I used to be a football card collector. A long time ago. Somewhere around 16 years ago I finally stopped. The prices of a piece of cardboard with a picture on it had grown a bit much. It was no longer enough to have just the “Topps” brand, now you needed, Pacific, Pro-line, Upperdeck, Donruss, and so on. Not only was it now an expensive hobby if you really wanted to have a collection that could someday hold its’ value, you needed to buy them all. So two days ago, I bought my first pack in almost 16 years, and I am not sure if this is a good omen, or just a silly superstition.
Back in 1981 I bought my first pack of football cards. I had been collecting for a few years earlier, but “I” never bought my packs for me, that was my fathers job. Now, as I sat in the 7th grade, I skipped lunch and would run down to the local store and grab as many packs as I could with that saved lunch money…o.k., so maybe technically it still wasn’t “My” money. It amazes me today, as I am now 38, that I can still picture where the two other kids were sitting around me. I can still see the store behind me, feel the concrete under me, and can still smell the stale odor of the pink hard rock stick of gum. I can also hear the ripping of the paper.
So there I was, first pack ever that I went in and bought, sitting on the warm Houston, Texas concrete. I could not tell you who the first card was in that pack as I opened that pack from the bottom. For me, the last card in the pack was my first. I turned the pack over and skimmed through looking for Dolphins, there were none. So it was that last card that became my favorite card, and throughout my school year, I would collect as many of his cards as I could. Partly because he was my first one, and partly because at that age, the name Joe Montana sounded really, really cool. I still have 6 of those cards from 1981, Joe’s rookie year.
So here I am, back in the future in the blink of an eye. Standing in a checkout line at the local Kmart, I notice that the 2007 Topps cards are on the shelf. I reach out and grab a couple of packs, hold them in my hand, and immediately am taken back to the above mentioned first pack. I think of my 4 year old son sitting in pre-school and the first time my father gave me a pack of cards. I threw them on the conveyor belt, my wife laughed and off we were to pick him up.
As the evening approached, I called my son into the kitchen, sat him down on not so warm linoleum tile and showed him two packs of cards describing what they were. He thought it was really cool. We opened them together, going card by card. I told him who each card was, and he told me what the “guy” was doing. “Look daddy, this card has TWO guys on it”. He finished looking through his pack, and I had two cards to go. He grabbed the gum, probably the same stick made in ’81 and headed back to the living room. I moved aside the 2nd to last card and smiled. There was John Beck. Out of two packs of cards, the only Miami Dolphin to make an appearance.
The first pack I ever opened on my own contained Joe Montana. 16 years after I stopped collecting, I opened my first pack with my son, and there is John Beck. A good omen? Or is it just silly superstition? Who knows, but one thing is for certain…there is nothing in this life as precious as opening a pack of football cards with your son for the first time….even if it is only for the gum.