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Sam Borden
ON NOV. 12, the United States Treasury Department shut down its 232-year run of producing pennies. This wasn’t a big deal to me (and I’m almost certain wasn’t to you). Most people don’t think about pennies that often and use them even less, which is precisely why the government stopped making the coins in the first place.
The gripes about pennies are familiar: There’s no such thing as penny candy any more. Many stores won’t even take them. They cost four cents to make but only have one cent of value. They’re annoying.
Essentially, pennies are worth nothing.
But before you forget about them entirely, consider this:
What if they’re worth everything?
DALE EARNHARDT SR. was stressed. It was Saturday, Feb. 14, 1998, the final day of practice before the Daytona 500, and Earnhardt’s car was having problems. An engine issue. His team was debating whether to swap in one of the backups, but with less than 24 hours until the race, there was no consensus. Only anxiety.
This was standard for Earnhardt at Daytona. Despite being the biggest star in NASCAR and an all-time legend, Earnhardt had never won his sport’s most famous prize. Can you imagine if Tiger Woods accomplished everything he did except he never won a single Masters? That was Earnhardt. It wasn’t just a glaring hole in his legacy; it was the only hole.
It didn’t help that he had lost the 500 in what seemed like every way possible. He had finished second four times. He wrecked. He had equipment fail. In 1986, he was charging toward the front and ran out of gas with three laps to go. In 1990, he ran over a piece of debris on the final lap and blew a tire to lose the lead at the wire. In 1991, he hit a seagull, and no, that is not some kind of NASCAR euphemism; Earnhardt literally collided with a low-flying bird, muddying his car’s aerodynamics, before later crashing. Nineteen previous starts in the Daytona 500, 19 heartbreaks. The engine trouble on that Saturday in 1998 felt like the beginning of No. 20.
So, yeah, Earnhardt was a little edgy as he left the garage’s main area and walked toward a small conference room. His longtime adviser, JR Rhodes, was alongside; everyone else on the team kept working on the car.
A handful of children greeted him in the conference room. They were Make-A-Wish kids. Earnhardt put on his best face and was gracious. He squatted down to be at the same eye level as the children as he talked to them, then popped back up to shake hands with the parents. He gave them his attention in addition to his time.
Near the end, he came to a little girl. Her name was Wessa Miller. She was from Kentucky. She was 6 years old and had been born with spina bifida, a condition where the back doesn’t form correctly, leaving the spinal cord and surrounding nerves exposed instead of covered. In the hospital, doctors told Wessa’s mom, Juanita, it was the worst case of spina bifida they had ever seen and it wasn’t likely Wessa would survive long enough to go home. Six years later, Juanita and her husband, Booker, were treating each day with Wessa as a gift. Wessa was paralyzed from the waist down, had a shunt in her head to reduce fluid and was in a wheelchair. Earnhardt kneeled next to her.
Wessa loved Earnhardt. Juanita had grown up rooting for Darrell Waltrip, but Booker was born the exact same day as Earnhardt — April 29, 1951 — and followed him closely. Wessa would sometimes say, „I’m Dale Earnhardt!“ as she played with a toy car. She was dutiful about watching his races.
Wessa and Earnhardt talked for nearly 15 minutes. They giggled. Then Wessa said, in her slow, syrupy speech, that she had something to give Earnhardt. She pushed her tiny hand into his. He looked down. It was a penny. A lucky penny, she said.
„What’s this for?“ Earnhardt asked. People would sometimes give him cards or pictures to autograph, but no one had ever given him a coin. He was confused. „What’s this for?“ he said again.
„That’s for you,“ Wessa told him, „to win the Daytona 500.“
IT SHOULD BE SAID: Earnhardt was not a deeply superstitious man. He had a couple of hoodoos like most drivers — peanuts anywhere near a race car were verboten, and Earnhardt steadfastly avoided $50 bills because, it was said, an old-time driver died in a crash with two of them in his pocket.
