Sorry...first post was befuddled...like me.   One is Silver, The Other--Gold From the Sunday Afternoon Rocking Series: Jan Dennis Philpot    I clasped the worn leather pouch in wonder. I had not seen it in a very long time. Now I wondered what to do with it. I had not come looking for it; I was actually looking for a document I was needing for legal transfer of property. Last week I visited the lockbox I keep to secure away those family items that don’t need to be "found" very often.   What I found was my grandfather’s pouch -- the same pouch I had discovered in my own father’s lockbox twenty-five years ago at his death. It was a heavy little bundle, and even then I had realized that what it contained must simply be placed back in my own lockbox…kept. For what? I wasn’t sure then, and I saw no pressing need at the time to figure that out. Youth was on my side. It isn’t anymore.   I am now nearly fifty-six years old. I have eight grandchildren and five of those are biological grandchildren for whom this family legacy could be especially important. Could be…but can they possibly understand? I know what the 1920’s and 1930’s were to my grandfather. I have read letters between family members of the time period. I have poured over old tax bills and deeds. I interviewed my elders before their deaths. What did that pouch contain? Can I ever make my grandchildren understand the gift I want to give each of them as they enter adulthood?     In the 1920’s and 1930’s my grandfather owned a farm in Tennessee that was approximately 180 acres. Some of it was fine rich bottomland. Some of it was timber. None of it was easy to scratch a living from. The family ate what they raised and bartered for what they could not produce themselves. They had no cash, but then no one around them did either. It was a self-sufficient bartering era in rural middle Tennessee. One of my grandfather’s daughters was a teacher. That made paying taxes on the farm easier. The county could not afford to pay its teachers. They were often given an IOU. My aunt would give her father the IOU in return for a portion of what he produced on the farm. My grandfather gave the IOU back to the county in lieu of the cash to pay the tax on the farm. Sometimes that didn’t work. Sometimes he had to put a lien on the farm, and hope the weather cooperated and the tobacco crop turned out. Sometimes he resorted to selling off some of his timber.   In the 1920’s and 1930’s a strong man worked all day on another man’s farm for fifty cents and a home cooked meal. In the 1920’s and 1930’s a strong man worked at hog killing time on another’s farm to be able to take a piece of the meat home with him for his own family. How do I know? My uncles who did this told me it was so. Fifty cents a day for hours of long hard back-breaking work. I saw the same documented in my grandfather’s farm journal.   What is fifty cents to my grandchildren? Hardly enough to buy a soda or a candy bar. Often it won’t even purchase that. What does fifty cents these days look like? The coins are not even pure silver. They are so nonessential, they are thrown into "wishing wells" and tossed carelessly into game slots at restaurants and arcades.   Silver. Silver is what that pouch contained. And amongst that silver are ten heavy pure silver dollars--no alloys. They are heavy and substantial, those dollars. They are weighty because of the purity of the silver they are molded from, yes…but also because they stand for something. With dates from the 1920’s, each one represents two long days in the sun for a strong man. With dates from the 1920’s, I cannot imagine how long it took my grandfather to even accumulate such a hoard. I have wondered why he kept them…how he was able to….if this was his "secret stash" in case he should need it in old age. Silver. My grandchildren should each receive one of those silver coins that belonged to their great great grandfather. But how can I make them understand what they really are, really mean? How can I make them understand that the sheer existence of each one of those dollars represents tremendous self-sacrifice and self-denial for their ancestor? How can I make them understand a time period in which a silver dollar was something truly weighty, truly to be considered, truly not to be frivolous with? How can I make them understand I am giving them silver -- but the message is gold?       c2009janPhilpot ________________________________________________ (Note: Afternoon Rocking messages are meant to be passed on, meant to be shared...simply share as written without alterations...and in entirety. Thanks, jan) Sunday Afternoon Rocking columns are distributed weekly on the list Sunday Rocking. This is not a "reply to" list, and normally only one message per week will come across it, that being the column. To subscribe send email to Check out my new novel DREAM PAINTER! It is a time-travel romance based in Middle Tennessee. Order information can be found at my author website www.Jan-Edmonds.comor my blog www.janphilpot.blogspot.com. A contest is currently in effect for readers!          Sunday_Afternoon_Rocking-subscribe@yahoogroups.com