Finders Should Not Be Keepers

Now:

I am amazed by the number of coins I find on the road when I go running. I wonder if these coins just fall out of pockets or do people drop them intentionally. Most often these coins are pennies. If the penny lands heads up I always pick it up for good luck. If it is tails up, I flip it over for the next person to pick up the good luck. If Shannon is running with me she likes to pick up the pennies after I have flipped them over. She says that I am passing the good luck on to her. Dimes, nickels, quarters, heads or tails, I pick them up. I have a special jar that I put these coins into and they don't add up to much, but they make me think about the people who dropped them and the people who will pick up the pennies I left behind. I say a little prayer for them that God will protect them when they are walking or running on the road.

Then:

When my children were little, but old enough to know what money was, if we were in a store and they found a coin on the floor, I would always make them take it to the owner or manager. They didn't like that. I told them that the store belonged to the owner, therefore the coin did also. I explained that if they had a friend over and their friend found a coin on the floor of their bedroom, they would not expect their friend to keep it. They would expect their friend to give it back to them. Reluctantly, they would take the coin to the owner and explain that they found it on the floor. Most of the time they were rewarded for their honesty by the owner as he or she would thank them for being honest and then allow them to keep the money. However, this did not always happen, and those I think were the best lessons. My goal was to teach my children to do the right thing whether it came with a reward or not. I wanted them to learn that the best reward was in knowing that they had made a good choice. Judging by the terrific adults they have become, I think they learned that lesson. Hmmm, who would the coins on the road belong to?

The Snake Charmer

Now:

The other day as I went for my morning run I spotted this snake, okay it's a stick, in the field. Let me tell you, it stopped my heart for just a second. I really did think that it was a snake. I could see the mouth and the eyes, then the logical part of my brain kicked in and told me that it was a stick - a big stick, but just a stick. Yet, everyday for a couple of days, that stick stopped my heart.

Then:

Halloween 1996 - first grade - Rick, who never liked Halloween, picked out a snake charmer costume from a magazine. No, this wasn't a catalog, this was a magazine, you know the ones with the wonderful "homemade" costume ideas. So, I show it to Gary and he says that he thinks we can make this one together - with Ricky too, of course ... So Gary gets the tubing and I get the felt and the three of us spend a couple of evenings putting the snake together. An afternoon of shopping finds the cargo shorts - which weren't popular at the time - and the other gear. Halloween day I go to the school for the Halloween Parade. The girls come out of the school in the parade one by one - - - no Ricky. I start asking around, "Where's Ricky?" Finally, one of the teachers tells me that she thinks he is in the nurse's office. I go into the school and lo and behold he is sitting in the nurse's office crying. The school nurse tells me that as soon as the Halloween Parade music started he froze like a deer in headlights, then he started crying. He wanted no part of Halloween - nothing had changed since he was three. (Remember Lili?) So, I took him home where he had great fun handing out candy to the very few kids who traveled up our driveway to trick-or-treat. The snake, however, became a decoration in Rick's room, as it sat draped over his dresser for several years. He never liked Halloween and he still doesn't. His sisters, for years to come, would go trick-or-treating and then share their candy with him. Sometimes they even took an extra pillow case and collected candy for him too. Sounds like a good deal to me. Smart kid, huh?