You can give the credit to, or blame my great grandmother, Hattie B. Peterson.
It all started many years ago when I was a little kid. I had the reputation of being a crybaby. If my great grandmother’s cat looked at me the wrong way or if the sun wasn’t shining quite right, they say I would be crying my eyes out. One day I was crying about this or that in her kitchen when she suddenly asked me if I had seen her special talking penny. I just continued to cry when she told me she found it in her pocket. She said her talking penny could tell me how to stop crying so much. She put it down on the kitchen table in front of me. She said all I had to do was hold it up to my ear, “…making sure that the man’s mouth (Lincoln) was pointed at my ear and he would tell me how to stop crying.” I picked it up and did as she told me, still crying and after a few seconds told her that I couldn’t hear him say anything.
“Well of course not boy,” she said, “not with all that racket you’re making. You have to listen because he’s little and talks real quiet like a whisper.” I did as she said, and put the penny further into my ear but after a few seconds or so told her I still couldn’t hear anything. “
“I already told you. You have to be real quiet to hear that little man. I can hear your whimpering all the way over here,” she said. I quieted down and listened real hard but still didn’t hear him say anything and I told her so.
“He must have told you something,” she said, “Cause you’re not crying anymore…”
Over the years I had a few sessions with her talking penny. I noticed that over time her penny changed. Sometimes it was shiny new and at other times brown with the writing on it barely readable. I didn’t really get it until I was much older. One day my younger brother Phillip came running into her house crying because he had skinned his knee. She looked at his injury and then brightly asked him if he had seen her talking penny.
This book is a collection of truths my talking penny has told me. Since you don’t have my talking penny you have to read this book and perhaps read between the lines. I hope you enjoy it.