What Did You Find? (Audio)
I have this penchant for picking up things where they lie and considering adding them to my collection of things found. Rocks from around the world, memories across the globe, and I sure enjoy when someone shares their finds with me! I have this little tube of sand from a famous beach in a far-off place that my sister shared with me!
Pick on coins. It goes against the grain to just let them lie where they have been tossed, or dropped. Discarded to the elements, maybe to be swept and dumped into a refuse bin.
A lonely penny in a dirty parking lot finds salvation when I happen along!
As a kid, late 60’s, I remember standing in the school lunch line and someone paying for their lunch with some silver coinage. Back then, lunch was 40 cents – just a quarter, dime and nickel… When I saw the coins, I immediately swapped my useful coins for the silver and skipped lunch!
I remember a camping trip at Stephen F Austin National Park…about 11 or so…and finding a strange coin on the pavement around the swimming pool. 1910 Scandinavian looking coin (based on research) about the size of a dime! Found! Stored and enjoyed even today! Probably tossed because it would not fit the Coke machine.
I remember being in Tyler, Texas (I think!) at a Rose Festival parade that my grandmother just enjoyed going to. It was hot… We were thirsty… Mom or Dad gave us a dollar and told us to get change and buy everyone a soda. Back then, a soda was only 10 cents – just two nickels or a dime put into the machine would produce a 6 1/2 ounce bottle of Coca-Cola. A lady sitting by the machine gave us change for the dollar bill – all Mercury head dimes. My brothers and I ran back to our parents asking for more bills to exchange for the dimes. By the time we convinced them of the importance of the transaction, the lady had moved on. We were (…I was…) so disappointed. I did not spend my dime on something to drink, and I’m sure it’s part of my hoard, uh, collection, here. Somewhere. Here’s something I learned about myself.
Searching for the Treasure Chest is as enjoyable as whatever surprises are found within!
Around the age of 6, I received a coin book for birthday/Christmas and had so much fun filling it and all the subsequent coin books filled up with the aged coins. I own a 1909 penny – not worth much, but I do enjoy looking at this part of history every so often and trying to understand all the hands that held it, and the things it was spent for.
Penny candy comes to mind. It used to be you could buy a lot of candy for just a penny. We would go on a trip and mom would give us a dollar or so and tell us to run down to the store and pick up some penny candy for snacks. A number 12 brown bag would be nearly half full. This was the same brown bag we used to carry school lunches… Lot’s of candy!
A few years back I was at my dry cleaners picking up and dropping off. They had one of those little change holders by the register. You know the kind – Leave a penny if you have extra, take a penny if you need one… I always drag my fingers through these things and look for the old and perhaps collectible findings. On this one day, this tired old penny caught my attention. I turned it over and sure enough, it was a “wheat” penny. The date was very worn, and after asking for permission to trade for the penny, I took it outside in better light and still could not decipher the date. I took it home and used one of my nifty magnifying lenses and to my surprise, the date is 1920!
That means the penny was 91 years old! (I found it in November of 2011) It was created close to the time of my grandparent’s marriage…and definitely older than my parents! I began to imagine the years this little penny has survived, all the reasons it was spent, and what other people had held it in their hands with anticipation of what it could be spent for.
Too many times we fail to let our imagination soar! To imagine the first time someone picked up and used something, or what was their motivation or need, or even what desperate situation were they dealing with? How many times has this coin been in a pocket, or storage container? How many hands have touched it down through the years?
- My grandmother kept an old Nike shoebox of recipes she had cut out, or someone had sent her, or she had written down on note cards. The box had been taped up several times to retain its shape, but under the tape were recipes written on the cardboard! Imagine her writing on the inside of the lid of that ol’ box! (I have that box here in my office!)
- My wife and I like to look at antique shops. We found a drawer full of old photographs and began to imagine who they were, and why were they having this photo taken! Why did it end up in an antique shop? Wasn’t it worth something to someone?
- I have collected a few old camera’s in my day, and I envision the photographer and the subject and my imagination just rolls through all the potential.
Somewhere it seems we have lost our desire for imagining things from perhaps the most inconsequential items around us. We let Hollywood paint their CGI effects on movies and tell us what things look like. I still like to read the words and imagine it for myself! Perhaps this is why comic books never held much sway over me, but give me a Hardy Boy’s and I’ll imagine every nook and corner of their written world.
If our children will be told what everything looks like, I believe that perhaps their imagination will be limited to only someones technical ability and only a few will have the skills to build the images to feed the world.
My thought today… What have I found? My imagination is still alive!