Seeing my father, sitting beside me, in an ultra, bizarrely small car, at the top of lookout hill, in Grand Rapids Michigan, after a treacherous drive up the narrow road lined with large, sharp rocks, and he was looking at me and I could readily see he was holding up a Lincoln penny between index finger and thumb, as he said, "how much can you do with a penny on your knee?"
It makes me queasy and sick inside to recount this turn of phrase as it is a ditty, dirty, a dare, a task, a secret, an allusion to something of an illicit and sexual nature, an act repeatedly performed, yet another sporting "game" that only my father and I would play alone and away.
Maybe it was a "car game" as those were different and only enacted in a vehicle.
I don't know much for sure, other than this phrase elicits inner emotional distress and makes me want to run and recoil.
