Long on imagination

After I finished speaking to his class, one little boy raised his hand, his eyes wide. His smile beamed when I motioned for him to speak. "You sure have a long imagination," he said, shaking his head from side to side as if he had just witnessed something incredible. I laughed and simply told him that my 36-year-old penny has traveled a lot of places, so I had a lot of stories to relay to his class.

This exchange happened at the elementary school in Creede today where I introduced the students to my 1973 penny. I basically told the K-3rd graders the synopsis of "The Penny Chronicles," which is comprised of about 20 years of a penny's journeys. The kids were then encouraged by their teachers to use their own imaginations to write penny stories. One youngster grabbed his journal and a pencil as his class was dismissed for recess, just in case, he told his teacher, his imagination started working on the playground.

When I visited the 4th-6th graders, I shared less of the synopsis so that I would have time to read an excerpt from "The Penny Chronicles" called "The Wishing Penny." It is the story behind a penny in a wishing well -- how it got there, what wish it carried, who made the wish and why it was so important to the wisher that the penny made it to the well. At the end of my reading, the older kids were also encouraged to use their own imaginations to write penny stories.

We'll collect the stories in a week and I am really looking forward to reading them. There is no doubt in my mind that their penny stories will be incredible. After all, since spending time with the students today, I noticed many of them also seem to be blessed with long imaginations.