And Meanwhile Back

Pennies are humble and beautiful. People are careless with coins, but I adore them. It's one of the quirks I've observed in men: they either collect coins or despise them - sometimes both at the same time. I can't explain that. The Barrett-Jackson Collector Car Auction, where gleaming, museum piece cars trade for hundreds of thousands, is on TV in the living room, though my first car was a 1979 Pinto Wagon that by 1985 was still cheap enough to run that I could always get home from the Amoco station on just the change under the floor mats. And when you limp into the Turnpike Toll Plaza in a bland blue Pinto, they're not surprised when you pay in pennies.