Okay, I know that you are wondering; what in the 'Sam
Hill' is he squawking about now?
Well, shortly after my father ‘transitioned’ (Trish
and I use this term instead of ‘passed’) this year, my siblings and me were
faced with the task of cleaning out his storage shed. The small shed, not more
than seven feet by seven feet, held his lawn mower, string trimmers and various
and sundry tools--plus stuff that was obviously car parts, formerly belonging
to my brother, Ben's old Ford Pinto. Yeah, we all had those ridiculous Pintos back in the day! On the lone shelf, right in front of us, in full view from the
open she'd door, was a small plastic file box. On top of that container, was an
open billfold, probably placed there by our father the last time he mowed his
grass, which we surmised was some eight years earlier.
I called my discovery of that wallet to Ben and
passed it to him for inspection. Dad's drivers license and some expired credit
cards were among the items in the wallet, and, to both Ben and my surprise,
tucked in the paper currency compartment was fourteen, crisp two-dollar bills!
Now, my reaction to this small treasure was a bit
more dramatic--I blurted: "What the hell, man?" Ben calmly replied,
that's the kind of thing dad would do.
Danny and Dot are two of the finest people created
in this universe for which my wife, Janice and I met when we first moved to Georgia
more than twenty-eight years ago! Dot and
Danny were among the first of our friends we informed, as we have all grieved the
loss of parents together over the years.
We have been a comfort to each otheer in those very difficult times. Dot texted: “You sincerely have our
condolences. If your father is anything like you, he is a very good
person and very smart. May God bless you
and yours for having a father with a talent to be proud of.”
You see Tiffany, a person for whom I have the utmost
respect, thought that my dad must be smart—implied in that statement was that I
am smart! Dot has always said that of me—for
years! “Byron you’re a very smart person”,
she would say. A few kind words can ‘set’
a person for life!
You see, my friend Dot had sent me a lovely sympathy
card in early May that read:
Tucked in a slot behind those words was an unfolded
two-dollar bill!
Tell you how smart I am; when Ben counted fourteen two-dollar
bills from that billfold, I reasoned immediately that twenty-eight dollars won’t
divide equally by five (of my father’s children). Nevertheless, I was stuck on why did dad have
those two-dollar bills anyway? And moreover,
that was all there was in that
billfold—no other currency!
On the flight back home that Friday after cleaning
my father’s shed, it hit me—I had my third two-dollar bill for more than a month before
we discovered the twenty-eight dollars’ worth of two dollar bills!
If two-dollar bills are not such a big deal, then riddle me this,
why do they keep all of the two-dollar bills in a vault at Delta Community
Credit in my city? I asked Jade, my
Delta Community Credit representative today and her story is: I got my two two-dollar bills from my church
and Jamaica—I keep them for good luck!
So do I, Jade!
Send me your stories and comments about ‘Two Dollar
Bills’ via email to: byron.m.coleman@gmail.com
I will post the best ones, providing they aren’t ‘distasteful.'
