For many years, I’ve saved coins. That’s not to say I’m any kind of serious coin collector. No, I mean I save coins. Not just any coins. I save any dollar or half-dollar coins that come my way, along with any coin I get that’s older than me. Whenever I buy something, I give the change a quick scan for possible qualifying coins. There’s a certain kind of wear than can only come with long years in circulation.
I can’t remember how long I’ve been doing this, but it must be getting close to 30 years, or maybe it’s longer. And I’ve noticed that I’m not finding coins older than me nearly as often as I used to. In fact, when I do find one these days it’s getting to be a cause for celebration, albeit a private little nerdy celebration.
I had one such red-letter day recently when I got a 1957 nickel in my change at the grocery store. I immediately separated it from the rest of the change until I could get it home and into the official old coin box, a small wooden container from Egypt; a fitting receptacle for such antiquities, I think.
Normally, after one last check to make sure I have the right coin and that it is indeed of qualifying age, I will slip the new acquisition into the box. But this time, when I took the nickel from my pocket, I lingered a bit as I felt its eroded smoothness and examined its long-dulled surface.
This nickel, I thought, has been bouncing around America for more than 60 years, since Eisenhower was president. I let my imagination go as I considered the life of an old nickel. How many pockets and purses has it traveled in? How many hands has it passed through? How many transactions? Did it ever buy penny candy back in the old days? Did it ever help pay for a phone call? Was it ever dropped in a kid’s Halloween bag? Was it ever dropped in a Vegas slot machine? I’ll bet it’s seen a few gumball machines in its day.
Did it ever leave the country? (Oh yeah, I also grant sanctuary to the occasional displaced foreign coins I find in my change) How many states has it been in? Has it ever made it to Alaska or Hawaii?
How many times has it hibernated in someone’s piggy bank? How often has it done time locked in a bank? Has it ever been dropped by someone then found by someone else? Did someone ever flip it to make a decision?
It was obvious this nickel has gotten around in its 61 years plus. But where? There’s no way to tell. You can’t ask it, “So, what was it really like back in the ’60s?”
I suppose all this contemplation about my new old nickel was because I had spent the previous day going through all our publications for the past year to make a list of all the drivers we’ve written about.
In nearly 20 years as a journalist, I’ve met thousands of people, and I met many more thousands before that, and the one big cumulative takeaway is that everyone has a story to tell.
I’ll give you an example. Back in the Detroit area, I was once asked to come do a story about this old guy who hung out with his buddies a couple times a week at their local doughnut shop. Not exactly Pulitzer Prize-sounding stuff. But a little local flavor never hurt, so I went.
It turns out this guy, who was in his 90s, had been a trumpet player for Henry Ford’s band.
You don’t say. Henry Ford had a band? Henry Ford, the car guy?
That’s right, he told me. See, back in the old days, you didn’t have suburban car dealerships. You didn’t even have suburbs. So what Ford did was take this band out to the country, and they’d tell everyone in the area ahead of time, and they’d set up a stage at some crossroads in the middle of nowhere and this band would play. Ford also brought a couple of his latest-model vehicles, and once a crowd had gathered to hear the band, there were also a couple salesmen on hand. And that’s how Ford got farmers to buy his cars and trucks.
It was a near-forgotten piece of Americana, given to me by one of the few people left who remembered it. But to look at him, it would have been easy write him off as just an old guy in a doughnut shop.
As I continued to contemplate that well-traveled nickel, the analogy was easy. We’re like a bunch of coins, all of us, making our way here and there, each on a path that is uniquely our own. Most of the time we pass by with little notice; we don’t count for much.
After enough time, all years and miles start to show. Some people would call it looking worn out. I prefer to think of it as getting smoother. New coins are bright and shiny and make you open your eyes wide. But an old coin, those are the ones that make you say, “Oh, wow,” as you take a closer look, check it out from all sides, study it. Maybe you start a collection.
We meet people every day, and we have no idea who they are or who they’ve been other than what we see before us.
But unlike my old nickel, we can share our stories. I’ll bet you have a few gems, yourself.
Take it from someone who talks to strangers for a living, there is a wealth of interesting stories out there, if you are willing to invest the time. Anyway, that’s my two cents.
I’m out of puns, so I’ll stop now.
The Trucker News Staff produces engaging content for not only TheTrucker.com, but also The Trucker Newspaper, which has been serving the trucking industry for more than 30 years. With a focus on drivers, the Trucker News Staff aims to provide relevant, objective content pertaining to the trucking segment of the transportation industry. The Trucker News Staff is based in Little Rock, Arkansas.
