How I Blew My Father's Retirement Fund

I got on the internet today out of curiosity.  I wanted to see the value of a Kennedy half dollar.  I found a 1964 coin with 90% silver content valued at $129.95.  A 1965 half dollar  in perfect condition was valued at $299.95.  I almost cried.

My dad started a collection of Kennedy half dollars back in the sixties.  I guess he figured he was going to retire on their future value someday, since he had no retirement plan to speak of.  My dad was a mechanic.  He worked with his hands and got paid in cash for his labor.  Yes, back in the sixties people paid with real cash.  

I never had an allowance as a kid. I sold lemonade on the side of the road for 2 cents a cup in the summer.  And then there was the occasional happy accident.  A penny in the street, a nickel between the sofa cushions, a dime on the floor!  It was my only source of income back then. 

I would hop on my bike with my pennies in my sweaty hand and ride down to Tony’s Deli to buy some junky candy:  sugary liquid in colored waxy bottles, artificially colored hard sugar dots on strips of white paper, jaw breakers, gum. It didn’t matter what it was, as long as it was sweet and cost under ten cents. 

Getting a dime under my pillow when I lost a tooth was like Christmas for me.  It meant I could buy a chocolate bar the next day and still have change left over. Yes, a dime went a long way back then and a fifty cent piece went even further.

I don’t recall why I was in that particular kitchen cabinet that particular summer day, but I remember reaching way back behind the pots for something.  It was dark back there, I was kneeling on my knees and my hand fell onto an open can. I couldn’t see inside the can so I stuck my hand down into it and I felt coins - cool, large and heavier than any penny, nickel or dime I had ever held.  I shoved my hand way down into the can and heard a ching-ching  sound and I knew I had found treasure!

I grabbed a handful and brought them into the light and gasped. I had never seen anything like them before. They were so shiny and cool in my hand, I couldn’t stop rubbing them between my fingers. I had a feeling of fear and excitement all balled up in my throat. I felt an ecstatic scream coming on, but had the good sense to stifle it before it erupted. Something told me I wasn’t supposed to know about this secret treasure.

I put them all back except one.  I had to keep just one to look at it later.  A few days passed and all I could think about were the coins in the kitchen cabinet.  When no one was around, I would check to see that they were still there, running my hand through the can and listening to the ching-ching music I had come to love.

One day, I decided to spend my fifty cent piece at Tony’s deli.  I couldn’t even carry all the candy that coin bought.  When I realized my father didn’t notice a few coins missing, I became greedy and would snatch a coin every other day, running down to Tony’s deli for more upscale foods like potato chips and ice cream.  

Finally, one day, Tony asked me, “Hey kid, where you getting all these coins?”

“My father.”

“Oh, yea?  Well, bring me some more,” he said.

And I did.  Until, I got sloppy, and in my brazen wanton lust, I was caught one day by my younger brother.  To keep him from tattling on me, I had to share my secret, which meant the pile of coins was being depleted now by two.

My father kept dropping coins into the can at night and we would empty it by day.  At some point he must have realized that something wasn’t right.  Who knows?  Maybe the ching-ching sound got too hollow or maybe he reached in one day to see how high his retirement pile was growing, but that was the day my high life at Tony’s deli stopped.

“Who’s been stealing my Kennedy half dollars?!”  my father bellowed through the house.  “When I catch whoever’s been stealing my Kennedy half dollars I’m gonna kill ‘em!”

I was practicing for my piano lesson when the hollering started.  I tried to play through it, but my fingers started shaking and sweating and I had to stop when he stormed into the room.

“Have you been taking my Kennedy half dollars?!” 

“Me? No,” I said in my meekest voice. “Maybe Freddy took them.” 

It was as simple as that.  I sold my little brother down the river.  I’m not proud of that moment in my life, but that’s just how it was.  When you have a younger sibling that you can blame things on you do what you can to save your own neck.

I got my own bad karma right back at me in the next few months while I was sitting in the dentist’s chair having the cavities drilled out from all that candy I ate all summer.

Come to think of it, the only one who made out was Tony.  He got most of my father’s Kennedy half dollars - the real silver ones. I wonder where he retired to.