Loose change crisis fuels screw-loose thinking

“Use exact change or pay with a debit or credit card.” Say what?! I thought it was a joke the first time this year I saw a makeshift sign stating some variation on that, while I was waiting in a fast food drive-thru lane.

Perhaps the person in charge of banking for that particular restaurant had neglected his/her responsibilities, I reasoned, which had forced the drive-thru crew to take things into their own hands, hence the hastily-scrolled sign.

But then I saw a similar sign at another establishment, then another. When I shared my observations with to my kids, they shamed me for residing under a rock. Where had I been?! Surely I was the last person in the USA who wasn’t aware our country was in the middle of a coin shortage. Duh!

And as if on cue to strengthen their case, the gas station where I stopped to re-fuel had the same message on a professionally-printed sign on its door, prefaced by the phrase, “Due to the national coin shortage . . .”

Okay, okay, I get it – at least the part about our country being low on coins. But what I still couldn’t grasp was the “why” behind that predicament. Was the ongoing threat of the no-longer- so-novel coronavirus rendering them afraid of handling coins, so they just started leaving them in their coin purses and the consoles of their vehicles?  It stood to reason that if enough people started practicing that fear-based behavior, it could affect the entire country.

Still, I found it hard to believe there weren’t enough coins to go around. It was one thing to run out of toilet paper and meat during a pandemic, but coins? Surely the gods must be crazy and/or some cosmic force was pulling our legs. The problem was especially unrelatable to me, as I’ve lived my entire lifetime as an anti-coin hoarder – someone who only keeps a bare minimum of change around, just in case I have to feed myself from a vending machine, feed a parking meter, run through the car wash or emergency-use the Laundromat.

What caused the coin shortage? According to the Federal Reserve, COVID-19 pandemic-related business and bank closures have disrupted the supply chain and normal circulation patterns for U.S. coins.

A U.S. Coin Task Force has been formed to identify, implement and promote actions to address those issues. In my opinion, the group should target the folks (mostly guys), who pathologically collect change as a low-tech savings mechanism for special purchases – the guys who empty their pockets daily into their master coin stashes that are typically kept in humungous glass containers on their dressers to make the savings technique more visually reinforcing.

While there’s not a law against this, maybe there should be. I’m just saying (mainly for American fast food drive-thru customers) that exchanging coins for paper money would do everyone a substantial favor about now! Maybe the Coin Task Force members could “encourage” cooperation by raiding some bedrooms and forcing these underground coin collector criminals to cough up accumulated loose change. No biggie, what are a few more Constitutional rights infringements, anymore?!

Whether or not the change hoarders cash in coins without coercion, I’m willing to do my part to turn around our national change shortage. I will immediately stop “coining” new words and giving my two cents worth, which just might single-handedly have the power to positively affect “change.” I will substitute wishing upon a star for my former habit of tossing coins into wishing wells or fountains, especially if the going rate for the latter is still three coins to see who the fountain will bless.

Conversely, I’ll stop offering a penny for your thoughts. Either you share them for free or I’ll take a pass. And I’ll learn to welcome those I usually complain about who turn up unexpectedly, like a bad penny, because even a bad penny is better than none. The next time I get nickel-and-dimed, I’ll scoop up, quick as the flip of a coin, the remaining change and put it back into circulation, as if it’s my last red cent, which assumes someday there will again be a spare coin to flip!

Is posthumous musical intervention possible?

September 29, 2020 appeared to be like any other ordinary day. Except on that day the music world lost two well-respected performers: Helen Reddy and Mac Davis. No kidding. They were both 78.

I remember both singers well – well through the eyes of a grade-schooler. I got to watch and sing along with Davis during talk shows appearances and on country music programs my grandma viewed. I thought he picked and grinned in a way that was reminiscent of Hee Haw’s Roy Clark. The curly hair and nice guy smile made everything Davis sang sound better.

Mac Davis also had a great way of laughing at himself, which he conveyed well through the song lyric, “Oh Lord, it’s hard to be humble when you’re perfect in every way.” But the joke was really on all of us, who are prone to think too highly of ourselves.

When it came to Helen Reddy, our family readily embraced her vocal messages and thought she was “it.” My cousin LuAnn lip-synched to Reddy’s “I Am Woman” in the school talent show, while my mom bought Reddy’s “Long Hard Climb” album (a very big deal for my mother back then to splurge on an LP!). The eclectic tune mix on it ranged from the empowering “Don’t Mess With a Woman,” to the over-rhymed “A Bit Okay,” to the tender “Until It’s Time for You to Go.” I think we actually broke the record over-playing it.

