Granny

Sharon's story of hunting around car washes for lost change is the embodiment of depression-era thinking. When she initially posed the question, 'Can we use found change to buy our food,' I immediately thought of Granny.

Jessica's great-grandmother was a tiny woman.  I don't know what her name was, everyone just called her 'Granny.'  She was a tiny frail woman by appearance, though appearances are not to be trusted.  She was a survivor of the Great Depression, and lived independently in her home into her nineties.

My wife just told me her name was Julia, though she was also called Pooch or Poochie.

When she passed a few years ago, her children set about to sort through her belongings.  In and amongst them was a jar of corroded coins, labeled 'Change I Found.'  Why corroded?  Of course she washed them before she put them in the jar!  Jessica thinks her Aunt Bernie still has it, to be passed on from generation to generation.  Hopefully Granny's generation was the last to need it.