Sometimes I miss the old half-dollar coin that used to circulate when I was a kid. It had heft. It felt like real cash in your pocket. It really was cash. If I had 50 cents in 1947, I could go to the movies five times or eat ten candy bars or drink ten cokes. It would buy five servings of RC Cola and Moon Pies. Two halves side-by-side with two Miss Liberties walking in step, looked a lot better that a paper dollar. And I'll bet they would make the new gold-colored dollar look sick. It's true that two quarters would jingle better than a single half, but it was easier to break a quarter and when the change was gone, it wasn't hard to break the other one. But if you had a half-dollar, it stayed with you a long time. You had to want something awfully bad to break one of those babies. I remember once when a lady offered me half-a-dollar to cut her yard. I jumped at it, because she had a 35 cent yard if I ever saw one. I got her old push-mower out of the shed and worked up a sweat mowing grass and thinking about that big shinny half-dollar. But when I finished, she gave me five dimes. I was almost sick. I went down the the store and asked Mr. Hadden if he would give me a half for the five dimes. He looked them over for a long time and finally said that they looked real and gave me a half. I could feel it bouncing against my leg as I walked home. It sure felt good.
Howard