{"id":329,"date":"2007-06-25T11:32:02","date_gmt":"2007-06-25T16:32:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/index.php\/2007\/06\/25\/pennies-tossed\/"},"modified":"2009-07-07T22:32:08","modified_gmt":"2009-07-08T03:32:08","slug":"pennies-tossed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/06\/pennies-tossed\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennies Tossed"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHILADELPHIA — While columnist conferees last Friday toured both the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, I had a 40-year closure issue with Benjamin Franklin so My Beloved and I skipped the latter.<\/p>\n

When I was age 10 3\/4, late summer 1968, Dad had business in Camden, N.J. Time for a road trip! From Fort Smith, we first drove my sister to the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, where she would have been starting her sophomore or junior year. The eastbound destination, for Mom and me, wasn’t Jersey but Philadelphia (we then drove to New Orleans for business then back to Arkansas).<\/p>\n

The Pennsylvania stop turned into an oft-told family story: We saw the main historical sites in an afternoon, ending at Christ Church Burial Ground. We reflected on the grave-and-a-half-wide flat stone covering the remains of Franklin and his wife, Deborah. Being such an old churchyard we explored it, seeing resting places of other signers of the Declaration of Independence. It was dusk and soon time for dinner. But the gate was locked. Whoever closed the cemetery for the night didn’t see we still were there. We shouted to passers-by. The caretaker was just down the street, fortunately, and he returned to let us out.<\/p>\n

Having not been back to Philly since, I had to see the grave again. Coincidentally, it was closing time again — who ever heard of shutting down a tourist site at 4 p.m. in the middle of visitors’ season? The two young bucks at the gate let us in for five minutes, until 4:15, just to see Franklin’s grave, for half price, a dollar apiece.<\/p>\n

Lingering at the site were a man and his two young daughters. As we approached the girls were jumping on the flat stone, about 8 inches off the ground, and the dad was doing nothing. Sacrilege! To make it worse, we realized he was pitching pennies on this hallowed spot.<\/p>\n

“Finally, got a ‘heads.’ Let’s go, kids,” he said.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\"That\u2019s<\/a>We took their place and saw dozens of coins on the marker, mostly but not all pennies. Jews put a pebble on a grave as a mark of respect, but this was not that. This seemed to be defacement, because Franklin said, “A penny saved is a penny earned,” and here pennies were being the opposite of being saved.<\/p>\n

Ever the journalist, I asked one of the moneychangers at the religious property’s gate. He said it was a tradition. How long? “As long as I can remember,” the obviously native Philadelphian said, and the other guy nodded assent. Why? “You try to get heads.” Why? “Heads is good luck.”<\/p>\n

Luck is not a concept associated with Franklin the pragmatist, but the tradition began long after he could have coined an aphorism to condemn it. The tradition had to have begun in recent decades, unless that old caretaker with cataracts and few teeth had removed the pennies for the day, before the Pollock family arrived in 1968.<\/p>\n

Got to accept these things, I suppose. Research confirmed the coin-to-fountain adaptation. Stu Bykofsky, in the seminal Stu Bykofsky’s Little Black Book: A Gentleman’s Guide to Philadelphia<\/em> (1995, Black Tooth Press), writes, “It’s tradition to toss pennies (for A Penny Saved Is A Penny Earned) on the engraved stone that covers his grave” (pg. 91).<\/p>\n

If Byko writes it, it’s so. -30-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PHILADELPHIA — While columnist conferees last Friday toured both the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, I had a 40-year closure issue with Benjamin Franklin so My Beloved and I skipped the latter. When I was age 10 3\/4, late summer 1968, Dad had business in Camden, N.J. Time for a road trip! From Fort Smith, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-philadelphia-2007"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":326,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/06\/philadelphia-phreedom\/","url_meta":{"origin":329,"position":0},"title":"Philadelphia Phreedom","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"June 21, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"PHILADELPHIA -- The annual conference of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists begins Friday at 8 a.m. Well, Thursday evening is the informal mixer that has become more organized over the years. Most conferees have arrived, as have some speakers, including Dave Barry. Little thus can be reported yet. The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philadelphia Phreedom"","block_context":{"text":"Philadelphia Phreedom","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/nsnc\/philadelphia-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":330,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/06\/uncle-cousin\/","url_meta":{"origin":329,"position":1},"title":"Uncle Cousin","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"June 26, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"PHILADELPHIA -- A fellow columnist, Ernesto Portillo Jr., on hearing my description of my mom's favorite cousin, who's lived in a suburb in New Jersey for 19 years, said last week, \"Mexicans would call him your uncle, never mind the precise lineage.\" I'll continue to call him by his name,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philadelphia Phreedom"","block_context":{"text":"Philadelphia Phreedom","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/nsnc\/philadelphia-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":331,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/06\/word-pictures-picture-words\/","url_meta":{"origin":329,"position":2},"title":"Word Pictures. Picture Words","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"June 27, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"PHILADELPHIA -- The Philadelphia Museum of Art had a special exhibit of the calligraphy of the 17th-century Japanese artist Ike Taiga, as well as his wife, Mamie. As is customary, he illustrated the words with scenes of woods, mountains and a few people here and there. Often Taiga and Tokuyama\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philadelphia Phreedom"","block_context":{"text":"Philadelphia Phreedom","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/nsnc\/philadelphia-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":328,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/06\/down-to-the-wire\/","url_meta":{"origin":329,"position":3},"title":"Down to the Wire","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"June 23, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"PHILADELPHIA -- The final sessions of the 2007 conference of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists were the most traditional. In panel discussion format, largely avoided until this morning, perennial subjects were again addressed: techniques, ethics, books and technology. This will be brief, a note or two on each. After\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philadelphia Phreedom"","block_context":{"text":"Philadelphia Phreedom","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/nsnc\/philadelphia-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":256,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2006\/12\/wal-mart-takes-liberty-bell-to-arkansas\/","url_meta":{"origin":329,"position":4},"title":"Wal-Mart takes Liberty Bell to Arkansas","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"December 29, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2006 Ben S. Pollock A DISSOCIATED PRESS PHILADELPHIA -- The Liberty Bell is moving to America's heartland, specifically Bentonville, Ark., the National Park Service has announced. The bell, one of the nation's most prominent treasures, will be a permanent exhibit in the sculpture garden of the planned Crystal Bridges\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American Culture"","block_context":{"text":"American Culture","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/american-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"liberty bell 03 stress test","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/12\/liberty-bell-03-stress-test-199x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":332,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/06\/thus-the-diner\/","url_meta":{"origin":329,"position":5},"title":"Thus, the Diner","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"June 28, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"PHILADELPHIA -- Often, we try to locate a decent diner early in any multiday stay. On our own, we stay at Hampton or Comfort inns that include a regrettably starchy breakfast. You still need a diner. For conferences, like the one of last weekend, you reside on-site. The Sofitel here\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philadelphia Phreedom"","block_context":{"text":"Philadelphia Phreedom","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/nsnc\/philadelphia-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1521,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329\/revisions\/1521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}