There was a nickel on the ground of the parking lot at work. It had been there all week. Where did it come from? I don’t know. Yet it laid there, ripe for the taking.
Monday, when I first spied it on the pavement, I had the instinctual urge to pick it up. From the time I was a wee sprout, I’ve had an almost supernatural gift of finding change and bills on the ground. On the sidewalk, in stores, anywhere…if there was loose and lonely cash on the ground, I could find it.
I would check every coin return in town, often rewarded with a dime or quarter for my trouble.
For me, it was like a treasure hunt. The streets were my high seas, and the loose bits of discovered change was my plunder. Forget the superstition of found money only being good luck if the coin was heads up. I always figured an extra penny in my pocket made me one cent richer.
Yet for a week, that nickel sat, alone and unwanted, through the sunshine and rain of a typical Spring week in Maysville. And I wondered why.
Have we become such an affluent society that picking up found change is beneath us? Nowadays, most people considered in lower income brackets have cell phones and large screen televisions, items once associated with having at least a comfortable amount of money. Have such luxuries become so ubiquitous that they no longer count as a symbol of doing well?
As a student at Morehead State, I took a class in business writing, where my classmate was a wonderful African gentleman named McLourd Obiowa. One day I was talking about driving home (I commuted from Maysville) early enough so I could record the world premiere broadcast of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” music video on “Friday Night Videos.” Cable did not run to our neighborhood at the time.
McLourd commented that I must be rich in order to afford such luxuries as a car and video cassette recorder. “No,” I explained to him. “I just have a lot of installment loan payments to make.”
Yet, McLourd was right. I was working part time while going to college, yet I still managed to possess items that, for the time, symbolized financial well-being to some. My reasoning was fairly pragmatic for purchasing such an impractical item ($600 at the time for a VHS with a wired remote). After seeing the original “Star Wars” over thirty times at the Russell Theatre, I wanted to be able to enjoy it at home, while saving money on multiple viewings of a movie I loved.
That incident has stuck with me over the years. I know the money spectrum isn’t the gauge by which we should measure personal wealth and happiness. What makes me happy? My family, my autographed Richard “Oscar Goldman” Anderson picture inscribed “Robert – I’ve got a mission for you, Pal!”, and my autographed photo of Vincent Price. Personally, that what makes me wealthy.
Yesterday morning I picked up the lonely five-cent piece and went to work, a little bit richer, and perhaps a little bit wiser.
