A little blast from the past

I was cleaning my room today when I stumbled upon some old treasures, treasures I have since long since forgot about. When I was a kid I wanted to be the next great football or basketball player. I would run around my old apartment complex tossing the football in the air while attempting diving catches. Other times I would spend hours upon hours in the summer outside shooting hoops and trying to drive into the lane against invisible defenders. Most of the time I imagined myself playing next to the greats; Michael Jordan, Scotty Pippen, Reggie Miller, Karl Malone, Steve Young, Marshall Faulk, or a young Randy Moss. Winter time would sweep over the midwest, unperceptive of the young dreamers it forced inside. In those cold snowy winters I got a meager 3 hours outside to daydream before my parents were aware of the situation. When I went inside there was only one other option, the world of baseball cards. I never collected baseball cards, it was always football or basketball but none the less they still fell under that category to me. I would save all my money and march down to my local card store and blow it all in the hope I might open a pack to see one of my heros staring back up at me. Its a long but interesting story, how I fell in love with these cards but I will shorten it for you. My mother had some major surgery when I was young and my dad was never around, so I stayed with a friend from school out in the suburbs. His mother was a collector of anything from matchbox cars to dolls, but her real favorite was football cards. She showed me how to properly protect these little treasures and how to find their market value in a Beckett. When my week away from home was up she left me with a box of these cards and from then on I was hooked. I would spend some winter days looking at the pictures, looking at the players stats, and looking in the Beckett's at what I dreamed of opening a pack and finding. This hobby followed me through good times and bad until around the end of middle school or begining of high school. I still had my eye on what was going on with cards, but had to devote my money to other things. Every now and again I would find myself buying a pack or two, but not with the frequency that I did back in the day. Just last year I found myself purchasing a couple singles on ebay and it brought the memories and magic back. Someday I want to share these with my children not in the hopes that they will do the same, but in the hope that they can find something that will let their imaginations soar high above worldly troubles. You see to me these cards weren't about the athletes, or the money. They were about dreams, the kind of dreams that made you believe someday you would have a kid opening a plastic wrapper and seeing a picture of you living your dream.