Time for change

I paid 95-cents for a 94-cent french vanilla coffee at a convenient store today (Jan. 6, 2009) and the cashier asked me if I wanted my penny change back. Gasp! Of course, I did, and not only that, I wanted to check out the year imprinted under Lincoln's chin. A 2006. Only three years out in circulation, but still so many possibilities as to where it may have traveled before landing in my palm. Hence, the reason for this blog.

I have an insatiable curiosity concerning the journeys of pennies. It all began with a 1973 penny given in change to me in a drive-thru restaurant somewhere between Dallas and Texarkana in 1996. I asked my kids to make-up stories as to where they think that particular cent may have been before joining our roadtrip. I thought then that we should write a book about its journeys. But, alas, it remained only in idea form. Then in the summer of 2007, a month after my mother left this world for good, her own book idea buried with her, I decided not to risk that happening to me.

That summer I began writing about the journeys of a 1973 Denver minted penny. As the manuscript took form, I shared it with friends and family who were all too eager to tell me their own penny tales. Some made it into 1973's story -- the names changed to protect the guilty. That first novel is done and awaiting the notice of a publisher. In the meantime, I keep writing the journeys of other pennies. I have reached the point of being able to hold a penny to my ear and actually hear it tell me its adventures in circulation. Really. (Imagination is a wonderful thing indeed!)

Additionally, I would very much like to hear the stories of people about their own penny adventures -- strange places they have found pennies, how a penny changed their luck, bought them someone else's thoughts, fell from heaven just when they needed some celestial encouragement, etc. Please post your penny tales here -- maybe they will make it to print someday along with 1973's story....