You may or may not know this about me, but I had a major one-sided love affair with The Monkees from the time they started playing the series reruns back in the 1970s.

In fact, by the time I was in grade 7, I had a full-on crush on Davy Jones. So much so that I wrote a story about meeting him at a concert and him falling madly in love with me. (Ignoring several key facts such as: I was only 12, he was over 25 years older than me, he lived in another country, I had zits and homework, and so on…).

I had a picture of Davy Jones dutifully taped to my locker in grade 12, I bought every Rhino album I could find on audio cassette in the late 80s, and even picked up a few books on them. I was a fan without the -atic.

I still am.

When Davy Jones passed away not too long ago, my mom found out first and contacted me right away to see if I was okay. I hadn’t realized that I was that transparent! So it got me thinking about them again, and Davy, too. I know that I have that story on a ruled notebook somewhere!

Suddenly, I’m on a hunt for the TV series and I’m buying both seasons on DVD from Amazon, tracking down the remaining Monkees on Twitter, and lurking (I mean “surfing”) their websites.

I can only imagine what it must be like to be so strongly and globally identified with a project that lasted perhaps three years (for the series, not the tours) decades ago.

Watching the show now, pre-MTV!, with the gags and the music brings me right back to those reruns after school, flopped out on my living room floor with my chin in my hands, glued to the television, thinking them all so clever and funny (and probably not understanding half of the real jokes).

So I picked up yet another book and, with it, came these cool Monkees coins. I have what I like to call my treasure chest (in actuality, it’s a Fallout 3 metal lunch box) that I put my Super Top Secret Special ™ stuff in. These coins made a spot in the vault.