For the Lore of Money

It would have to be money. READY MONEY. We can't live without it and many who have it, cannot live with it. Ready money is cash up front. It is money ready for immediate use. Cold, hard cash. No myth about that.

In 344 B.C., Lucius Furius built a temple which was dedicated to Juno Moneta. To this temple was attached the first Roman mint. The coins which were struck there were called moneta from whence comes our word money.

Greece and Rome struck coins which bore the imprints of their deities and festivals. But all cultures did not use struck coinage. Some used bartering for the exchange of goods. A few items popularly used for barter were shells, pearls, hides, beads, clothing, tobacco and alcohol. Anything of value to exchange served as payment. Bartering is still used today in some cultures.

Every country has unique and popular nicknames for their common coins and sums of money. In the United States of America a penny is a copper or a Red Indian; a nickel is 5 cents; a dime is 10 cents; a quarter, twenty-five cents or two bits; a half dollar is 50 cents or four bits; a silver dollar is a cartwheel or smacker; ten dollars is a sawbuck; one-hundred dollars is a century; five-hundred dollars a monkey and one-thousand dollars is a grand or a G.

Prior to my marriage, I threw pennies in the trash can because I could see no use for them. My husband taught me that five pennies make a nickle. (Of course, I knew that). Instead of tossing coppers, I was forced to started saving them.

Money is funny. It takes money to make money. It also does strange things to people. Money for me says one thing--freedom. Money makes the mare go. One can do anything if only he has the money.