Her son-in-law, James, a dreadlocked high-school math teacher, is holding her grandson, Jude, who has inherited her daughter's globe-shaped head, penny-colored skin, and long fingers, which he wraps around Carole's chin whenever she holds him.
Conversation spilled forth about American coins from another era -- from Indian Head pennies to Buffalo nickels to Mercury dimes.
Among the discoveries were an Indian-head penny dated 1889, slate pencils that students from the original school probably wrote with, 19th-century pottery and red bricks thought to be from the original building's foundation.
Indian-head pennies were first minted in 1858, & the Lincoln penny in 1909.
You go from mobile phone masts disguised as trees to hollow talking heads, pennies from heaven to rafts of homeless tribal artefacts.
In "To Kill a Mockingbird," Scout's reclusive neighbor, Boo Radley, leaves gifts for her — chewing gum, twine, Indian-head pennies — in the hollow of a tree; she feels guilty for never giving him anything in return.
Captain John Smith of Pocahontas fame wrote in 1624 that to provide for good officials in the American colonies "some small tax… as a Penny upon every Poll, called a head-penny" might have to be imposed.
He amiably joked with reporters this week that he found a heads-up penny on his morning jog before the Broncos game and that had not worked out.
But in the end I still didn't feel safe, so I transferred to my local comprehensive for sixth form, where weirdly I wasn't called "Shylock" or hit on the head with pennies.
