Book: Follow the Money by Steve Boggan

A Month in the Life of a Ten-Dollar Bill

The author is an Englishman and he does follow a $10 bill for a month, starting in Lebanon, Kansas, and ending in Detroit, Michigan.

The book is delightful and basically a travelogue through the upper Midwest. Steve meets and hangs out with  all kinds of interesting, mostly kind and helpful folks and surely revised some of his notions about these states between the coasts.

He interjects bits of history about the places he visits, but mostly just tells the story of a $10 bill with the serial number IA74407937A. He starts in Lebanon because it is close to the geographical center of the contiguous United States. From there, he goes where the money goes.

One memorable encounter is with the band Crash Meadows and its singer Dean Agus:

"I couldn''t remember when I've seen such accomplished musicianship in a small town bar. Possibly never, and I had hung out in more bars than most....Dean was 36 and past his prime if he wanted to be in a boy band. Thankfully, he had no such ambition and so looked just about right for an earthy blues and rock singer who had lived a little....His mother, Jula, a Gypsy and his father, Javid, had married at at the age of 12, which was not unusual in that community (Macedonia) at that time, and they were struggling to make ends meet as their children arrived one by one. Then, as unlikely as winning the lottery, the family was identified as a worthy case by members of an American church working in the region. They were adopted by the church and brought to the US via France and Belgium and to opportunities beyond  their wildest dreams."

These are the kinds of stories Steve tells.

And of gangsters and therapeutic baths at Hot Springs, of apple orchards and wheat farmers, of discovering Chicago, stories of St. Louis and days spent in deer camp near Morley, Michigan...

The title is a bit boring but the content isn't.