When I was a child I was a bit odd. I used to think that was a bad thing. My heart hurt for people and animals and things. I was told that I was “Too Sensitive!” I always thought that there must be something that I am doing wrong. However, try as I might, I was there being Overly sensitive about one thing or another. I am still very heart forward and I wear my emotions on my sleeve, however, I am the perfect amount of sensitive. That is what others tell you to make themselves feel better about breaking your heart.

So in this “very sensitive” girl’s world I heard my brothers talking about the Penny. They called them useless and good for nothing. The penny, the brightest, most unique, dazzling penny. The luckiest of all coins. How dare they speak about the penny like that? It has Lincoln on it. LINCOLN! I mean he just happens to be my all time favorite president. He came from nothing and he worked hard to be smart and one day he became president of the united states. He freed the slaves and everything. I mean Pennies are not worthless. I immediately feel bad for the penny, because alone perhaps it was only worth a little but if you get a whole group of them together then their value has grown. I felt like the penny. I felt worthless and small. So I decided to make it my job to prove to the world that the penny was more valuable than they gave it credit for. At first I just had my little crotched purse that every time a person tossed a penny I would grab it and put it in my dingy off-white crotched purse. Am I spelling crotche correctly? I didn’t have it in my crotch purse. I don’t keep things in there. Hold up let me check with the spelling on this. Where would I go for that? Maybe start googling knitting and go from there. Hold up! I’ll be back. Crocheting! Hmmmmm? Not much better. Crocheted purse. Well I’ve never crocheted my purse either, but let’s just carry on! My crocheted purse was a dingy off-white and I probably had someone hand it down to me because I was young and as my mom would call it “Too young to be carrying a purse.” Mostly because she knew me and knew that I would be leaving it places. Leaving my purse in places is what I will become famous for. Mark my words I will be in People magazine one day for losing my purse so many times that I must be known only for the cautionary tale of leaving your purse everywhere. So I began my great penny crusade and I would pick up every little penny I would find. I asked my family members if I could have their pennies and they gladly handed them over all the while scoffing at me.  “Penny collector Becki”

Whenever my mother went to the store and I had my crotch purse (I did that on purpose because who the hell named that?) if she needed a penny or two I came to the rescue like some kind of penny miracle worker. “Oh do you need two cents?” Papow!!!! “I got you covered!”

People threw pennies away so often that I had to find a better place to keep them. My poor little crocheted purse was starting to drag on the ground. It was a weapon at this point, but a poorly executed weapon because it was too heavy for me to lift. The best I would’ve been able to do is trip them with it. “That little girl just tripped me with her bag full of pennies!”

“Sorry, you looked menacing to me!”

Now it was time for me to find a new place for my lovely little pennies. I emptied out my drawer in my dresser and began to store my lovely little fellows in there. It wasn’t long before I had an entire drawer full. A whole dresser drawer full of pennies. Look at us little worthless creatures now. I had so many pennies that the bottom of the drawer was threatening to blow out. I had to do something else with these wonderful beauties. It was the time of “Jerry’s kids” and I watched the telethon and I thought who better to receive my pennies than these kids. I went and talked with my mother and said “I have decided to give my drawer full of pennies to Jerry’s kids.”

My mother nodded her head in agreement and we started to roll them in the penny papers. By the time we finished we had over a hundred dollars in rolled pennies. I was so proud of my penny collection going to Jerry’s kids it became a tradition. I would save a whole drawer full of pennies to give to Jerry’s kids. I could never collect as many as I did that first time but it was such a nice project for me to do. I showed that pennies were very valuable and that if you collect them the only proper thing to do is to give them to some one more deserving.

I have always been a little bit odd like this and overly sensitive and always trying to help people, animals and things. I only recently learned that it was one of my greatest qualities and if I am one of the few or one of the many I just know that us pennies can come together and do great things.

Moral of my story: In this era and climate in our world we have a tendency to devalue things, animals and people. If anyone makes you feel like you are too different, odd or worthless, can I just tell you that I think you are beautiful. You are worth so much. You have love and compassion and kindness. You are unique and wonderful and you mean more to this world than you could ever possibly know. You are a bright and shiny copper penny and we are lucky to have you!