Lee High School - Huntsville Alabama Alumni

Opening The Cedar Treasure Chest

(A Time Capsule of Memories)

Part 2

by Tommy Towery

Class of '64

This week we zoom in on three objects that were inside the box. See last week's issue if you don't know what we're talking about. One of the coins is a Mercury head dime, and the other two are what are now called "wheat" pennies. Back in 1964 they were just called pennies. At that time the older penies were called "Indian Head" pennies, before Abe came along and took top billing. Later on the Lincoln Memorial image replaced the wheat icons on the back of pennies.

I was never a serious coin collector, but dabbled in it a bit. I still have some coins in a cigar box that are more valuable than these three, but the ones in the photo above are the ones in the box, so they are the ones I'll write about. I do remember that I was always looking for a 1909 -S -"VDB" penny and a 1913 Buffalo nickle with the buffalo standing on the mound. I guess the buffalo had a better PR man than the Indian on this coin, because even though the head is the Indian, we all called them Buffalo nickles.

Like many of my friends, my first attempt at collecting coins was trying to fill those little bi-fold or tri-fold collector books that had the slots in which to place coins from each year. For ones that I did not have books in which to place them, I had some little brown envelopes that held up to a silver dollar size coin. Later I acquired some clear glassine envelopes. Perhaps someday when I have nothing else to write about I'll take out the Hav-A-Tampa cigar box which holds another part of my collection and share its contents with you.

For some odd reason, unknow to me, all three of these coins in the cedar box are dated 1944. Now that was not a significant year to me, since I was not born until 1946, so the mystery to me is why they are in the box to begin with. It must be that at the time they were put there, there was some significant association with them and an event or a person. I always liked Danny Divito's character in "Let's Throw Mama From The Train." He had a coin collection that consisted of just ordinary coins worth no more than face value. The value to him was that one coin was the change his dad gave him when they went to a movie together. Another one was the change from going to a county fair. Another was the change from going to get an ice cream. The coins were significant only to the owner because of the memories of doing things with his dad that were associated with them, and not the collector's value.

So for me, these coins must be associated with a long forgotten event or person. But do you know what? They'll stay in the box along with the other things, even if I never remember the event.

Coins are really neat. I do have a very large collection of foreign coins I got during my travels. I have no clue as to any real value of any of them, but like Danny Divito's character, I can look at them and remember, "This is the coin I got in Egypt, or Greece, or Japan." They do make honorable souvenirs that bring back memories.

I'm going out on a limb here, but am willing to bet that one or more of you classmates might be real serious coin collectors, and if so, I would love for you to e-mail me to confirm it.

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Jeff Fussell, Class of '66 - didn't have any first hand data on this.so I Googled this one. You may have already found it, but here's the story:

http://users.pullman.com/fjstevens/tokens/taxinfo.html

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Eddie Burton, Class of '66 - Tommy a little Internet research came up with this explanation of why we had Tax Tokens in Alabama. I hope it's useful. It has to do with fractions of cents.

(Editor's Note: It appears that "way back then" stores were concerned about fractions of a penny when sales tax was added to merchandise. For example, suppose the tax on a dollar was 2 1/4 percent and you only bought one $1.00 item. You would be charged $1.02 1/4 and if you rounded down the store lost that 1/4 cent. If you rounded up, you lost 3/4 cent. The federal government were the only ones that could mint coins and there were no fraction of cent coins, the state came up with these "mill" coins. The 5-mill coin was really a half-cent coin. In no short time people got tired of carrying around two types of money so the Tax Tokens went away.)

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Aaron Potts - It's strange that you would have a "tax token" in the newsletter. After my mother passes away in 2000, I found several of them in her personal possessions. Here is the way my mother explained them to me several years before she died. Her explanation was almost unbelievable. Of course she was older and I doubted her explanation but here it is.

The tax in the mid 1930's was a "mil" tax and if the tax was rounded up, it would be an unfair profit. It were rounded down then it would be an unfair tax to the seller, consequently the token was issued.

If you purchased a product and the tax was only a portion of a cent, the token was given back in change for the next purchase. Not all tax tokens were accepted in each state.There were only a few states that used the tax tokens. Tokens were made of various metals like copper and aluminum. Since the United States government is the only entity that can mint coins I always thought this was a joke. however, I checked into it and she was a lot more knowledgeable than I gave her credit for. People got tired of having to carry a different set of coins with them so they eliminated the tax token in 1961. I'll bet the penny will be the next coin to be eliminated. Before I went to college, I thought my mother was the dumbest thing next to a rock. You would be surprised how smart she got after one semester at college.

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Subject:Cedar Box

Polly Gurley Redd

Class of ‘66

Tommy,

I have no memory of the cedar chest give-away, so have decided that the company must have stopped by the class of ’66. If someone else does remember them, I must have just missed out. I do remember the silver spoons that Brombergs gave to us. That was the start of my “good silver” set that Jim and I use all the time for our meals – he thinks if you have it you should use it, so we do. I look forward to your “time capsule” stories as this unfolds and thanks for such a fabulous newsletter and all the hard work you do to keep us up to date.

(Editor's Note: I think the Cedar Box give-away went away before we were seniors. I am almost positive that the one I have was originally my mother's and I just kind of acquired it.)

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Subject:Veteran's Day

Charlie Hancock

Class of '66

I wanted to share my Veteran's Day with you and others. If you don't print it, that's OK. If you do, feel free to edit as you please.

I was invited by a Masonic Lodge Brother to ride the Masonic Float in the neighboring City of Auburn, Washington's Veteran's Day parade. The City of Auburn has the largest Veteran's Day parade WEST of the Mississippi River. The Masonic float I was on was group # 154. There were over 200 groups. Auburn is a small city. Maybe like Huntsville 50 yr ago.

I had wanted to see the parade for decades but never got around to it. Here was my chance. I was the Marine Corps Representative. (I was a Navy Corpsman that spent most of my enlistment with Marines as a Medic.) I wore my the First Marine Division cap and rode the float with Navy, Army, USAF, and USCG representatives.

People in the crowd shouted "Thank you!" to us. Several other Veterans saluted me. It was very emotional for me. Several times I had to wipe the sand from my eyes. It is exactly 180 degrees from my welcome home from Vietnam. This was a very heart warming parade for me. And the others too, although I was the only VN Vet among us.

Just wanted to share it, Tommy. Thank you kindly for your service too in the Big Ugly Fat Fellows!

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Subject:Coke and Mentos

Annette McCraney

Class of '64

Check out this link:

http://eepybird.com/exp214.html

(Editor's Note: For those that attended the 60th Birthday Bash on the mountain, this will explain what I was trying to show you in a small scale.)

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Short and Funny

submitted by

Richard Simmons

I dialed a number and got the following recording: "I am not available right now, but thank you for caring enough to call. I am making some changes in my life. Please leave a message after the beep. If I do not return your call, you are one of the changes."

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At pilots training back in the Air Corps they taught us, "Always try to keep the number of landings you make equal to the number of take offs you make."

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Aspire to inspire before you expire.

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My wife and I had words, but I didn't get to use mine.

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Frustration is trying to find your glasses, without your glasses.

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Blessed are those who can give without remembering and take without forgetting.

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The irony of life is that, by the time you're old enough to know your way around, you're too old to go anywhere.

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God made man before woman so as to give him time to think of an answer for her first question.

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I was always taught to respect my elders, but it's getting harder to find them.

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Every morning is the dawn of a new error.

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