Setting the captives free

It looks like the mere emptying of a piggy bank, but let me assure you, it was so much more than that! My family and several friends gathered around our kitchen table as I removed the pink rubber stopper and Bill then released the ceramic bank's contents. The bank was a gift from a member of my writer's critique group, Rhonda Ashurst. She rediscovered it while going through boxes in her garage. Her father had given it to her when she was a little girl after he'd put a heaping handful of his pennies in it. A marking on the underside of the pig shows that it was made in 1973, which is when Rhonda thinks her dad gave it to her. She never added any cents of her own, nor did she ever empty the ones within. Why did she give this treasure to me? It only seemed logical, she told me. Her logic, my luck.

As the pennies spilled out on our table, we each gasped as we read the mint dates: 1927, 1936, 1943 (yes, a steel penny!), 1958 and many years in between. 122 in all, 7 of which were Canadian coins from the 60's and 70's. I can only imagine the conversations all the presidential Lincolns have had with the Queen Elizabeths these three score and six years that they have been locked away together! I'm sure they took turns telling tales of how they ended up in the piggy bank and shared their hopes of the time they would see the light of day again. That day, of course, finally arrived and I'm so glad I got to witness it. (Thanks, Rhonda.)