Money seemed to disappear when I was in second or third grade. Nobody I knew had any. People talked about having money before the Great Depression; so what happened to it? I didn’t have any idea, having had no experience with it. All I knew was that my daddy worked for it and that his job was eliminated and he moved the family across the mountain to Kentucky and left me with my grandparents so that I could finish third grade.

My introduction to money was by Grandma who out of the goodness of her heart one day gave me two fresh eggs that I could trade at the store for whatever I could get for them. The eggs were worth a nickel apiece so I loaded up on candy. Eggs worked as well as money, so no big deal so long as the hens kept on laying. Well, there was a disadvantage; a body could lose his money if he dropped it.

After I rejoined my family there were no more eggs but Daddy gave me a nickel now and then. I didn’t need money and I didn’t think much about it. Daddy worked for a while at the railroad passenger station selling tickets. One night he remarked that he sold a ticket for more than a hundred dollars.

“Wow! Were rich,” I said.

“No no, son, not quite. I only sold the ticket. The railroad gets the money,” said Daddy. I still had some things to learn about money. I learned a little more when Daddy bought a bicycle for me in the middle of the depression. It cost him a week’s pay. I learned even more as I tried to earn money to attend the 1935 Boy Scout Jamboree.

I was pretty sure that the government had taken the money when people were told to turn in all their gold coins. I remember that Momma had a gold dollar. She kept it. Good for her. We could still trade our paper money for silver. Money had some intrinsic value

Unfortunately the intrinsic value was not to last. Several years later the government stopped printing silver certificates and called in silver coins, substituting cheaper alloy ones. Money changed from gold and silver to debt; IOUs that is. That made it a lot easier for the government to insure inflation and print more IOUs. Our money would be completely worthless if there were no customers. There’s a lot more I don’t know about money but I believe an egg is still worth an egg.