Jefferson
resident Mark Sorenston has quietly hoarded pennies for the last 17
years, noting that each penny minted prior to 1982 contains about 2-3
cents worth of copper. It was his intent to hoard as many pennies as
possible, sort out the copper ones, and sell them as copper to a scrap
dealer, netting a comfortable profit. Unfortunately, this plan all went
haywire last Thursday.Mark had been storing his pennies in his garage in five-gallon buckets until severe winds blew away the building last fall, and the near 60mph wind gusts kicked up the pennies, sending the projectiles in all directions. Many nearby residents reported shattered windows and damaged vehicles, and at least three head of cattle were killed. One small child had his eye put out. Mr. Sorenston is still roaming the area with garbage bags attempting to collect all of his lost pennies.
As if that wasn't bad enough, Mark's recollected pennies were being stored in a rental unit above Radio Shack along the west side of the square in Jefferson. It seems that the weight of 8.6 tons of pennies stored there suddenly caused the interior upstairs floor to come crashing down last Thursday. The sound has been described by locals as similar to "14 rockets smashing into a solid wall of dynamite". The noise was heard as far away as Squirrel Hollow. The catastrophe has caused flooding at Lakeside Golf Course, the Raccoon River to slightly change course, car alarms to go off as far away as Bagley, and the Mahanay Tower to tilt three degrees to the west. In addition, the entire Greene County elevation has been lowered by about half an inch, and all of the buildings along the west side of the square are now deemed unsafe.
When we pointed out to Mr. Sorenston that it was illegal to melt down pennies for scrap, he stated that he was simply buying time waiting for the laws to change. We followed up this brief interview by clandestinely tailing him to a local garage, where he was seen squatting over a massive fire. The temperatures inside the garage were such that our reporter could not venture inside, but it was noted that Mark's hands appeared to be covered with gauze and the smell of burning flesh was in the air. Copper can only be melted down by a temperature of 1,000 degrees or greater, so this idea appeared to be yet another bad one.
Spencer Straight, 03-16-2011