Although Reddy was an Australian and Davis a Texan, they both climbed to the top of the musical charts while in their 30’s – he in country music; she in pop. In 1974, Davis was named “Entertainer of the Year” by the Academy of Country Music. Meanwhile, Reddy, building on the momentum of her 1972 chart-topping, Grammy award-winning performance of the feminism anthem, “I am Woman,” was the world’s top-selling female vocalist for two consecutive years. Women everywhere roared!

Not surprisingly, not everyone was enamored with Reddy. According to Anita Gates, in a New York Times tribute piece about Reddy, published at the singer’s death, “I Am Woman” disturbed some members of the other gender: “‘Some male observers called the song – beginning with the words, “I am woman/Hear me Roar/In numbers too big to ignore,” sung by a 5-foot-3 soprano – angry, man-hating, dangerous or all three.’” The article observed nobody regarded Frank Sinatra as similarly menacing for singing the equally self-determined lyrics of “My Way,” his signature tune.

However, coming off the tumultuous 60’s scene, many Americans seemed to respect short-haired Reddy’s clean-cut strength and directness. And they welcomed the dimpled, homespun friendliness projected by Davis. The singers were largely different as performers, yet shared a few commonalities: they both had their own short-lived, musically-centered television shows, they both appeared (separately) as guests on “The Muppet Show,” they both scored roles in movies and they both met with success singing “I Believe in Music,” which Davis penned.

That song has always held a special place in my heart. Not because it was a fantastic singalong number, but because it was one of the first songs I memorized as a requirement of fourth- and fifth-grade choir. Of course, the choir performed it slightly differently than either Reddy or Davis had, but I felt very mature singing such a widely popular song. At Christmastime, I teased for the album on which Davis sang it, but my English teacher mother denied me. She didn’t like country music, plus had trouble getting over the first stanza’s slang and double-negatives:

I Believe in Music

I could just sit around making music all day long
As long as I’m making my music ain’t gonna do nobody no harm
And who knows maybe I’ll come up with a song
To make people want to stop all this fussing and fighting
Long enough to sing along

I believe in music
I believe in love . . .

Oh, the priceless hope behind that peaceful notion. Watching the news, I wondered what would have happened if we’d posthumously holographically beamed Reddy and Davis into the center of a recent riot. Could they have musically intervened? And just maybe got everyone to “Stop and Smell the Roses.”

Church music selection might raise questions

I grew up disliking church. This was evidenced by the fits thrown each Sunday morning as I was dragged by my hair by my mother to the car, my refusal to make my First Communion at age eight, my later refusal to go through Confirmation, my sitting through Mass for years with my arms folded in protest and my pulling “stunts” (my mother’s word, not mine, for when I caused her extra vexation), including faking a temperature of 115 degrees (I overheated the thermometer attempting to prove alleged illness) and hiding in the car trunk to skip Catechism.

Why the extreme church dislike? It was being forced to do something against my will. Like mask-wearing – it was supposedly for our own good, but nobody enjoys expectations crammed down his/her throat. Secondly, my dislike of church was grounded in the hypocrisy the person taking me there never personally engaged in the church activities she insisted were so beneficial for me.

Again, I reference mask-wearing, because there’s nothing more annoying than witnessing hypocritical leaders across the board not wearing the masks they make us wear. No wonder there’s rebellion and stunt-pulling.

When I questioned such things about church, I never received a satisfying answer: just keep quiet (“Shut up, man!”) and do what you’re told. Fortunately, I never tried, let alone mastered either behavior. But I did become adept at spotting hypocritical, rule-making, Pharisee-types a mile away. Even from the trunk of a car! Quicker than you can say “sanctimonious!” That was my primary take-away from my religious upbringing.

As an adult, I found within a different denomination the fresh faith start I needed. It was grounded in relationships with people whose faith I regularly saw in action who’d invited me to attend their church. What a concept! Accordingly, I encourage other seekers not to let previous negative religious experiences prevent them from finding a different faith venue. God will greenlight it.

And because God is not only patient, but also has a wicked sense of humor, he has me back in church in the role of church musician. Each Sunday, I play piano at churches in two separate communities. Maybe it’s His implosion therapy for my childhood church aversion. He also has my children in church of their own volition – something rare in this increasingly faithless era.

Church musicianship requires practice, organization and creativity. You must follow various cues within a service and be ready to seamlessly repeat, cut in and cut out. Nevertheless, no matter how prepared or flexible you try to be, something always comes along for which you aren’t ready.

That happened when before church one Sunday the pastor said he’d decided to do a different congregational closing song: number 2279 in The Faith We Sing hymnal. Normally, that wouldn’t have been a problem; however, that week I hadn’t brought my oversized piano accompaniment book because we weren’t scheduled to sing from it. I thought, “Oh, crap!” but said nothing because I am a professional (sarcasm).

