TheBanyanTree: My Two Dollars Worth

[Dale M. Parish]

I've alwasy liked two dollar bills.  When I was a little boy, I had a great
aunt in Tulsa whose husband owned a greeting card printing shop.  She never
failed to send all her neices and nephews a birthday card.  Before I learned to
read, her card always arrived the day before my birthday, tipping me off.  

After I was old enough to get an allowance-- a quarter a week-- she started
enclsoing a new dollar bill each birthday, till sometimes around my 10th or
12th birthday, when she started including a two dollar bill in each birthday
card.  I hadn't known that there was a two dollar bill until then, but I always
looked forward to getting that two dollar bill until I went into the Army.  

While in the Army, I frequently heard of the story of some small town Army post
with a front-gate town who wanted the Army base to close during one of the
congressional budget cuts being waged.  The mayor had said that there wasn't enough
money coming into the twon from the base to pay for the extra problems caused
by the soldiers, traffic, etc. and had almost convinced a significant portion
of the town to that effect.  

The Base Commanding General ordered that all personnel on base be paid only
with two dollar bills for a pay cycle or two.  That quickly took the wind out
of the mayor's sails when the merchants saw how much of their cash originated
on the base.  I was never paid in two dollar bills while I was enlisted and
paid in cash, but someone in a nearby unit always could remember being paid in
two dollar bills somewhere sometime in the past.  Rumors abound in Army pay
lines.

I don't remember now what triggered it, but sometimes after I got out of the
Army, when we still got paid weekly, and before drive-in banking, I remember
going into the First National Bank and asking for a number of two dollar bills.
They had to go to the vault for them, but I got them for what ever reason, and
when I got home, found that there was a silver certificate in the bundle.  I
was hooked.  By the mid-seventies, one almost ever saw a silver certificate
any more, and even thought Fort Knox was no longer redeeming them for the
unmarked brown envelopes of silver as they'd done through the Eisenhower years,
I thought they still had collector's value.  For whatever reason I wanted that
first bundle of two dollar bills, I didn't have enough disposable income not to
spend them, and found that they were really welcome for tips.  

I found that grandmother waitresses were especially fond of them, and I started
getting a bundle each month, dribbling them out when it was appropriate--
especially when I could tell a grandmother to take it home and keep it for her
grandkids.  

When the Sacajawea dollars came out, I took up having odd money in my pocket,
and it became my line at the Credit Union to ask how much "funny money" the
cashiers had on hand.  They would ask each other if they had any two dollar
bills or 'gold dollars,' as they call the Sacajawea dollars, when they saw me
in the teller line.  

Not long ago, I was standing in line and one of the tellers who had been
promoted to assistant something-or-another noticed me in a particularly long
line, and went back into her office purposefully, came back out and went to an
empty teller window and motioned me to the front.  She asked if I only liked
two dollar bills or any old money, and proceeded to unlock the teller drawer.
She explained that a very old person had come in a few years ago and deposited
some old money, and she'd never wanted to surrender it, but had been warned
that it might cause a problem at audit time if she didn't get it out of her
drawer.  She showed me several ones, fives and a twenty from the nineteen
twenties, plus some walking liberty half-dollars, which she sold to me for face
value, along with a bundle of two dollar bills.  I was thankful for her
remembering me.

Today, when I went in to get some vacation cash, they were ready for me.  When
I asked if they had any "funny money, the girls all snickered  I was informed
that they had over five hundred dollars worth of two dollar bills out front.
Too much!!  But needless to say, I won't run short of tip money for our
vacation next week.

Hugs, Dale
--
Dale M. Parish
628 Parish RD
Orange TX 77632