Balderdash. A penny saved
is not even a penny anymore. The
Canadians have stopped keeping them
in the cash register. North of the border,
they don’t even make them now.
So why do we cling so hard to our
Lincolns? Our town cars, our capitol
of Nebraska? We’ll be driving there,
later this morning, to see the original
of Breton’s painting, “The Song of
the Lark,” because it’s there, and we
wonder if it will look different, away
from Chicago. Nebraska’s bright copper Lincoln,
by any other name, would be Omaha, and
we can’t have that. They wouldn’t
know what to do on game day.
The rose garden would die, and the
sower on top of the capitol would
fall and break on the plaza, rather than
move to Omaha or Kansas City.
So yes, a penny saved means we keep
Lincoln free of suicide bombers and
global warming. Next year, and the next,
when the white pelicans and the sandhill
cranes fly over, on their way to the Platte,
let them find Lincoln as it’s always been,
worthy of our thoughts, our care, our kin.