I peeked into the congregational hymnal, but it only featured the melody line and nary a chord symbol to help me with my left hand, which I recalled involved several atypical chord changes at the end.

So I quickly texted my daughter, who had stayed home (legitimately) ill from her church that morning. She texted back a photo of #2279 in my accompaniment book. I penciled in the chords above the melody line in a nearby congregational hymnal and played from it. Whew! Crisis averted.

Recently at church, I couldn’t locate the music for the recessional song I’d planned. Oh crap! What I did have in my music satchel was one of my large, loose-leaf notebooks of timeless popular hits I play from at secular piano gigs. Hmm, perhaps that eclectic collection contained a suitable song.

Some of my questionable choices were “The Entertainer,” “Brown-Eyed Girl,” “Dancing Queen,” “Crocodile Rock,” “Kodachrome,” “I Will Survive,” “Takin’ Care of Business,” Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida” and Radiohead’s “Creep.” Churchier-sounding titles included “Spirit in the Sky” and “Losing My Religion.” I chuckled and was seriously considering playing “God Only Knows” when my intended music surfaced.

Whew, my prayers had been answered, leaving my music selections unquestioned.

Murmuring makes you a part of the problem

I think I disappointed some people last week when I wrote from a place of frustration that I was tiring of my ongoing role as the go-to person for too many people. One somebody (who I have only heard whine a couple of times about being a go-to person) pointed out that God wants us to be there for others. Serving as a mentor is important, as is being mentored.  

Yeah, I know. I haven’t read anywhere in the Bible where Jesus mumbled under his breath about having to lose sleep because someone needed him to drive out a legion of demons or to heal someone medically. Conversely, when I’m faced with a huge crowd of competing expectations, I have having trouble believing my five loaves of time and two fishes of energy can adequately meet the need without at least one casualty, which typically is me.

That’s when the muttering under my breath starts. To put it less-passively (and taking greater responsibility for my behavior), I should say, instead, “That’s when I start mumbling under my breath.”

Although done mostly silently, my negative utterances center around repeating how busy and tired I am, then angrily transition into why someone else should have to do something (for a change!), before moving on to identifying specific people I think ought to step up and help, followed by internal head-shaking, teeth-gnashing and foot-stomping upon realizing for the thousandth time that won’t be happening.

I conclude my negative murmuring with a primitive growl and defeated sigh, outward acknowledgement of how hopeless I feel at being stuck taking care of too much.

Does it help? Not really, except the act of complaining and “poor-me” session lets me blow off enough steam that I can put my nose back to the grindstone for a few more rounds. I’m sure many of the more resourceful people reading this are familiar enough with such periodic grousing to add a few details of their own.

Evangelist Joyce Meyer does some wonderful shtick about it. Someone who goes even more deeply into this negative pattern is Pastor Joseph M. Stowell III, president of Cornerstone University, in his 1998 book, The Weight of Your Words: Measuring the Impact of What You Say.”

Not surprisingly, Stowell states murmuring is indicative of a critical spirit. How? It ignores God’s potential within situations and people, creates a further negative environment, encourages jumping to wrong conclusions, spawns bad judgment, leads to self-pity, breeds rebellion and pre-empts faith with fear. The end result is heightened dissatisfaction and increased discontent.

I’m going to throw out another concept that ties in with the problem of negative murmuring: beguilement. Perhaps you’ve heard the word before. If you’re like most of us, you’ve also engaged in the behavior. Stowell defines it as, “the tendency to reach a wrong conclusion and perhaps even share our false assumption with all who will listen.”

Stowell adds that the ease with which it’s possible to negatively assess and conclude things wrongly is insidious, leaving victims those who did not set out to deceive or be deceived. Interesting, although his book was written 22 years ago, Stowell’s observations remain relevant today, perhaps more so during a presidential election year. What was the first presidential debate if not a beguilement-tinged match between the major party candidates?

Beguilement and negative murmuring also have large implications not just in my relationship with God and the ways I resist His attempts to use me as His hands and feet, but for all of us – especially now during the COVID-19 pandemic and amidst our nation’s political unrest.

I was heartened by our President Donald Trump’s recent nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court. Politics aside, she seems to be calm, positive, straightforward and the embodiment of faith in action. We could use a principle-directed person who is responsive vs. reactive and takes constructive action rather than wasting time spewing misinformation and/or blaming others with opposing views.

Back to the rest of us: let’s stop and listen the next time we’re about to mutter that people are taking advantage of our strengths. Just maybe that’s why we were given them and the opportunity to serve.