The Legal Tender of Grit

Let’s talk about small currency.

Did you know it takes between 145 and 181 pennies to make one pound?

I tested this and found 173 pennies to be right on the money (or rather, money right on the scale). In 1859, Abraham Lincoln reported weighing in at 180lbs. At 173 pennies to the pound, it would take 31,140 to displace the beanpole. To put it another way, there are over 31,000 Lincolns for every Lincoln.

I weigh in at 194lbs. The calculator tells me that my dune of pennies would be 33,562 strong. I have 2,422 more pennies on my person than Lincoln.

A simple conversion puts penny Lincoln at $311.40; using that same conversion, I am worth $335.62.

But what determines the true value of a man? It’s certainly not based on his weight in pennies.

I submit that the value of a man is earned. Often, earning value is much the same as saving pennies, and we all know “a penny saved is a penny earned.”

We also know that a penny has minuscule value.

The true value of pennies is not the… value. I submit that the penny is a symbol of tenacity; the legal tender of grit. Let me tell you a thing or two about pennies.*1

- The current incarnation, featuring Lincoln, was first minted in 1909

- There are a LOT of them — 250 billion or thereabouts

- Only the façade is copper, the innards are zinc

- It is worth $0.01 or one cent if you’d rather

This last point is not to belittle the reader, merely to point that, maligned as they are, pennies are still valid currency.

It is altogether fitting and proper that Lincoln should be featured on the penny. If there’s one man that encapsulates tenacity and grit, it’s Abraham Lincoln. As president, he –

- Got an amendment passed that ended slavery for 4 million African Americans in bondage *2, or roughly 14% of the population *3 (percent value includes ~490,000 African American freedmen.), effectively upending the southern economy and the southern way of life.

- Led the nation through a bloody civil war

- Began the process of putting the pieces of a shattered nation back together, finding a happy medium for radical Republicans (“end slavery outright”), moderate Republicans (“end slavery gradually”) and southern democrats (“wanted easy terms to get each rebel state back into the union.”) *4

What did it take to accomplish this Herculean feat of diplomacy? Grit. Luckily, Lincoln had considerable capital in the “legal tender of grit.”

This capital came from gritty investments in –

§ Dedication — As is commonly reported now. Lincoln was said to walk miles for a book to read — uphill both ways through the snow no doubt.

§ Erudition — Taught himself law, passed the bar exam. As a lawyer, he opened a law firm with friend Michael Herndon *5 (weight: 200lbs; $346).

§ Detail oriented — He once got a man (average weight = 140lbs = $242.20) acquitted by referencing an almanac that said the key witness would not have been able to see the suspect on the night of the crime because of the low visibility. *6

By comparison, I -

used to walk to a Circle K gas station to buy a soda which required me to read the label.

I taught myself to go to college and get an education.

I saw an almanac at a grocery store checkout line once.

This is all to say that I made my investments with the legal tender of grit but not in the way that Lincoln did.

You see, I have a brain injury. I’ve spent years “saving pennies” that I might someday lead a “Normal” life.

Thing is, every struggle in physical therapy, every step taken is but a penny. Much the same as every step Mr. Lincoln took on his way to get a book. He and I look upon the tower of coins to measure what we’ve accomplished. For the conscientious brain injury survivor this can be as simple as tying a shoelace after a month of hand torture at the…hands of an occupational therapist. Or looking back on the distance covered after walking for the first time in three months. That patch of ground is, in a manner of speaking, paved with pennies.

I know this because I’ve trodden that path. Let me tell you a thing or two about myself –

- In my current incarnation, I’m almost 11 years old (brain injury occurred May, 2009). I call the day that I had brain surgery — September third, 2009 — my “rebirthday”

- There is one of me

- I have a pink fleshy façade with innards of guts and organs, required for existence and prosperity and what have you. Along with a pump in my abdomen that delivers medicine straight to my spine.

- I am worth $335.62

- “Normal” for me is –

§ unsteady gait

§ a precarious sense of balance

§ slowed and slurred speech

§ marked weakness on my left side with muscles contracting constantly

My “investment portfolio” includes

- Relearning to walk

- Regaining comprehensible speech

- Restoring function to the left side of my body

- Sharpening fine motor skills

Lincoln liberated 4 million people. I “liberated” myself from a wheelchair. Lincoln mended a shattered nation. I’m finding it hard enough to get my left side to jibe with my right side.

As precarious as this connection sounds, I made an interesting discovery -

I link my sloth-like progress to a glass rum bottle full of pennies that I’ve been adding to for many years now. I use it as a doorstop. When I find a penny, I see it as a sign from Abraham and the powers that be that I should keep at it. I’ll add the penny, weightless and nearly ephemeral, to the jar, and the mass of copper and zinc will conspire to transform the bottle into a magnet superglued to a metal plank on the ground. It currently weighs 19lbs.

I’m here to tell you those pennies don’t weigh a thing! It’s a farce! It’s all grit.

A quick Google search tells me that a 1.75-liter bottle weighs about 1850 grams or a little short of five pounds. That leaves 14lbs of pennies. Again, at 173 pennies per pound, that’s in the ballpark of 2,422, or $24.22 — the amount of bodily grit I have on the sixteenth president. If that’s not Abe weighing (literally) in on my efforts, I don’t know what is.

What’s more, I never added the 173 pennies from the start back into the bottle — Lincoln got me started and helped me finish.

So you see, reader so dear, one thing can be so much more.

WORKS CITED

1. Siegel, Randy, and Serge Bloch. One Proud Penny. Roaring Brook Press, 2017.

2. “African American Population Growth.” BlackDemographics.com, www.blackdemographics.com/population/

3. “African-American Population.” Infoplease.com www.infoplease.com/us/race-population/african-american-population/

4. Samito, Christian G. Lincoln and the Thirteenth Amendment. Southern Illinois University Press, 2015.

5. History.com Staff. “Abraham Lincoln.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 2009, www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/abraham-lincoln.

6. “Abraham Lincoln.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 12 Apr. 2018, www.biography.com/people/abraham-lincoln-9382540.