TheBanyanTree: My Two Dollars Worth

[Russ Doden]

Thanks for this Dale.  A while back I found an envelope of $2 bills my
folks had set aside.  I checked and found that they had no collector value,
so used a couple for a tip when I went out to eat with a friend.  The next
time I was at that same place, they remembered me because of the "odd"
bills.  They thought they were fake at first, till they found they were
"legit"!  Now, like you, I take $2 bills to use for tips.  It is fun, and
often brightens someones day - and I often hear that they set them aside to
give to others for special recognition!

Russ


On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 11:42 PM, Dale M. Parish <parishdm at att.net> wrote:

> 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
>
>
>
>


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