Night Owl Cards

  I was fortunate enough to grow up during an era where I didn't have to seek out a hobby shop for the best cards. I didn't even have to fight the enormous crowd and wander through the enormous aisles of a big box store. Cards were everywhere in the '70s. Our go-to as kids was the drug store smart enough to stock cards, there was one wherever we lived. But grocery stores also carried them, and the corner stores that you younger people only read about on blogs like this. I'd find them in hardware stores. They were in book stores, record stores, you name it. But I never experienced cards from a gas station when I was a kid. I've heard about them, probably some tale about singing gas service men, belting out a song while pumping your gas and handing cards to the kiddies while a puppy dog happily wagged its tail. It wasn't until years later that I discovered cards at a gas station. It was in 2001, in the spring or summer. I was visiting relatives in Buffalo and I st...

  I've been watching the cards from my first Sportlots order of the year trickle in. It seems like it's taking longer than usual. But I'm down to the final two cards that need to arrive. Unfortunately they were supposed to be part of this post. In fact, the plan was that I would have all of the cards I needed to finish the 1985 Fleer set for this post. That was the first mission of the year: complete that set. But I'm still six cards short. One card that I ordered did not show, I received a refund -- Mike Brown, of all players. Two Darryl Strawberry cards were swiped from my cart. Damn player collectors. I think a couple of the others were snatched from my cart, too, but it's possible I missed adding a couple. All of those cards should be easy enough to snag and very quickly, too. But I don't want to wait for those to get this post done. So now you'll have to suffer through two 1985 Fleer posts. Sorry, I'll make it interesting, I promise.   The '85 F...

The other day, much to my relief, the post office employee handed me my receipt and said, "it should get there by the 23rd." I was shipping out my Secret Santa card package, doing something I vow never to do -- stand in a post office line a week before Christmas. But I had fallen behind and was making a last-ditch effort to get my Secret Santa package out in time for Christmas Day opening. So I queued up with some jollyish people -- including an old man loudly flirting with a woman 40 years younger than him (when he left, the woman said, "I'm going to punch him out.") -- and zipped out of there quicker than I thought I would. And it was all worth it to hear that the cards would arrive by the 23rd. Whether they did or not, I may or may not find out. That's up to the recipient. As for me, I don't know whether I've received my Secret Santa gift. None of the packages I've received have identified them as such. And most of the packages I'...