I have found so many little treasures on my daily walk as I strive each day to achieve my goal of 10,000 steps.

Yep, I log all of my paces on a skinny Fitbit wrapped around my wrist which also tells me the time of the day as well as the number that is calling my cell phone.

I discovered there are little treasures along my trek and I look forward to discovering them along my merry way. In between, I compliment the people I see and have come to make acquaintances with other walkers who, like me are lone pedestrians, or are a parent with a child in a carriage or a young couple.

Every time I find coins, however, I am reminded of a song or an old-time saying that lightens my steps and provides me with gratitude for the great outdoors.

For instance, when I find a penny on the ground think of my favorite founding father, Ben Franklin. It was that famous Philadelphian resident who philosophized “A penny saved is a penny earned.”

If I come across two pennies, I switch to a comment which may have originated in Philly or some other tough urban center. That is the street urchin that always wants to get his “two cents worth” into the conversation.

Finding three little Lincoln coins reminds me of the 100 years old “Three Penny Opera” in which Mack the Knife was born and sung about in 1960 by my favorite singer, Bobby Darin. When I find a nickel Darin sings “. . .Five will get you Ten old Mackie’s back in town.”

Ten cents is part of that song but also depicts what James Cagney would accuse a despicable comrade of being “a dirty rat” or in the more modern lingo “a dime-dropper.”

Gary US Bonds comes to mind when I discover a quarter lying on the ground. “I danced to a quarter of three” runs through my mind. I once found a twenty-dollar bill on the pavement outside of a drive-through bank. It had to have been dropped by a motorist who was a little careless with the cash. I also picked up a five-dollar bill less than a block away at a World War II monument on Conshohocken’s main street called Fayette Street.

—————-

But the greatest treasure was in learning about a photograph that my town’s weekly newspaper once used. A reporter was doing a feature story on a kid going to school for the first day. He was lined up outside Conshohocken Elementary School just a block and a half from my home as he patiently waited with other kids being led into the school by their first-grade teacher.

The photographer captured the picture of my son Nicholas standing in the line on his very first day of school. The picture ran across the entire front page and I was lucky enough to contact the publisher and get a hard copy of the pix which I framed and hung in my dining room.

While walking on Fayette Street recently I spoke with a fellow in his early 40s and thanked him for the photograph that his father had published nearly 20 years earlier. He was sitting outside Coll’s custom frame shop. I told him about the connection to my son and how I wish I could thank his father personally for taking the photograph.

“You’re welcome,” the man said. “I took the picture,” he added.

Talk about a treasure. You never know what you’re going to find when you open yourself to the little gifts in our Universe.