A Memory...

Have you ever noticed that American money has a distinctive smell? I don't often carry cash, but I want to try a cash budget for a change (as a way of actually making myself stick to a budget!), so Saturday I went to the bank and brought home a couple of week's worth of expenses in cash. As I pulled those paper bills out of my purse this afternoon, I caught of whiff of a scent that immediately took me back to corn-selling season when I was a child. Our house sat at the edge of about 25 acres of fields belonging to my grandfather, and a couple of those fields were always planted with sweet corn which we would sell from the back of the pickup-truck or a tractor trailer parked by the road in front of the house. I remember "helping" sell from the time I was very small, but the summer I was 8 was the first time I was allowed to take responsibility myself for minding the sales. We used to keep coins from sales (and for change) in a muffin tin; cash and checks were taken inside regularly and kept in a tupperware type container on a shelf of the bookcase just inside the door. Those are the images that come to my mind when I catch the scent of a dollar bill. Corn-season must have been hectic from the adults' perspective, but the memories that come back to my mind are of the excitement and pleasure of being a contributing part of a family enterprise.