A salute to the loonie

The one-dollar coin, which would affectionately become

known as the "loonie", replaced the Canadian one-dollar bill in 1987.

Source: https://www.ebay.ca/

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Today, my spouse was packing up some laundry and a loonie came flying out of one of the pockets. Not a bird but the gold coin.

It reminded me of a time when we had green one-dollar bills and the federal government came out with this outrageous idea to replace the one-dollar bill with a one-dollar coin.

The year was 1987, and I have some odd memories of that time.

A one or a twenty?
When I was a kid, often my allowance, or money from my parents and grandparents, came in the form of one-dollar bills. When I was in the States a few years ago, and my wallet seemed to be full of money, it was just bulging with one-dollar bills, and reminded me of that time when I was a kid.

The one-dollar bill was green, with Queen Elizabeth II on it. Interestingly, the twenty-dollar bill was a lighter green with Queen Elizabeth II on it. They were sometimes confused with each other, so I recall people were glad to see a coin to end that confusion. Interestingly, the two-dollar bill at the time was an orange colour and was mistaken for the fifty-dollar bill. Now we have a toonie too.

Is it real
There are several relatives in my extended family who are really funny. We were at a family gathering of relatives on my mom’s side. One of my cousins pulled out one of the new loonies and showed it to me.

“I can’t figure it out,” he said, as he used his finger nails to pull at the edge of the coin. “No matter what I do, I can’t get the chocolate out of the middle.”

I laughed,

Hidden loot
The summer of 1987 I got this job with the Lethbridge Exhibition board. When Whoop-Up Days came to town, it brought its popular midway of rides such as the Ferris Wheel, Octopus, Zipper, Tilt-A-Whirl and others.

One of the jobs every morning was to pick up litter from the grounds. The first morning, the senior guys in the crew told me to go clean up underneath the rides. It was not a popular job because you never knew what fell from the people on the rides.

So, my first stop was the Octopus. There was garbage everywhere underneath the ride. It was also assembled on top of a field that had not been mowed, so there were weeds too, which trapped more garbage.

I started picking up the debris of crumpled up cups, pop cans, chip bags, and the remnants of fair food when something shiny caught my eye. I looked down and, in the weeds, was a loonie. A little further up was another loonie. As I picked up all this garbage, I found probably ten bucks. It was like a tip.

Things only got better.

When I got to the Zipper, which literally turned riders upside down, there were dozens of coins lying around.

The next morning, when the guys said I didn’t have to do the rides again, I said I didn’t mind. I was happy to do it all week.

“Fine, suit yourself,” one of them said.

“Thank you very much,” I replied.

Busking bonanza
As that first year with the loonie went along, I heard a bunch of stories of people who were not used to the new coin. Everyone had grown used to thinking a pocket full of coins was literally pocket change, not of much value. Loonies changed that, and people had a lot more money in coins than they thought.

Consequently, people thinking they were leaving a one or two dollar tip were inadvertently leaving four or five bucks, because they thought they were just putting their pocket change on the table. The same was true of tip jars at bars.

The best example was this busker I knew. He was a balloon artist named Mike Ouchi, and he told me what happened when he went to the Edmonton Street Performers Festival, and dropped his hat for people to contribute to.

He worked away, not paying much attention to the hat until he was done for the day. When he looked down, he was disappointed because he did not see one bill in the hat.

Then he dumped it out.

It was full of loonies, and turned out to be one of his best days ever.

Parting thoughts
The loonie is now 36 years old and I think anyone would be hard pressed to find an old dollar bill. Instead, the dollar bill has gone the way of the do-do bird, the two-dollar bill, and the penny.

Yet, I can still remember when the loonie flew into wallets and cash registers across the country.

At the time, people were not too thrilled with it, and really did not like the name “Loonie”.

Yet like any change, over time it just became ingrained in every day life.

Now, there are millions who either weren’t alive before it came along, or can’t remember the time before it existed.

Every so often I still do wonder one thing.

“How can I get the chocolate out of the middle?”