Daily Prompt: Buffalo Nickel

Posted on February 24, 2013 by Joe Owens

Dig through your couch cushions, your purse, or the floor of your car and look at the year printed on the first coin you find. What were you doing that year?

So the coin I found is from the year 1995. That was eighteen years ago, (fantastic math skills run in my family!), a very different time. In 1995 my mom, dad and brother were still alive, as the various bouts with Cancer each of them lost had not begun. At that time I was still working for Fingerhut, the famous mail order catalog company based in St. Cloud Minnesota.

coins

In this year I was just six years removed from my time at East Tennessee State university in Johnson City, Tennessee. I was still learning to be a new husband, with a little more than two years of practice. Also, I became the father of my first child in 1995. It was a huge year for this reason alone.

I have always loved being around children. My neighbor, Minnie Bryan was a “day care mother”, as she put it and she always had lots of kids at her house during the summer. I was the first child she kept and my son was the last before she became unable to do this anymore. Over that thirty year span I got plenty of opportunities to build special relationships with many children. Several of them are good friends to this day.

No relationship built during that time however is nearly as special as the one with either of my children. My son, Isaac, changed my world forever, giving me that special link to a child I had craved for years. I had the chance each Saturday morning to be one on one with my son and my daughter when she followed three years later due to my wife’s job as a cosmetologist and her Saturday work schedule. I never felt unprepared and actually cherished this time to get to know my children.

This year was the last I knew with my family as a whole. The next year my younger brother was diagnosed with Colo-Rectal Cancer at age twenty-nine. By January of 1997 he was gone. My dad followed two years later and my mother eleven years after that. This year that is printed on the penny I found was one of the last really great years before my family was forever changed.

Other Buffalo Nickel Posts:

About Joe Owens

Can you tell from my writing I love God? I hope so because that is what I want you to know most about me. I am also a writer who loves taking on fiction prompts and crafting a story. One day you will read my work in print. Until then enjoy it here! For free!
This entry was posted in Blogging, Daily Prompt, Family, Writing and tagged , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

11 Responses to Daily Prompt: Buffalo Nickel

← Older Comments

  1. Pingback: Daily Prompt; Buffalo Nickel | tnkerr-Writing Prompts and Practice

← Older Comments

So you took time to read what I wrote and I appreciate it, but comments are even better!