Category Archives: The Everyman Chronicles

Dextrārum Iunctio

http://childpsychiatryassociates.com//semalt.com Dextrārum Iunctio

you pour a drink
for the monster
because he laughs at your jokes

he calls you by your first name
asks about the family
says he understands

and there you are
nodding along
like a dog waiting on scraps

you say he’s misunderstood
everyone has blood somewhere
the world needs tough men

but at 3 a.m.
you sweat through clean sheets
because you know:

you walked into darkness,
coat pressed, smile rehearsed
sweathands damp and eager

you grew comfortable
with the smell of gasoline,
called it cologne

how much of him
rubbed off on you
when you shook his hand?

and why
does it still
feel good?

USA Stops Making Cents

Niğde The penny was the first coin I ever cared about.

Now it’s leaving. The U.S. Mint will end production of the one-cent coin.

Each penny costs 3.69 cents to make, and last year the Treasury lost about $85 million trying to keep it alive. It’s time, they say, to let Lincoln rest.

Still, the news lands heavy. The penny was my first lesson in money, math, and patience. My father and I collected wheat pennies—those old bronze beauties minted between 1909 and 1958, with two curved wheat stalks framing “ONE CENT” on the back.

We would spread a pile of change across the table, faces down, searching for the twin sheaves that meant treasure. Some were dark and worn smooth; others still gleamed like they remembered the day Roosevelt took office.

That love of copper never left. I started rolling coins myself, counting and stacking like it was a small business. I’d pour handfuls of change, mostly pennies, some silver for variety, into a big glass jug that once held water or cider.

When it filled, I’d carry it to the automated counter and cash it in. The jug would thud onto the counter, and the machine would hum and click until the total popped up: two hundred dollars or more, built one coin at a time.

The penny taught value through ritual. You could feel the lesson in your hands: that something small, repeated often enough, turns into something lasting.

Now the penny’s cost outweighs its worth. Debit cards and apps handle what jars and rolls once did. The country will round its prices, shrug, and move on.

But something tangible disappears in that efficiency. The penny is proof that money once had texture. It clinked, rolled, and shone.

When I hold a wheat penny now, I think of my dad, sorting with me through dull copper and shining history. I think of the jug, the weight of coinage, the smell of metal and time. The penny was never about gain; it was about connection, between generations, between touch and value.

And it could once buy a bubblegum ball.

So yes, retire it. Let the Mint save its money.

But you can keep one, somewhere. Keep it for luck. Keep it for memory.

Every coin tells a story, and the penny’s is ours.