourists that visited his valley during
the summer months. Just in front of him,
a classy young blonde lady bent and picked up a penny that had fallen,
unheeded, on the worn floorboards. But
instead of tossing it in the dish, she held it in the palm of her hand. She looked at it almost reverently as a tiny
smile quirked at edges of her glossed and pretty mouth.
After a moment, she put it in her pocket.
Hokey was curious and asked, to pass the time, why she
didn't just toss it in the dish.
"Oh, it's a bit of a long story" she replied.
"My Daddy told me to save pennies and after he passed away and when I find
a penny it reminds me of him. It seems like he is still talking to me, telling
me to take care of people and pennies."
Hokey immediately liked this unknown departed Daddy and felt
a spark of kindred spirit with his attractive offspring.
And Hokey guessed he was right to feel this empathy. For a
startlingly attractive little girl, coppery, nappy curls creating a cumulus
cloud above her café au lait
complexion scampered rounded the corner of the counter and hugged the knees of
his waiting companion.
"This is Penny" she said. "She needed me and
I needed her ... we saved each other. I'll never throw away a penny,
ever."
Now it was Hokey's turn with the clerk and he did not have
the words or time to continue this unexpected conversation. He really didn't need to. He understood
perfectly despite the age gap.
He went out to his battered pickup truck with a smile and a renewed
faith that pennies were still important. And perhaps there were some in the
modern generation that shared, if not the knowledge of how to use a scythe, the
value of the little coppery coins in all their manifestations.
Recent Posts:
WC ... It's Not What You ThinkA Taste of Life
Stuff
