On those rare occasions when I find an old penny, one that’s a little tarnished and worn away on its surface, I often stop to wonder where that penny has been or whose hands have held it previously. The other day I was walking across the academic quad (technically called Eastman Quadrangle) and I found one such penny.
The only reason I even stopped to pick it up is not because I’m Jewish and have to pick up all the loose change I see (though stereotypically speaking, guilty as charged), but because it was heads up. Call me superstitious, but I do believe that heads up pennies bring the bearer good luck. In fact, if I ever see a penny that’s tails up I’ll flip it over and leave it on the ground to bring luck to the next person who spots it.
But back to the point. I found this penny from 1944 just lying on the sidewalk on the Quad, and as I held it in my hand I realized that when that penny was made, World War II had not yet ended, Israel wasn’t a state, no one knew what the Internet was, and Kanye hadn’t yet interrupted Taylor Swift on national television. In the year 1944, however, the University of Rochester stood just as sturdily as ever. In a journal that recounts the history of the university, I found this quotation on the state of the campus during WWII, “Your old college green has not been blighted by war, and the quiet Genesee still reflects the River Campus buildings, bright in the morning sun. The river changes in flood and drought, seasons and storms alter the campus elms; but the years bring a deeper channel for the stream, new height and greater sturdiness for the ancient trees of Prince Street. Like the elms, the University, in the stress of war, sends its roots deeper, its branches farther. Like the river, it continues even in the stress of war […] gathering force, along its steadfast way.”
All of this got me thinking: I’d only ever gone so far as wondering where my measly penny that was lying on the ground had been, but what about the ground on which it lied, who had walked there before me?
There is a whole hallway in Wilson Commons, the one on the third floor that connects to the tunnel system, which features numerous old photographs taken in the university’s past. You can see pictorial proof of the construction of Rush Rhees Library, the first graduating class of women, and other indications that this university has had a whole, long, interesting life before we, the four classes currently inhabiting the grounds, got here.
It always humbles me to think about walking in so many others’ footsteps, but it’s also an encouraging thought because it reminds me that I still have so much ahead of me. You know when you receive pamphlet-upon-pamphlet from universities trying to woo you into applying? There’s always some page in there that lists “notable alumni,” people who came from the college, left these ivy covered halls, and went on to make a profound impact on the world. At one point, though, those “notable alumni” were just freshmen, sophomores, juniors, or seniors, still a little unsure of what they wanted to accomplish in life, still a little hung over from that party on Saturday night, and still just regular college students.
I like to think about this, because it reminds me that I’m still at that point in my life where I have the potential to become one of those “notable alumni,” but I’m not alone if I don’t feel like I know where I’m going just yet. Relatively speaking, this is a fairly young university, founded in 1850, and the United States saw its first university founded 214 years earlier. Because of its relative youngness, I tend to forget that the university had such a rich and full past before I got here, but finding that heads up penny from 1944 was a reminder. I like to think that the luck that penny brought me was to enable me to see how many other people have come here before me and to give me some perspective.
Ironically, after I found this penny, I returned back to my dorm to catch up on How I Met Your Mother, and what should be the title of the next episode? “Lucky Penny.”
Lucky