EVEN YOUR PIGGY BANK ISN'T SAFE ANYMORE!

Hard times come and hard times go, yet there are still a few things we hold onto for comfort, things we've saved for years, thinking we'd pass them down to the next generation. Your grandfather might have collected stamps, your niece might have a fantastic Barbie collection still in the boxes and almost anyone I've ever known has an affinity for saving special coins. Little remembrances of certain times and certain adventures in places they may never travel again.
That's why what happened to me the other day was oddly exhilarating at first, and then left me strangely disquieted. I cracked open my biweekly roll of quarters because it was time to do laundry. Being an amateur coin maven myself, an unusual one will normally catch my eye. Imagine my surprise when the whole roll turned out to be a treasure trove of old coins. I even got two SILVER quarters dated 1956! Wow, I though, that's pretty cool! I can't tell you when it was I saw my last piece of true silver.
As I fingered through the whole roll, every one of them turned out to be collectible. There were a few late 80's and newer 'states' quarters, but most of the contents of the roll was at least 25 years old. I though I had hit the jackpot!
AND THEN IT HIT ME: Somewhere out there, there was a grandmother, a small child grown, a person so down on their luck THEY HAD TO CASH IN something it took them a lifetime to collect for someone special. That realization gave me real pause.
And I am definitely not leading a sheltered life here in Hollywood. 90,000 homeless people sleep on the streets of L.A. on any given night. Half of them across the street from my house! (No, just kidding, it's only a small encampment). I haven't been able to find a job in a year and a half and have been drawing unemployment. And I don't walk my neighborhood after dark because I've already been confronted once by a gangbanger while I was walking to the Smart & Final ACROSS THE STREET FROM MY HOUSE! (Guess he was taking a break during his daily graffiti excursion).
But there just was SOMETHING about the thought of where those coins had come from that made me sad about the state of our country once again. If grandma's are crackin' porkers, the rest of us can't be far behind!