2001-04-16 - 20:02 M DST

THE WONDERING JEW

TOKENS

In my boyhood our first Colorado sales tax that I know of was imposed (shoved down our throats) representing a certain per cent of a dollar. I think it went in increments - transactions amounting from zero to nine cents no tax, ten to twenty cents one Tax Token. Twenty cents to thirty cents, two Tax Tokens. Something like that.

Damn things made life a bit more complicated and inconvenient. They were coined aluminum to start with -- later went to plastic.

Good grief, even the 1800's era store Chips, saloon Chips, Hotel-bath-lady of the evening Chips all were coined metal and did have real value.

Mixed in with change in my pocket, what I actually had was deceptive. Judging by the protrusion of my pants pocket, it could be guessed one way or the other, a pocket full of a fairly large amount of change, or a fairly large amount of Tax Tokens, or a mixture of both.

I carried my key ring in my right hand pants pocket and my change in my left hand pocket.

Tax Tokens mixed with change was a ball of worms, just not as slimy. Tax Tokens mixed with a key ring would result in a shower of Tax Tokens on key ring withdrawal. Another solution was to keep both in one pocket and when a transaction was taking place to reach into the coin pocket, take the whole schmear out, plunk it on the counter and start counting.

Merchants hated them, the populace hated them, the poopulace of gassy bean counters had a field day I guess.

The present day, European VAT (Value Added Tax) seems to me to be another bean counting exploit. In any event John Q. Public pays.

I have always thought that it was a kind of dressed up, fancy, sneaky way to get in the publics pocket for the purported use for one thing and then siphoned off into some other usage, often used for some hidden purpose.

As kids, we accumulated all the Tax Tokens we could, to be used in various games and as play money. Many adult card games used Tax Tokens for chips.

They worked pretty well as shims

Some armchair genius decided one or two of them under a leg would usually make the table stable, Mabel !

They worked pretty well too, as ammunition for throwing a fit of temper, nobody got hurt and extreme displeasure could be shown by a shower of Tokens hurled at a wall or other people.

Definition of Token, on my Little Franklin key gepoken hand held wise book shows five definitions. The fifth and last one is, quote, "A piece resembling a coin issued as money or for use by a particular group on specified terms."-- (Must be a politicians definition). Two and three are respectivelly 2. Symbol, Emblem 3. Souvenir, keepsake, both seeming to me to represent the true value of the items.

In recent years, the practise by companies and organizations is to have one employee of each different ethnic group. The singles can be outnumbered and overruled by the vast majority, but the establishment can't easily be accused of discrimination.

If it were me as one of the singles, I guess "Token Honky" would be the phrase hung on me.

In the end I would rather be thought of as a citizen, rather than one of the unfairly named TOKENS . . . . . . .

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