Cardboard Gold
Like many other children of the 50's, my dad collected baseball cards. Legends with names like, Mantle, Maris, Koufax, and Aaron, were neatly arranged and sorted in cardboard boxes. Time is the great separator, and my father lost track of his collection, cast away like many other aspects of childhood. Those cards were worth hundreds of dollars in the 1980's. He often lamented that fact and it wasn't lost on me. My meager allowance earned from dishes, dusting, vacuuming, mowing, and shoveling was divided into two piles. The first fed a savings account, which back in the 80's could actually earn you some money. I would take the rest of my earnings, jump on my Huffy bike (no GT or Haro for me), and pedal my way to our local card shop, Extra Innings. It wasn't hard to fall in love with collecting cards and it didn't hurt that the home team won two world series (87 and 91) and that the steroid era wasn't in full swing yet. You opened the door to that cramped ...