But beyond those, Rhodes told me, there wasn’t much. That was why it was so surprising to Rhodes that Earnhardt, after leaving Wessa and walking out of the conference room, looked so determined.
If a fan handed Earnhardt a gift — whatever it was — he’d usually just pass it to Rhodes. This time, though, Earnhardt squeezed Wessa’s penny in his fist and headed immediately for the garage.
Jerry Hailey, who worked on Earnhardt’s crew, figured Earnhardt was hurrying back to rejoin the conversation about what to do with the engine. But Earnhardt blew past everyone and started rifling the shelves. „I remember he was like, ‘I need glue,'“ Hailey said.
Ron Otto, another crew member, grabbed a bit of epoxy and began mixing it for Earnhardt, but Earnhardt didn’t want to wait. He snatched a tube of yellow Gorilla Glue, took it over to the car and tried to stick the penny to the dashboard.
„And this stuff is stringy and it’s everywhere,“ Hailey said. „It’s all over his hands, all over his gloves. When he pulled his hand back, the penny came off. So he’s like, ‘Give me some more glue,’ and he puts it back on there.“
Hailey laughed. „You can still see his fingerprint on it,“ he said.
JUANITA SAYS THAT, originally, Wessa was going to be named either Lynetta Jo or Joetta Lynn. She and Booker just weren’t sure. But Booker had an uncle everyone called Uncle Wess and, shortly before Juanita gave birth, Uncle Wess died from a heart attack. Juanita knew how much Uncle Wess was looking forward to having a new grandniece, she said, „so I just came up with Wessa after he passed. Truthfully, it’s a made-up name.“
Wessa was born at Pikeville Medical Center, but immediately after delivery, doctors told Juanita they weren’t equipped to try to save a child with this level of spina bifida. She was transferred to the University of Kentucky hospital in Lexington, almost 150 miles away. Juanita had never heard of spina bifida; she just knew something was very wrong with her baby.
„They told us when she was born she’d never be nothing but a vegetable,“ Booker said. „I said, ‘OK, this is how I feel about it: You tell me she’s not going to live, I’ll take her home and bury her if she dies. And if she does live, I’ll take her home and take care of her. But we’re going to try.“
At UK, there were tests, so many tests. Unlike most babies, Wessa couldn’t lie on her back, so she was always on her stomach. No one could hold her. Every time surgeons tried to close her spine, brain fluid would drain and the covering would burst open again. Juanita and Booker were told to call loved ones and have them come to the hospital more than once because doctors expected that Wessa was about to die. Juanita took photos of everything, no matter how jarring and graphic Wessa’s wounds were, because, she said, „I knew it was all I would have.“
Even after Wessa survived five surgeries and was discharged from the hospital after three months, no one expected a day might come when Wessa would be 6 years old and attend the Daytona 500. Specialists told Juanita and Booker that Wessa would live a year, maybe two. When they linked up with Make-A-Wish for the trip to Daytona in 1998, Juanita and Booker told each other how lucky they were to have even made it this far with their daughter. As they talked with Wessa before making the 750-mile drive from Kentucky, Juanita clearly remembers asking Wessa whether she had anything she wanted to bring to her favorite driver so that he might always remember her.
„She kept saying, ‘I want to give him a penny,'“ Juanita said. „I don’t know why. She just kept saying that’s what she wanted.“
Booker and Juanita handed over a penny. But over the course of the drive through Virginia and Tennessee and the Carolinas and Georgia, Wessa — as little girls often do — dropped it in the car and lost it. Booker and Juanita gave her another one and, well, she lost that one too.
So, they gave her a third. (This was back when change was in everyone’s cup holder.) Wessa managed to hold on to that one until Saturday afternoon in the conference room, and Juanita has always loved that it ended up that way. She likes the symbolism, likes that the coin Wessa gave Earnhardt was actually her third lucky penny.
Why? Because of Earnhardt’s car number.
