Christmas Gift
markj111
Posts: 2,921 ✭✭✭
in Sports Talk
From Baseball Primer:
A sweet holiday treat from Calcaterra and his brother...(as opposed to my brother who tore the corners off my Ralph Houk managerial cards...only to end up with his favorite gourami swimming sidewards with a mint toothpick stuck through its eyes. Happy Holidays everybody!)
Last week, Curt flew in from San Diego for a couple of days for his annual Christmas visit. The night before he flew back home, we exchanged Christmas gifts. We tend to be a family who doesn’t go over the top with these things, so I was understandably dumbfounded when I opened my gift from him: the entire 1973 Topps set (my birth year) in plastic sheets in a notebook. With a couple of very tiny exceptions, the whole thing is in mint or near mint condition.
He didn’t just go out and buy it in one shot, though, as a guy working at In-n-Out Burger tends not to have that kind of money laying around. Rather, he began picking up stuff here and there months ago (our childhood collection had almost no 1973s), trading some import records for some of this, trading vintage clothing for some of that, and only biting the bullet and straight-up buying stuff in only a handful of cases. It was truly a labor of love on his part which, given how much flak I’ve given him for so many things over the years—including, ironically enough, his habit for hording, selling, and trading records and vintage clothes when he could be out doing something more productive—was every bit as undeserved as it was unexpected.
A sweet holiday treat from Calcaterra and his brother...(as opposed to my brother who tore the corners off my Ralph Houk managerial cards...only to end up with his favorite gourami swimming sidewards with a mint toothpick stuck through its eyes. Happy Holidays everybody!)
Last week, Curt flew in from San Diego for a couple of days for his annual Christmas visit. The night before he flew back home, we exchanged Christmas gifts. We tend to be a family who doesn’t go over the top with these things, so I was understandably dumbfounded when I opened my gift from him: the entire 1973 Topps set (my birth year) in plastic sheets in a notebook. With a couple of very tiny exceptions, the whole thing is in mint or near mint condition.
He didn’t just go out and buy it in one shot, though, as a guy working at In-n-Out Burger tends not to have that kind of money laying around. Rather, he began picking up stuff here and there months ago (our childhood collection had almost no 1973s), trading some import records for some of this, trading vintage clothing for some of that, and only biting the bullet and straight-up buying stuff in only a handful of cases. It was truly a labor of love on his part which, given how much flak I’ve given him for so many things over the years—including, ironically enough, his habit for hording, selling, and trading records and vintage clothes when he could be out doing something more productive—was every bit as undeserved as it was unexpected.
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