It costs 40 cents at the toll booth at the northern-most point on the Taconic State Parkway if you’re heading downstate from Albany and only drove the I-90 spur of the New York State Thruway. I wanted quarters so I gave the man a dollar. He handed me six dimes.
“Dimes?” I asked the lone figure who obviously had few visitors. “Do you have any quarters?”
He was waiting for that.
“Didn’t you ever study history? Rockefeller gave out dimes during the depression.”
I bit and the lesson continued.
“Rockefeller would go out on the street with a pocket full of dimes and hand them out to kids. Surely you were taught that in school or your parents or your grandparents told you about that. I only have dimes and nickles – if you want quarters I have to go inside.”
I declined the offer. After a few more back and forths I told him I was grateful for the education and that I would look it up, which I still haven’t. But imagine that, a man taking money on the New York State Thruway going over and above his responsibility to change lives and educate. Now that’s change I can believe in.