One of my favorite activities is a late-night trip to Meijer. I’m not sure how or when I first became aware of its existence (sometime in the last couple of years or so…I distinctly remember my brother talking about the Pappadeaux as we’d pass by it during the Marshall’s-hopping which was pretty much the only thing my siblings would do as a family around my high school years, but I wasn’t aware of the Meijer until relatively recently), but the combination of a pleasant (trafficless) drive combined with leisurely shopping is always something I look forward to (note for later: find new leisure activites). And a place with Tato Skins can never be bad in my book.
Occasionally for old time’s sake I’d buy a random pack of cards there as well. About a month ago I was browsing through and was displeased with the pack offerings, and my attention was drawn to this:
I was actually most interested in the plastic (acrylic?) case that the packs came in since I had needed to do something with the random open packs of cards gathering dust on my bookshelf. A card case and 66 cents a pack? I was sold.
The 2007 Topps were the visible packs on either side of the case, so the quality of the packs wasn’t surprising. I did like getting a pack from each year in 2004-2007, but nothing was special except for the two packs in the lower left. 1989 Topps! And something I had never heard of before! That Enquirer pack (from 1992) was interesting since it had no MLB license and just featured a caricature of a player and some form of satirical interview on the back, from which you were supposed to be able to identify which real player the card was lampooning. That 1989 Topps though is the oldest pack I’ve ever opened. I opened some 1990 Topps and 1990 and 1991 Donruss because my brother was collecting at the time, and then I stopped collecting until Rafe got me into basketball cards around 1996.
Seeing these old cards and the shattered stick of gum put a smile to my face. Unfortunately when I went back a few nights later the rest of these FIRE SALE boxes were gone (there were at least three left when I had first picked one up). But this one pack has inspired me to get back into collecting. Thanks, Gene Walter.