14 August 22

 Today is National Financial Awareness Day. There's no special reason related to 14 August, but it is a very good idea to "develop and instill good financial practices that will solidify a person’s current financial status" and serve into the future. My Ben Franklin tie celebrates his visage on the $100 bill. In the historical record, today is the birthday of Hans Christian Oersted (1777-1851), who was a famous Dutch physicist and chemist who wrote "View of Chemical Law" and was an early experimenter in the field of electromagnetism. The oersted is the standard unit of magnetic field strength.

10 June 21

 On this date in 1752, Benjamin Franklin did his famous experiments with a kite, a key and a lightning conductor!

14 August 19

Happy "National Financial Awareness Day"! I hope you are fully aware of your own finances. One meditation especially for today is "Anything that costs you your peace is too expensive." Yahoo!'s Finance site reports some interesting data from a recent survey of the financial habits of teenagers, reporting that 80% use cash for most purchases. My tie celebrates Ben Franklin's face on the $100 bill.

14 August 18

Today is "National Financial Awareness Day," a new-to-me annual occasion to consider how money works and how it fits into life. In our family, Beth is more "financially aware" in that she closely monitors our bank and credit accounts (and bills). I am the store-shopper, and I enjoy looking for super bargains. We have some savings, but we are not really interested (haha) in investments. Our mortgage balance is high but manageable, and we carry zero debt on our credit cards. If I get in dire straits, I can try to sell this tie for what the picture suggests!

17 January 17

Benjamin Franklin was born on this date in 1706. Read about his life at Biography.com. His face has appeared on the 100-dollar bill since 1914.

2 June 16

This is the 100th anniversary of the birth of my father, Arthur Jeremiah Kleppinger (1916-2004). The Kleppinger name traces back to Johann Christoph Klöppinger of Pfungstadt, Germany, whose son Johann Georg emigrated to the Philadelphia, PA area in 1737. Other surnames in my father's ancestry (in USA) include Schappell, Dreibelbis, Hummel, Solt, Shiffert, Kuntz, Lesher, Herman, and Best. I get hundreds of compliments for my hundred-dollar-bill tie, and I know AJK would have enjoyed it.

10 March 16

Today we're celebrating "U. S. Paper Money Day." The first official U. S. paper currency was produced on this day in 1862. Those dollar bills ($5, $10, $20, $50, $100, $500 and $1000) became known as "greenbacks" because of the green ink used for printing. There had been paper money during the Revolution, but it became so distrusted and worthless -- "not worth a Continental" -- that only coins had been minted through the federal government. Economic fears caused people to hoard the precious metal coins, and so "United States Notes" were created as a wartime commercial necessity. You can read more about the history of our money at the Web site for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, which has the unusually wonderful Internet address "moneyfactory.gov": http://www.moneyfactory.gov/uscurrency/history.html

8 November 15

On this date in 1731, Benjamin Franklin opened the first public library, in Philadelphia!

15 January 15

Wearing this tie to honor Ben Franklin's birthday, on Saturday. It also is the first of two green-themed ties, as requested by Ben Kleppinger to honor his birthday tomorrow!

7-8 September 13

My Aunt Grace York is 100 years old! We are helping her celebrate this milestone at a party today in Hamden, CT. She clearly does not "act her age," nor does she look it. She chose to have me wear my hundred-dollar-bill tie for the occasion.

24 August 13

Today I am attending a party for Mrs. Patsy Bratton, who turned 100 years old this week! Mrs. Bratton is a resident at Telford Terrace, where I have visited weekly for 13 years. Patsy has been one of my favorites, faithfully attending my "Bible studies" since she came to Telford in 2002. She always shows interest in my Sunday ties, so today I'm wearing my hundred-dollar-bill tie, proudly displaying "100"!

19 June 13

Amelia Orwick, summer intern at the Jessamine Journal, selected my Ben Franklin $100 tie for today. My son Jonathan is helping to train Amelia in the wonderful world of local newspaper journalism. For some reason he also introduced her to my tie blog!

17 January 12

Today marks 306 years since the birthday of Benjamin Franklin!

19 January 11

January 17 marks the birthday of Benjamin Franklin, in 1706. That date fell on Monday this year, which was a tie-less holiday honoring another great figure in American history, Martin Luther King, Jr. So I took today as a good opportunity to honor Ben Franklin.

16 August 09

On this date in 1841 – U.S. President John Tyler vetoes a bill which called for the re-establishment of the Second Bank of the United States. Enraged Whig Party members riot outside the White House in the most violent demonstration on White House grounds in U.S. history. Beth thought this made a great occasion for me to wear my hundred-dollar tie.

01 April 09

Ha ha ha. You probably thought I would wait until 15 April to wear my "money" tie again, but you were wrong, so happy April Fool's Day to you. This day is actually one of those days when we say "Well, it must have happened on some particular day!": BrainyHistory reports that a New Orleans businessman named Oliver Pollock invented the dollar-sign symbol on 1 April 1778. A quick look for documents to back up that claim shows that Pollock's letter to Robert Morris is the oldest known use of "$" but the dating to 1 April is unclear. The symbol seems to have been based on the letters ps in pesos, simply transferred over to "dollars."

25 September 08

The topic for discussion in Honors Seminar today is "why the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer," so I'm wearing my "money" tie.

5 June 08

Great Events in Economics apparently come in threes: Today marks

• the birthday of Adam Smith in 1723 (note: this is uncertain; other references say June 16, and some refer to the 5th or the 16th as his baptism)
  
• the birthday of John Maynard Keynes in 1883
• the end of the gold standard for U.S. currency in 1933

I discovered later that this tie repeats April 15. Oh well, go figure.

15 April 08

Time to file tax returns!