It could be bad teeth. Most of the guys in your wallet lived before modern dentistry. I suppose they aren’t smiling because of bad teeth. Maybe they are not smiling because of the lack of indoor plumbing. Even the guys on the coins are not smiling. Perhaps they are not smiling because they need woman to join their money fraternity.
Look in your wallet. Can you find a woman in the bunch? There were times we had females on our coins, but only three in circulation now that depict women. Do you know which coins and the identities of the women? I wanted you to get up and look something up this morning. At the beginning of the 20th century, lady liberty appeared on several coins as well as the Morgan silver dollar. Something happened and lady liberty is not the symbol she once was and our money became male dominated. Still, those guys are not smiling. You would think that they would smile since what you do with them brings some measure of satisfaction and in instances happiness.
This made me think of a bit of church humor.
A well-worn one dollar bill and a similarly distressed twenty dollar bill arrived at a Federal Reserve Bank to be retired. As they moved along the conveyor belt to be burned, they struck up a conversation.
The twenty dollar bill reminisced about its travels all over the country. “I’ve had a pretty good life,” the twenty proclaimed. Why I’ve been to Las Vegas and Atlantic City, the finest restaurants in New York, performances on Broadway, and even a cruise to the Caribbean.”
“Wow!” said the one dollar bill. “You’ve really had an exciting life!”
“So tell me,” says the twenty, “where have you been throughout your lifetime?”
The one dollar bill replies, “Oh, I’ve been to the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church, the Lutheran Church…”
The twenty dollar bill interrupts, “What’s a church?”
There once was a rich man who was near death. He was very grieved because he had worked so hard for his money and he wanted to be able to take it with him to heaven. So he began to pray that he might be able to take some of his wealth with him.
An angel hears his plea and appears to him. “Sorry, but you can’t take your wealth with you.” The man implores the angel to speak to God to see if He might bend the rules. The man continues to pray that his wealth could follow him.
The angel reappears and informs the man that God has decided to allow him to take one suitcase with him. Overjoyed, the man gathers his largest suitcase and fills it with pure gold bars and places it beside his bed.
Soon afterward he dies and shows up at the Gates of Heaven to greet St. Peter. St. Peter seeing the suitcase says, “Hold on, you can’t bring that in here!” But, the man explains to St. Peter that he has permission and asks him to verify his story with the Lord. Sure enough, St. Peter checks and comes back saying, “You’re right. You are allowed one carry-on bag, but I’m supposed to check its contents before letting it through.”
St. Peter opens the suitcase to inspect the worldly items that the man found too precious to leave behind and exclaims, “You brought pavement?”
Jesus never condemned wealth, money or possessions. He talked about money more than he talked about prayer, so the subject is of spiritual significance. He warned us to be careful with our money because our money could tempt us in ways that were destructive. Maybe those guys in the wallet are not smiling because they have done harm to good people.
Those guys in my wallet were good people with good intentions for good people.. Greed is bad. who do you suggest we update their pictures with? Huey Long? Bobby Jindal? Drew Brees? lol! 😉