Bike ride

I was biking down a quiet street in my neighborhood this morning, before the rain, when a flash of silver caught my eye. I biked a little farther, thought about it, turned around, went back, dismounted, and examined the ground. Even if it was just a dime, it was worth it; money's money, after all.

As I poked around through the gravel and gum wrappers, holding my bike upright with one hand, I was reminded of how, when I was a kid, First American National Bank used to hand out white cardboard folders with pockets punched into them, to help children learn to save. One folder had dime-sized pockets, and the other had quarter-sized pockets, and the idea was to put a coin in each pocket until the folder was full. Then you'd bring it down to the bank and open up a savings account. A full dime folder was three dollars, and I think a full quarter folder was five dollars.

I deeply, deeply wanted five dollars, but I also knew that saving that many quarters was beyond me--I simply didn't have ready access to quarters. With the dimes, I had a chance. I started any number of those folders, sliding in the dimes, admiring the neat silvery rows, looking around for more dimes.

But you know life--expenses arise! Unexpected ones. You suddenly need a Hershey bar, or you have a chance to buy the new "Betty and Veronica" comic book (they were twelve cents), or one of your many siblings has a birthday and you are required by the rules of the house to produce some kind of a gift.

Birthdays were pretty well packed into late autumn in my family, and so I might save throughout the summer only to have to rob myself blind in the fall, when Kristin, Paul, David, Nancy and Heidi all had birthdays.

I never made it to three dollars, not once. I never got that bank account set up.

Still, there was some success; I learned the value of a dime, and the importance of saving. And that is why this morning you might have seen me bent over on that quiet side street, hunting around in the dirt for a gleaming silver coin.

Aha! Found it! A nickel.

I plucked it from the ground, slid it in my pocket, and biked back home, five cents richer.

(Photo: Some of my older siblings, and John Patrick's new bike, in Louisville, 1957.)