Pick Up That Lucky Penny!

Did you know there’s such a thing as Lucky Penny Day? ‘Tis true! It falls on May 23 and marks a day of revelry for those who believe in the magic and lore of the lucky penny.

What is luck? Billy Zane of Titanic fame might say someone makes their own. Some fans of a certain sugary breakfast cereal sold in a red box probably define luck as something found in some particularly “delicious” multicolored marshmallows bearing the likeness of certain Irish symbols. And if you believe in finding pots of gold at the end of rainbows, then the physical manifestation of that discovery, my dear reader, is absolutely luck — and a whole lot of it, too!

Perhaps luck is what you make of it, and if you’re anything like me you might just believe that a little good luck may be infused in something as charming as the penny — I know, I know…CENT! Of course, the majority of Americans know the United States one-cent coin as the “penny.” Besides, “lucky cent” just doesn’t have the same ring as “lucky penny,” right? Right!

You might say I’ve always believed in the magic of lucky pennies, something I feel was affirmed when I was 19 years old and desperately trying to find the tuition funds to go to college. I really wanted to start earning my first college credits in the summer of 2000 and my parents and I were looking for ways to make it happen. We didn’t want to take any loans out, yet at $75 per credit hour for my local state college, it was just looking nearly impossible — particularly given my working-class realities.

My mom, dad, and I were all working the payphones in the courtyard outside the college’s busy tuition assistance office during the first of three final registration weeks before the deadline for the summer semester. Even my little sister was doing her best to keep us thinking positively with her spirited personality.

We were trying to find some way to make it work, even if it meant charging the tuition to my parents’ credit card and then my reimbursing that over the following weeks. We were scrambling, and venturing out to the campus to speak with folks in the tuition assistance office and waiting on payphones outside were proving to be of little avail. I had begun regretting not doing a better job of planning ahead better for securing funding for school months earlier. This changed in the semesters that followed.

I was on the verge of wondering if I’d be able to enroll for the summer semester and pacing the sidewalk outside the bustling tuition assistance office when, lo, between the joints of two sidewalk slabs I saw the familiar face of Lincoln peering back at me. There he was, heads up (please spare me the pedantic rejoinder of “OBVERSE, Josh… Gosh…”) and just waiting for me to pick him up off the ground — which I reflexively did. Of course, the numismatist in me was concerned about more than just picking up a penny for good luck. I wanted to take a closer look at the date on the little coin that laid before me face up. Sure enough, there it was — the date. And, it was one of significance to me — 1981. It was the year I was born. Hmmm…

Maybe there was just a touch of dust in my tear duct, but I placed this fortuitous find in a pocket of my wallet with a certain twinkle in my eye. Was it a sign? A sign that everything would be OK? That maybe Lady Luck was going to smile on me during this frustrating saga of college enrollment?

Call it serendipity, call it luck, call it what you will. But later that afternoon, my parents were finally able to clear short-term financing with their credit union to the point of paying for that first semester of college. I had offered to pay the tuition back, but they graciously gifted it to me, allowing me to kick off my college journey just a couple weeks later. Through some overtime hours at my dad’s job, he and my mom were able to pay off their bank loan before finance charges started kicking in, and I had begun applying for honors scholarships and Pell grant funds way ahead time for the semesters that followed. It was a lesson learned on my end to say the least — and one that paid off big time. Between the help my parents provided, earning income through freelance writing, and the aid of Pell grants and honors scholarships, I completed my bachelor’s degree without owing a penny to anyone.

However, there was that one penny that I may have owed something to, or so I believe. More than 20 years on, I still have that lucky penny. I feel grateful to say that I’ve had plenty of lucky events happen since — including being able to build my career around my loves of journalism and numismatics. May a lucky penny and its good tidings find their way into your life, too.