The Strange Saga of Abraham Penny and Florence (not the actress) Henderson

[Amid the Peninsula Pulse being on the upswing for the season, wrapping up the next issue of Door County Living magazine, and my personal household relocation that seems as though it will never end, I asked my wife, Barb, what column she would like to see me reprint. After some thought, she asked me to run the column about the cricket that liked to sing in the daytime…which I couldn’t find. However, I did find the following which, like the cricket column, is a fable. Hopefully this will suffice.]

Once upon a time, not so long ago, or several years hence, Abraham Penny left his beach home for an early morning swim. The day before his doctor had explained that Abraham needed to get more exercise and had casually suggested swimming. Abraham had always enjoyed swimming, but now, as one of the nation’s leading businessmen, he seldom found time for the activity. His doctor’s advice provided Abraham with the excuse (or motivation) to make the time.

Shortly after Abraham ventured into the surf, Florence Henderson (not the actress with the same name) came walking down the beach doing her daily shell collecting. For reasons which probably don’t need any explanation, Florence preferred to go by the name Flo and on this day, as she perused the sands, she was contemplating various names which she could adopt which would thoroughly embarrass her parents. Her favorite of the moment was Ludmilla.

Glancing out over the water she noticed Mr. Penny struggling mightily to return to shore. In his exuberance, Abraham had forgotten how long it had been since he’d been swimming, as well as the precise reason why his doctor had suggested he return to swimming. He was now far from shore and as Flo watched, Mr. Penny went under.

Flo reacted quickly and, being young and rather athletic, she had little problem pulling the rather frail and aged Penny to shore. Once on the sands she immediately began CPR and thereby saved Penny’s life.

The following day, Flo was a heroine. Her picture and the story of her dramatic rescue appeared on the second page of the local newspaper and was picked up by wire services, making her a national celebrity. Penny expressed his gratitude in characteristic manner for a successful businessman, offering her a position in his firm and even going so far as to include a clause in his will pertaining to her.

Flo politely refused Penny’s job offer. In another act of rebellion against her parents she had opened her own small business specializing in body piercing and Flo’s own unique three-dimensional fingernail art (crumbled sea shells were an integral part of the art form) which she called “Nails & Nails.” His offer refused, Penny did the next best thing he could think of: he provided her with the capital to begin franchising her business. Flo’s fortune, to the chagrin of her parents, made a remarkable leap.

Abraham Penny was not nearly so fortunate. Only weeks after his dramatic rescue, Penny was in a meeting with his board of directors where he became infuriated and stormed out of the meeting. Leaving the building, still in a furor, he stepped from the curb without pausing to check traffic and was struck by a cab. Penny was killed instantly.

Flo was on a business trip, laying the groundwork for her start-up franchises, when the tragedy occurred. In the midst of the turmoil going on within Penny’s own businesses, no one thought to call Flo. Ultimately she heard the news from Dennis, who handled the body piercing portion of her “Nails & Nails” business. Of course, Dennis didn’t really like to be called Dennis, he preferred to be called Spike because he thought it was clever for a “Spike” to be working at “Nails & Nails.” Dennis/Spike also had a tremendous crush on Flo. Upon hearing the news, Flo took the next available flight home.

The days leading up to the funeral were chaotic, at best. Penny had left instructions that he be cremated, but his important friends and business associates felt that cremation did not befit a man of Penny’s stature, preferring that he be buried in a mausoleum. The argument was long and heated, but in the end, with significant input from Flo, cremation prevailed.

The evening after the service, Flo went out with Dennis/Spike (much to his delight) for a few drinks. As Dennis/Spike prattled on about various lancing techniques to minimize blood loss, Flo found her mind drifting back over the events of the past few weeks, from the time she saved Penny to the present. And the more she reviewed the events, and the more drinks she consumed, the funnier Penny’s accident became.

Much later, when she was finally able to shed Dennis/Spike and return home. She sat down at her desk and pulled out her journal. Flo was a faithful journal writer, regardless of the circumstances or whether she had anything to say. She sat for a long time trying to think how best to express the near hysterical mood she had worked (and drunk) herself into. Finally, on a whim, she wrote one line and went to bed:

“A Penny saved is a Penny urned.”