Bad Man

“I had no idea that John F. Kennedy replaced Ben Franklin on the fifty-cent piece,” Mary stated out of the blue.

“Yeah,” I responded, “In 1964.”

“Why?” she shot back.

“I guess because he was assassinated,” I answered.

“Well, that’s a stupid reason,” she huffed, adding “besides he was a bad man!”

She vented about how the Cuban Missile Crisis and Bay of Pigs invasion was his fault, how he escalated the U.S.’s role in Vietnam, backed a coup in Iraq, and screwed around on his wife, Jackie. I said nothing — I couldn’t disagree with her assessment.

Wait until she finds out why the Mercury-head dime was replaced in 1946 with the likeness of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.