Where's George Hits the Rails

Some of my fellow 'Georgers' do an annual Amtrak trip from NY to California. This year's trip featured a layover in Chicago, so I decided to meet with them.

Turns out, before they left Penn Station in NYC, a few of the folks I would meet were interviewed about the hobby by NPR:

When you hear the words "social network" you probably think of Facebook or Twitter. But years before either of those websites — when most of us weren't using the Internet at all — a smaller, stranger community was emerging around something called WheresGeorge.com, a 15-year-old subculture that's dedicated to the $1 bill.

At Kabooz's Bar and Grill at New York's Penn Station, Jennifer Fishinger is covering her table in stacks of ones. There are 500 $1 bills laid out.

At the next table over, David Henry has his stacks of cash in plastic bags. They're paper-clipped $1 bills in groups of 10.

Not just the $1 bill. I get some grief at home that there should be a Where's Abe? site for $5s, etc. Sorry, that's not my call.

We ended up at Giordano's Pizza, home of one of the True Chicago Style Pizzas, and David had a little ambivalence going in, as a New Yorker with pride in his local pizzas. Turned out he really enjoyed the stuffed pizza, and was a little sheepish in admitting he enjoyed it more than NY's thin crust offerings.

Good fun, good people. Be sure to check out the video attached to the NPR article. Most fascinating to consider the flow of money as relates to human movement. I can tell you from my own county hit map- the money moves along the Interstate Highways. Now, if considering epidemics in the future and how we can expect them to spread, yes, I would consider getting away from a county with an Interstate in it. Naturally, I live within two miles of an Interstate exit.

Do They Owe Me A Hobby?

Of course they don't. I'm speaking of $1 bills in particular. One of my geek hobbies is Where's George? No doubt you have received a bill with some Where's George markings on it, directing you to that website so that the movements of that bill can be tracked, for kicks and giggles.

In some of the budget cutting talks this year, the discussion turned to eliminating the $1 bill and replacing it with a $1 coin. This makes a lot of sense. Coins are vastly more durable than paper money. Did you know the average $1 bill only lives about 18 months? Over the long run, the cost savings are enormous- $5.6 billion over 30 years. This makes it worth doing.

But, but, but.. my hobby! Well, screw that. Nobody owes me a hobby. Where's George will as easily become "Where's Tom?" as $2 bills become the new smallest paper denomination, or, "Where's Abe?", as the public doesn't generally like $2s.

I'm fond of pennies, but there's really no good reason to continue minting them. I like riding trains, but that doesn't mean I support subsidies to Amtrak. Etc. I don't expect the entire country to spend foolishly just so that I may continue to enjoy a hobby as I know it today. My whims just aren't that important.

So, if the $1 should fade into history, I'll be glad of it overall. I'll smile at the cost savings to my country, and adjust my bill stamping habits accordingly.