A couple of days ago, I parked in the Channel 11 parking lot, got out of my car, and there it was: a penny on the pavement. People fall into two groups: people who pick up pennies on sidewalks and streets, and those who don’t. I fall into the first group: if I see a penny I’m all over it. I’m always delighted to find one.

And I seem to find a penny at least once a month. Maybe that’s because I jog a few times a week and have tripped enough times on cracks in the sidewalk that I’ve trained myself to look down a lot. And there they are–little copper pieces of treasure.

I know that many people don’t think it’s worth the trouble to bend over and pick them up. But I can’t understand that way of thinking. After all, it is FREE MONEY! Not much, of course, but it’s free. And because it’s only a penny, you don’t feel badly that someone else lost it.

The most I ever found was a $5 bill. It was when I was a kid. Back then you could buy a new car for about $100, so that was an historic day for me.

One day as an adult, I was walking in a North Shore suburb and there on the sidewalk was a gleaming quarter. Naturally I bent over to pick it up thinking I’d hit the jackpot. But it wouldn’t budge. It had been super-glued to the sidewalk by some prankster. I must have been the 100th person that day to fall for the gag. Ha-hmm-hmm-ha.

No one would bother to do that with a penny. Not worth the glue. Which is good news for me. Come to Papa!