Copper: The Lifeblood of Lincoln

30 Minus 2 Days of Writing (2013)
Day 12: “The day I met Abraham Lincoln”

---

Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president of the United States of America, is a towering giant of history who demands respect. Why then, I ask you, have we Americans placed his face on the one cent penny, the smallest and most disposable denomination in our currency system? I mean seriously, is there a more disappointing sight than Lincoln’s face shown in side profile on a field of copper? One would think that Lincoln deserves so much better than to have his legacy tarnished by junk currency.

Why did it have to be Lincoln on the penny as opposed to someone like George Washington? Washington is on the one dollar bill, which kind of makes sense since he was the first president of the United States. Why couldn’t we have just extended the numerical chronology and also placed Washington on the one cent penny? That would have been logical enough. But of course nothing in this world ever makes sense, and now we have Abraham Lincoln on the penny, and also on the five dollar bill for some reason. As far as coins go, you’d think they would have put Lincoln on the five cent nickel to match the five dollar bill, but that honor was reserved instead for Thomas Jefferson. Don’t ask me what that’s about.

So let’s do some math to give this whole currency thing some historical perspective. If Washington is on the one dollar bill, and Lincoln is on the penny, then it takes one hundred copper Lincolns to equal one Washington. If there are five Washingtons in a five dollar bill, then it takes five hundred copper Lincolns to make a fiver. Got that? Five hundred pennies equals one five dollar bill. If you could consider a five dollar bill to be one proper unit of Abraham Lincoln, then that means our sixteenth president must have once been comprised of five hundred units of copper-colored “lesser-Lincolns”.

I imagine Abraham Lincoln’s atomic makeup was something akin to that of the iconic video game character, Sonic the Hedgehog, whose life force and vitality depended on the acquisition of golden rings.

For those of you in need of a refresher on the game mechanics of Sonic the Hedgehog, I submit to you the following blurb from the game’s Wikipedia article:

“One distinctive feature of Sonic games are the collectible golden rings spread throughout the levels. This gameplay device allows players possessing at least one ring to survive upon sustaining damage from an enemy or hazardous object; instead of dying, the player’s rings are scattered . . . . When the rings are scattered, the player has a short amount of time to recollect some of them before they disappear.”

How is any of that stuff about Sonic the Hedgehog relevant to Abraham Lincoln, you ask? Well, the way I see it, Lincoln’s material constitution depends on an ample supply of copper coins. Pennies are Lincoln’s life force, much the same way that golden rings are the life force of Sonic the Hedgehog. I imagine that Lincoln, much like Sonic, used to burst into a frenzied cascade of small, shiny round objects whenever he sustained damage from an attack on his life. Also, just like Sonic, once Lincoln ran out of his life-preserving currency, one additional blow would end his life forever.

Sadly, on that fateful day of April 12, 1865, Abraham Lincoln was in woefully short supply of copper coins when John Wilkes Booth shot him in the head. Booth shot Lincoln once from behind with a .44 caliber Derringer. Pennies flew everywhere in a violent fit of chaotic abandon, fluttering, and clinking, and sparkling in a terrifying, yet strangely beautiful bouquet of haphazardly flying pennies. Then Booth finished the job with one fell pistol whip to the back of Lincoln’s distressed head, ushering in the president’s final Game Over. The president had no more extra lives. There were no continues.

Abraham Lincoln was not a perfect man, nor a perfect leader, but he exemplified greatness in his own extraordinary way. If I had a stovepipe hat, I would gladly tip it in Mr. Lincoln’s honor. But I don’t have a stovepipe hat. For now, the best I can do is to polish the handful of tarnished pennies clinking in my back pocket, and to reflect on Abraham Lincoln’s shining legacy, gilded with timeless shades of copper, liberty, and equality.

30 Minus 2 Days of Writing (2013)
A painful exercise in forced inspiration brought to you by
“We Work for Cheese“