Shows and Reminiscence

 Last weekend, my wife was off to Minneapolis for her annual weekend with her freshman year college friends.  I have never been good about maintaining friendships from prior phases of my life.  As my life changes, so does my social circle (such as it is.)   As an introvert, it is a challenge for me to maintain relationships as my down time is mostly about recharging from a work life that necessitates interacting with people.  I am not sure if it is a separate trait or part of the same mechanism, but I also don't dwell much on the past.  Certainly, I will look back and see where I might have done something differently, but there is no regret about it. Just a detached acknowledgement.  That said, there are things that happen that snap me back to earlier times in my life in a visceral way.

I was fortunate that there was a large card show in OKC that weekend. I planned to a good deal of my Saturday there.  I didn't work out that way.  The day didn't turn out as I had hoped, but it still was a net positive.  I had gone hoping to work on my 1966 baseball set, with finding more cards for 1963 baseball as a secondary objective.  Alas, I found neither.  The show was large, featuring several hundred table, though I would estimate 1/2 to 2/3 of that was Pokémon and, with the exception of 3 or 4 sellers, sports cards were dominated by shiny modern.  So, having failed at my main objective, I made due with what was there. 

I found two cards for the 1971-72 Topps basketball set I've been intending to start.

I only have 10 cards from the 233 card set, but the Wilt is a key card to the set.  It is the second most valuable card, only lagging Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar). I guess I need to start looking for lots of commons on eBay to get the build underway.

This Bob Griese rookie card is one of the key cards in Topps 1968 football set. I am about 30% of the way through that set, so I'll need to start looking for lots of that also. 

I managed to get about 50 cards, all commons, for my initial build for 1971 Topps Football.  But that isn't why this card is here. Back as a wee lad, when I first got interested in sports, I decided to be a Dallas Cowboys fan. I remained so until 1989 when Jerry Jones fired Tom Landry.  Then I promoted my second favorite team, the more local Buffalo Bills, to the pre-eminent position.  But that is not relevant here.  The first Christmas after pronouncing my love for Dallas I received a Cowboys jersey as a present from my parents.  It was jersey number 55, Lee Roy Jordan.  Seeing this card in the row of 1971 Topps immediately transported me back to that time.  

So, despite no progress on my current primary collecting priority, it was a good day overall.

What I am listening to:  A Dream of You and Me by Future Islands