Where’s George?

It’s a freezing cold and rainy day here in the Inland Empire, but no complaints because the power is on.

Fortunately, when I was out and about yesterday, I stopped by the market. Didn’t get much, basically shopping for two days at a time these days, as I’m still not ready to trust the power to stay on.

Any rate, I’m not so desperate for anything that I have to head out in the rain today, but tomorrow is a workout day and who knows what we’re in store for.

So, snug as a bug in a rug today, I’m avoiding depressing news, catching up on recorded TV programs and working on that never ending needlepoint project.

Please tell me I’m not the only one to remember how, back in the day, we’d track dollar bills by serial number, as the bills circulated across the country through a site called Where’s George.

If this doesn't sound familiar to you .... In the late 90s early 2000s, when the internet was fairly new, Where's George was a game that involved dollars stamped with the message "currency tracking project/track me at WheresGeorge".

If and when one of those stamped bills came into our possession, we’d go to Where’s George, check to see if the serial number on the bill was listed and, if listed, we’d input where in the country we’d found it, then send it back into circulation to travel elsewhere, be found by someone else.

It was just a fun thing to see how far the bill would travel.

Although the game started with tracking the trail of dollar bills with the specific message "currency tracking project/track me at WheresGeorge", it caught on and people began writing other messages on the bills — none of which I can recall, except it became something like the message in a bottle craze.

Thinking back, I'm not at all certain it was legal to write on/deface money, but it was done.

Looks like it's still being done because, when I went to pull cash out of my fanny pack to pay for groceries yesterday, I found a bill with a message.

We love you Mac

It's a $20, rather than a $1 bill, but I nevertheless looked for the old Where's George site, found it's still up.

Not only is the site still up, it appears to be active with stats showing where and under what circumstances the bills listed came into the finder’s possession, like "I got it the Brookdale Dollar General, Got in a McDonald’s as change, A gift for a holiday in a card, Arcade Bar in Lincoln Nebraska, Received in change at a gas station in Vermont", so on and so forth.

So, anyway, the $20 I’d gotten as change somewhere in my goings was, of course, not listed as only $1 bills are, but Where’s George looks like a fun thing to bring back in these troubling times.

Maybe I should log in my $1 bills, write on them messages — such as "Have faith" …… "This too shall pass" and other such messages of hope, send into circulation with instructions to "track me at WheresGeorge", see where they land.

As for whoever this Mac guy is, my guess is he's not worthy because, had I written such a message, I'd have expected the guy to treasure the bill, frame it even.