I want what you're hiding, hiding out of frame

[sovay]

Today's moment of public service: explaining American dollar coins to a pair of confused young Canadians in Davis Station. Their fare vending machine had cashed out their change in a mix of Susan B. Anthonys and Sacagaweas. I was able to reassure them that the coins were real legal tender, after which they were fascinated. "You have dollar coins?" I felt useful.

I love the closing image of this interview of Jan Morris whistling "Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning." I learned that song from my grandparents. I never heard a recorded version until 2005.

Co-signed by Autolycus and Hestia: "Black cat bring good luck."

Comments

[moon_custafer]

We’ve had one- and two-dollar coins (loonies and toonies) in Canada for a few decades, and used to have to explain them to visitors from the US, so it’s possible the Canadians were just surprised their neighbours were finally following suit.

Part of that deflection has centred on her lifelong crush on the most unattainable of pin-ups: Admiral Jack Fisher, charismatic First Sea Lord of the British fleet in the Great War, a man who died six years before Morris was born.

(looks up Jack Fisher) I can see why someone might have a crush on him.

“I suppose the day will come when I cannot drive the Honda.”
I am not sure why this comment appeals; perhaps because “Honda,” at the end of the sentence, sounds so prosaic to me (we had one when I was a kid).

[sovay]

We’ve had one- and two-dollar coins (loonies and toonies) in Canada for a few decades

I've seen them in the wild! I may even still have some from 2010, like everything else in my life in a box somewhere.

and used to have to explain them to visitors from the US, so it’s possible the Canadians were just surprised their neighbours were finally following suit.

I suspect some Americans don't even know. They're in circulation—I've paid with them—but you don't see them with the frequency of bills. I've encountered them most as change from vending machines etc. I believe it is sadly no longer true that the slot machines in Vegas pay out in silver dollars.

I have occasionally encountered half-dollars in circulation and I always feel very tender toward those.

I can see why someone might have a crush on him.

I recommend Morris' biography of him, Fisher's Face (1995). It starts off by admitting frankly that she fell in love with him from a photograph in 1950 and then goes on to be unapologetically geeky about naval technology.

I am not sure why this comment appeals; perhaps because “Honda,” at the end of the sentence, sounds so prosaic to me (we had one when I was a kid).

I understand that. It sounds like the Grey Havens right up until that point.

[moon_custafer]

I believe it is sadly no longer true that the slot machines in Vegas pay out in silver dollars.

When my father was a child in the 1950s, his family did a road trip one summer that I believe took them through Vegas (?) You know, I think it must have been Atlantic City, because he mentioned finding the silver dollars mostly on the beaches. Anyway, it almost made up for his worries that people would mistake my grandfather for a gangster—which sounded absurd to me, but some years later I saw some slides from the trip, and Grandpa owned a pinstripe suit in those days which I suppose did make him look a bit sinister (actually he was a perfectly amiable clergyman in the United Church of Canada, which is roughly the same thing as the United Methodists).

[sovay]

You know, I think it must have been Atlantic City, because he mentioned finding the silver dollars mostly on the beaches.

That's a great road-trip memory to have.