The No. 3.
EARNHARDT CRIED WHEN he won the next day. His nickname was „The Intimidator,“ but even he admitted that, as he circled the track on the last lap, „My eyes watered up.“ Sitting with her parents on the backstretch of the oval, Wessa’s emotions were overflowing, too.
„I think they both got their wish,“ Juanita said. „She got hers and Dale got his.“
In that moment, the Millers had no idea Earnhardt had glued the penny to his dashboard. They only knew what they had seen: Earnhardt leading for 107 laps including the last 61. Earnhardt zooming his car inside and outside, squeezing into tiny gaps like they were freeways. Earnhardt somehow avoiding all the bad breaks and unlucky moments that had dogged him for two decades as 185,000 fans went delirious with joy.
Juanita and Booker loved it. Their little girl had been able to go to a race and see her favorite driver finally win the trophy that meant more to him than any other. They screamed as Earnhardt did a doughnut on the infield in celebration. They shouted as dozens of men on the other teams’ pit crews climbed over the retaining wall to clap for Earnhardt and congratulate him.
Then, as Earnhardt headed inside to talk to the media and celebrate some more, they headed toward the track exits. There was more to do. They wanted to take full advantage of their trip, unsure how many more there would be.
„We drove to Disney World,“ Juanita said. „Wessa wanted to meet Mickey, too.“
ONE CHILLY MORNING last month, Juanita made ham biscuits. She wrapped the biscuits in paper towels and handed them out as she chattered to me and Booker about Thanksgiving and their grandson who has a sniffle and the construction on the road that winds past their slender, one-story house in Phyllis, a sliver of a community tucked into the Cumberland Mountains of eastern Kentucky.
Then Juanita turned to her daughter.
„Wessa,“ she said. „Do you need anything?“
Wessa smiled and shook her head. „No, Mama.“
Wessa is 34 years old now. Thirty-four. The doctors still tell Juanita they can’t believe it. Wessa has had 22 more surgeries over the years, and her health is, as Juanita put it, „up and down.“ When Wessa was 10, she began having seizures and was diagnosed with epilepsy. At 12, she was diagnosed with a Chiari malformation, a condition where brain tissue extends into the spinal canal — a condition that Juanita said affected Wessa physically but also cognitively, impacting her memory and attentiveness.
Now, Wessa swallows a dozen pills and watches as Juanita changes her catheter four times per day. She averages one or two epileptic seizures each week, episodes that are sometimes frightening, her body locking up as she tips back in her chair. In a recent procedure, she had most of her teeth removed because of issues with her mouth and gums. Lately, her shoulder has been bothering her. „Mama,“ she whispered as Juanita cleaned up the biscuits. „It hurts.“ Juanita got her an Advil and rubbed her arm.
Juanita and Booker still take the same approach with Wessa as they always have: They do things right up until the moment she can’t anymore, and they revel in all of it. Juanita’s photo books overflow: Wessa going to grade school and high school and sitting in her chair with a sash and a tiara because she was voted homecoming queen one year. Wessa at her cousin’s football game. Wessa lying on a dolly next to Booker as he works on a car. „She’d get up there and help me change the oil,“ Booker told me. He was proud.
Wessa’s speech can be slow and halting at times, but her mind is sharp. She remembers names and dates and faces better than most. Juanita is sometimes still surprised in the mornings when she comes into Wessa’s purposely darkened bedroom to help her out of bed and Wessa will already know whether it’s a nice day out. „She tells by how much light comes in under the crack in her door,“ Juanita told me.
Wessa’s laugh is contagious, too. Years ago, on their first airplane flight to visit Juanita’s family in Florida, Wessa was stunned by how high in the air they were and turned to her grandmother as the plane rose above the clouds. „I said, ‘Grandma, where’s Jesus at?'“ she said through a grin. „She told me, ‘Honey, you have to go far beyond to see him!'“ Booker and Juanita roared.
