ALL MEN carry specific things in their pockets, and the items and locations are as constant as the Northern Star. For as long as I can remember, I have carried my wallet in my left front pocket, and a knife, Zippo lighter, and change in my right front. The denomination of the change is always exact: three quarters, two dimes, and a nickel. And a silver dollar.
I like silver dollars. When I was little, my Aunts Tini and Ethel, and their husbands, Sam and Sol, always brought my sister and me silver dollars when they came to visit; real, silver dollars, one for each of us. I still have a stack of them in my desk, and some are very old. There is something very good and very American about European Jews with accents, whose family was gassed, kissing a five-year-old and handing him a coin from 1782. I have bought many silver dollars since, and I never feel exactly right if I leave the house in the morning without one of them. I always carry a silver dollar.
