WHAT'S THAT TAP, TAP, TAPPING IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD?
	When I was about fifteen or so, somewhere around 1960 our neighborhood on Ellicott Street was just alive with the sound of constant tapping. My sister said it was maddening and didn't know where it was coming from. All of us boys in the neighborhood had learned how to make a ring out of a fifty cent piece. I don't mean just a makeshift, gee gaw piece of jewelry that looked like it had been made by a teenager. It was an actual beautiful wide, silver man's band. All you needed was a fifty cent coin and a spoon. Back then there were many fifty cent pieces in every pocket and pocketbook, much like quarters today. I remember the day I realized I hadn't seen any fifty cent pieces or half dollars as they were called for a while. I hadn't realized that the government had stopped making them. I knew that the heavy silver ones that we had grown up with, the ones that we made our rings out of, had been changed to ones that had an odd sort of coppery look around the edge. I remember telling my oldest brother "These new fifty cent pieces and quarters look kind of cheep." and he said "Well, look at the dollar bill. They're only made of paper." so I guess I felt a little better. However, the original fifty cent coins or half dollars or four bits, a quarter being two bits, were about the size of a hefty Ritz cracker that had been lifting weights for a while. They were heavy and silver. They evidently were also undetectably softer than the newer ones with the coppery alloy added because you couldn't make rings from those. You'd take the original silver coins and simply hold the coin in your left hand between your thumb and index finger and start tapping the edge of it with the back of the spoon just like a convex little hammer. Tap, tap, tap, turning the half dollar all the while. You had to make sure the tapping was even all the way around. It didn't hurt the back of the bowl of the spoon. Very slowly the little ribbed lines that are found around the edge of the coin would start to smooth out and disappear. Once the lines were gone and the edge became smooth and shiny the edge started becoming wider and wider. It was a very slow process and took so much patience, more patience than you'd think teenaged boys would have and about as much patience as the adults in the neighborhood could stand. The tapping sound was constant and everywhere! It went on all summer long. As the edge of the coin widened the coin itself became smaller in circumference. When it reached the finger size you wanted you stopped tapping. You then took the "coin" to Mr. Bequette, a man in our neighborhood who had a metal shop in his garage. He'd drill a hole through the center of it. The hole was large enough so a rat tail metal file would fit through and you'd just file away all the interior unwanted portion of the ring. I made one with the date left inside, 1942, the year I was born. It was pretty cool. The rings were usually close to a half inch wide. Just polish the outside with some soft steel wool and it was a beautiful, man's heavy silver ring. You could do the same thing with a quarter and make a smaller, thinner version. Having to do with the ring, there was a couple that lived across the street from us that were my very best friends. When I worked at the Tribune I'd start to tell a neighborhood story which always included Clifford and Gracie. Actually the first painting I ever did was of her and has since disappeared from its exhibit and no one has a clue as to who took it or where it is even with extensive searching. When I'd start one of my stories I'd say to the other artists on staff "Do you know who Clifford and Gracie are?" and they'd all roll their eyes and say in unison "Yes, we know." It was like a ritual before each story. Anyway, I gave the half dollar ring that I made to Gracie and she put it on her all silver charm bracelet and after fifty-five years it's still right there and it still looks exactly the same. She said sometimes she takes it off and wears it as a ring, that it fits perfectly on her middle finger. I see it and I can almost hear the tapping all over the neighborhood. I wonder how many taps it took to make that ring. I couldn't even venture a guess. Lynn Ash