NEW BOOK: FOLLOW THE MONEY: A MONTH IN THE LIFE OF A TEN-DOLLAR BILL

When author Steve Boggan decided to fulfill a life-long ambition to follow a ten-dollar bill across the U.S, it took him on an epic and inspiring journey. Here, he tells his incredible story which has now inspired a book.

Two days ago, I was in Kansas, yesterday it was Somewhere-ville, Missouri, so today … it must be Hot Springs, Arkansas, the place where Bill Clinton grew up.

Not for the first time in the past few days, I ask myself: ‘What on earth am I doing?’

Welcome to a typical morning during the weirdest and most wonderful time of my life, 30 days and nights when I fulfilled an ambition that had been gnawing away at me for years: to follow a ten-dollar bill across the United States of America for a whole month.

Bonkers, I know. Pointless, possibly. Chaotic, definitely. But it took me on an epic journey into the heart of an America I never knew existed.

I gave away the bill – serial number IA74407937A – and followed as it wheeled across the Great Plains and fizzed through bustling cities, passing from person to person in a great human relay across 3,300 miles, through Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana and, finally, Michigan.

On the way, it introduced me to farmers, truckers, musicians, missionaries, bankers, nurses, army veterans, bartenders, car workers, deer hunters and many others, people who took me into their lives, fed me and gave me a bed for the night.

They made me welcome and demonstrated levels of kindness that left me humbled. They made me laugh and cry, got me drunk on booze and excitement, and held on to me for longer than was entirely necessary out of sheer generosity.

And they did all this because of a piece of paper bearing the image of Alexander Hamilton, the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, and the pity they felt towards the dishevelled, shambolic and rather confused Englishman who was following it.

I had travelled through the U.S. many times before, but always on assignment, always rushing from place to place on interstate highways, and it was not until the bill took me off the main highways and byways that I discovered the true America.

Our opinions of the States are informed by Hollywood and American foreign policy – a policy that often drags us reluctantly into conflict. But many Americans do not see themselves in these images.

Instead, I found a warmth and friendship I neither expected nor deserved – a coincidence you might say over one or two hundred miles, but across 3,300, something that could not be put down to chance.

To read the complete article, see: How I followed a banknote 3,500 miles across America: British author turns adventures of a $10 bill into a book (www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2188308/Passing-bucks-British
-authors-3-500-mile-epic-journey-U-S-pursuit-10-bill.html)

Wayne Homren, Editor

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