What Will Grow

An essay for our current theme of  What Will Grow


Ode to the Penny
By Susan Carpenter
http://novemberwitch.blogspot.ca/

www.susancarpenter.ca

You never know what you’ve got until it’s gone. All you ladies named Penny are about to havea federally-mandated identity crisis. You will be rounded up to the next nickel now that the government has discontinued the penny.

What am I supposed to do now for luck? I’m not stooping to pick up that back-stabbing usurper the nickel to exclaim ‘It’s my lucky day’. And I refuse to cower before inflation and give someone a nickel for their thoughts when they’re likely not worth more than a penny.

Maybe our luck as a society has run out and the government can’t think of an easy way to let us down, so they’ve seized on the symbol of our movement, the currency of our dreams. The government only believes in cold, hard cash that doesn’t cost more to make than its face value. But, they fail to realize that the penny has boundless intrinsic value.  It is an ode to the past, a simpler time when you could let your kids search for penny toads in the bush without a body guard to fend off any ne’er do wells (look it up, it’s old-fashioned too).

The penny stood for freedom. At my Nanny’s cottage my Mom would give us change in a rainbow of coloured coins. My older sister, brother and I walked down the dirt road to the corner store. The jangle of the bell on the door alerted the clerk that real somebodies had arrived with money to spend. With sandy, sun tanned hands I rooted around in the candy bins, white scoop be damned, and chose my prize of sour berries or the blackest licorice. Even at seven, I was allowed to transact my own business and trusted to know how to make change.  I felt satisfied; a deep in the belly, wind-swept, sugar-high realization that times were changing and I was too. My mother had released me from her tight circle of influence and given me pennies to fend for myself. The penny gave me power. The power of one.

Unfortunately, my grandkids won’t have the same experience. Their freedom has been bartered away¸ rounded up, diluted. The nickel is NOT the red-headed, shiny looker you can spot in the dusty gloom of a gutter. Future generations will gaze into the bottom of a wishing well and see only grey coins, nothing flashing like a goldfish in the sun.

People will start naming their kids Nickel. Nickelback may even be popular again. So, I guess the beaver wins. It’s chewed through the forest of the past to show us the trees of the future, but I’ll be ‘dammed’ if I’m going to succumb to their destructive progress.

Instead I am hoarding pennies to make into charm bracelets for my grandkids.  I will offer them a whole wrist full for their unique thoughts. In the end, it will be enough if I can remind them that moving forward doesn’t mean forgetting the past.

If you have a poem, or some prose (500 words or less) you'd like to share, even if it doesn't fit the theme, we'd love to see it. Send your submission to awcswriterscorner@gmail.com