Ponderings on the penny jug. - Journals

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Ponderings on the penny jug.
Aug 8, 2009 at 9:23 AM
By
- mamaphouka
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This ended up being a lot longer then I thought it was going to be- sorry for my lengthy ramblings.

Do I save my pennies? Yeah, sort of. I'm not fanatical about, but when I clean up a rubble pile in my house or car- I take the pennies and throw them in a beer pitcher my husband keeps on his dresser. About 7 years ago- we cashed in the accumulation for spending money for a vacation. It came to a little over $500. In all fairness there was quite a few silver coins that helped up the total.

BUT...

My dad is a hard core penny saver.

All my life he has kept one of those glass gallon wine jugs by his dresser and he puts his pennies in there. The penny jugs were a point of fascination when my sister and I were young. When we were real little we measured our "growing up" by being able to pick up the penny jug. I don't think we took into account how full the jar was, we just thought it was beyond cool when we could pick it up. We also liked to use the contents of the penny jug for ammunition. My parents had a square hole with a fancy grate in their bedroom floor for heat to make its way upstairs. It was directly above the walkway through the dining room and directly in front of the door into the bathroom. It was (and is) the most heavily trafficked area of their house. It was the straight shot from the living room through the dining room to the kitchen. When you factor in the fact that the bathroom door was right there too- woo hoo!!! There was always some unsuspecting person or dog walking by to drop pennies on. We thought we were such super secret bombers, that no one knew it was us dropping pennies on their heads. As we got older we would raid the penny jug for trips to Hales. The local paper/ comic/ lottery/ penny candy store. They really had true penny candy. It was AWESOME!!! A handful of pilfered pennies would get you a brown paper lunch sack FULL of candy.

I never really thought about what happened to those jugs when they got full. Really, I was your typical self-absorbed kid. It never crossed my mind that my mom was supplying my dad with more jars from our church where she was on the altar guild. You know- the ladies who keep the sacristy clean and stocked so the priest has wine for communion and clean vestments in the proper colors and styles for the season. For all I know, she joined the altar guild so she had easy access to a plentiful supply of penny jugs for my dad. Sitting here thinking about it, I don't think I ever knew or noticed that the penny jug would disappear when it was full and a new one would take its place.

I learned a few years ago that those jugs were moved to the basement when they were full. I found this out because my parents house was flooded up to the first floor, most of the town was flooded. A lot of people lost their homes. Because of the things that were in the flood waters the residents were instructed to wash everything that had come in to contact with the flood waters in some concoction of de-toxifying cleaner. My husband and I drove home for a weekend to help clean. When I walked in the house, I had to use the bathroom (it's a long car ride). My parents bathtub was full, and I mean full, of pennies. There were also full jugs of pennies lined up in the bathroom and dining room waiting to be washed. I have never seen so many pennies in my life. I didn't really think about it other then to pick on my dad a little about his penny pinching ways and to tease that I had finally learned the secret destination of the penny jugs. I didn't count the jugs, I wish I had. I don't want to know now. I think the next time the penny jugs are being considered by my brain it is going to be a very sad day for me and I hope it's 30+ years from now.

Now, I can hear some of you groaning- "If he had only cashed them in and put them in a savings account or CD or something..."

Trust me, my dad has saved more then he has ever spent. I have no idea how much, and again I don't want to know, but I know he has enough to keep him and my mom comfortable in their retirement for a long, long time. And I truly hope they are able to enjoy and spend every last nickle and dime that they have saved because that means I will have them for many, many, many more years.

But the pennies are a different thing all together.

You see, my grandfather (my dad's dad) was born in 1900. He and his twin were my great-grandparents first born. They went on to have 11 more children (they were good Catholics) before my great-grandfather was maimed working for the railroads when the twins were 11 or 12. He was so severely injured that he spent the rest of his life in a bed in agony. The twins, my grandfather and great uncle Willy, quit school and went to work to support their family. They raised all of their brothers and sisters through the Great Depression. Neither one of the twins got married and started their own families until the last of their siblings was married and in their own home. They were in their forties when they started their own lives. They had both become well respected master electricians. But, some things you live through mark you and I think become imprinted on your genes. When they died (in their 80th year and within a few months of each other) my parents and aunt and uncle found money squirreled away in every imaginable (and unimaginable) place you could think of. Socks, mattresses, knick knacks with hollow bottoms, their tackle boxes and tool chests, every coat with a pocket, cans and jars in the pantry, the freezer, the piano and on and on. They didn't trust the bank or strangers, they had lived without and they weren't ever going to again.

I think my dad's penny jugs were his safety net. The hoarding quirk passed down from his father, manifested in a smaller way. A penny jug would have paid my parents mortgage with enough left over for food if things ever went real bad when they were first starting out and we were kids.

Their mortgage was $75 a month. Can you imagine?

Each penny jug my father managed to tuck away was another month of safety for his family. The mortgage was paid off 20+ years ago. But, my dads penny jugs are still there and still multiplying (now they are raided by my daughter and nephews for trips downtown and stealth bombings). If the worst happened he would be able to cover the bills and buy groceries for a long time. The rate of how many penny jugs he has saved hasn't changed over the years, about 1 1/2 to 2 a year (I think).

Like I said, I don't have my fathers penny jug habit. It would take more then 20 penny jugs to pay my mortgage and bills for just one month.

But... I have never knowingly thrown a penny away.

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Aug. 8, 2009 at 12:36 PM

Neat story! I love how something so simple can unknowingly be passed down from generation to generation with love. From your dad to you and now Natalie.