Time and Money

 Time and Money

Noel Laflin

9-26-21

My friend Tom would have turned 64 today.

A Beatles song comes to mind.

He was just twenty when we met, so for his twenty-first birthday, four months later, I took him out for his first official drink, as well as hid twenty-one Eisenhower dollars around our room, making him hunt each one down. They were big and shiny coins – fresh from the bank – hard to miss really – unless the coins are hidden and the hunter has had a few drinks.

“You’re getting hot – you’re getting cold.” You know the game.

The last one discovered took a while as it was atop the cuckoo clock. The clock struck a late hour when he reached out to finally, and happily, retrieve it.

Cuckoo! Then the little bird retreated and the tiny door slammed shut.

The coins were stacked and counted.

Twenty-one.

Time and money …

Both pale in comparison to an old man's youthful memories.