Wessa’s room is filled with posters and pictures and cards and knickknacks. Most have to do with her family, Earnhardt and other NASCAR drivers, or the Bible (her bedspread has the verse from John 3:16 on it), as well as — of course — pennies.
Earnhardt mentioned Wessa’s lucky penny being glued to his dash in his postrace comments in 1998, and it was the beginning of a true connection between Wessa and Earnhardt. He invited the family to a race at Bristol Motor Speedway a month later, then told them he wanted to meet them at one of his car dealerships, where he gave them a new van to help them take Wessa to all her doctor’s appointments. Wessa picked a blue one. „My favorite color,“ she says.
Even after Earnhardt died in a crash in 2001 (Wessa went to the funeral), the story of her penny kept growing in NASCAR lore. Fans sent her Earnhardt shirts or hats or pictures as gifts, not to mention handfuls of pennies. Strangers dropped by the house and left No. 3 jackets or sweatshirts. David Poole, a longtime reporter for The Charlotte Observer who wrote about Wessa and became a family friend, started a charity, Pennies for Wessa, that raised enough money to replace the Earnhardt van once it conked out after nearly 200,000 miles. When Poole died in 2009, Wessa went to his funeral too.
In 2018, Juanita and Booker took over a classic country store located right next to their house in Phyllis. They called it Wessa’s, and the sign out front proclaimed it, „Home of the Lucky Penny.“ There was an „Intimidator“ burger on the deli menu — three half-pound patties plus Swiss, bacon and barbecue sauce — as well as „Wessa fries,“ which came with cheese, bacon bits and ranch.
Sometimes, as a joke, Juanita put a giant cardboard standup of Earnhardt in the restroom to surprise customers („Wessa would laugh,“ she said), and as she showed me the store and we walked past the ice cream freezer, Juanita stopped at the cash register near the front door. The register was on top of a counter, and you could see a picture beneath the glass of Wessa and Earnhardt from that first meeting in the conference room. Pennies surrounded the photo, hundreds of them that customers had left, creating a sort of beautiful, copper-colored mural that stretched the entire length of the cabinet.
„We have a different outlook on pennies,“ Juanita told me. „It was always, heads up, pick it up, tails up, leave it down. But then I seen a thing that said, ‘Pennies was a blessing from heaven,’ and I thought, boy, that is true. So even if it’s tails up, I still pick it up.“
JUST A FEW months ago, Juanita and Wessa loaded the van and drove to the Richard Childress Racing Museum in Welcome, North Carolina. Earnhardt’s car from 1998 is on display there, and Juanita lifted Wessa out of her chair so she could peer inside. She saw the harness and the switches and, also the pennies that visitors flip through the window onto the driver’s seat as a sort of 425-horsepower wishing well. She saw her penny, still stuck to the dashboard, just below the steering wheel.
„I thought it would have already fallen off,“ Wessa exclaimed, and Juanita shook her head and held her closer. Some glue is strong.
The Millers don’t take as many trips as they once did. In addition to Wessa’s health demands, Booker retired from working in the coal mines after 47 years and is enduring constant lung issues, while Juanita came through her own thyroid cancer and now spends most of her days taking care of everyone else. She closed the store two years ago so she could help her mother, who has dementia.
Juanita relies on Wessa, who is devoted to Facebook and spends hours on her phone each day, to keep her updated on what’s going on in the world. Weather, war, politics — whatever comes across her feed. But when stories about production of the penny being stopped were all over the internet for a day, that news rippled differently. How could it not?
Dale is gone. David Poole is gone. The penny is nearly gone.
Wessa is still here.
She isn’t mad about what we all think about the penny. She gets it. She just sees it differently. When I told her I had a gift for her and offered her a penny that I had brought from home, her face lit up. She reached into her pocket.
„Pennies,“ Wessa whispered to me, „are the best thing ever,“ as she pushed one of her own into the palm of my hand.
