Mark Bishop
Singing News Article
August 2007
I wish that I still had all of those
baseball cards from when I was young. We didn't realize back then
that someday, they would be worth a lot of money. My only goal
back then was to collect as many of the Cincinnatti Reds as I
could. There was no collector market to speak of. There was no
E-Bay... no internet community of baseball card collectors. There
was just me, the corner market where baseball cards were sold, and
my friends who gave me someone to trade with.
I think that mom probably sold them
in a yard sale or maybe even threw them away at some point. I
just had them in an old shoe box. A few of the players that I
didn't care for ended up on the tires of my bicycle. Every kid
did this back then. You taped it so that when it rubbed the
spokes, it would generate a rat-a-tat sound.
Can you remember a few years back
when the Singing News manufactured a series of Southern Gospel
Artist bubble-gum cards? I don't think they came with any bubble
gum though. When they first came out, I remember folks would
bring them to the concerts to be autographed. It was actually
kind of a fun idea and people had a fun time collecting them.
Eventually, the ferver died down and we stopped seeing them. But
just last year, someone brought one of mine to a concert and had
me sign it. I hadn't seen one in years. I guess I really did
dress like that back then... and my goodness, the hair. I just
wonder if my card ever found its way to the back tire of some kids
bike. To me, that would be the ultimate tribute to being on a
bubble-gum card.
I was also into collecting comic
books back then. We didn't have cable tv, dvds or video games
when I was in my formative years, so I spent the idle hours away
reading the adventures of my favorite super-heroes. I mean I was
really into it. Back then, I aspired to be a comic book artist.
Alas, the Lord had another adventure planned for me and it is one
that I have enjoyed. But back then, my imagination was fired by
the stories found in the pages of what mom called those
"funny-books".
Oddly enough, even though the
baseball cards and the Hot Wheels cars disappeared, the comic
books stayed in boxes and are still preserved. Upstairs, above my
office, are boxes of old comic books from my childhood, untouched
for decades now.
I always figured that one day I might
give them to a son and he could enjoy them as I did in my
childhood. But I have two daughters who couldn't care less about
them and so, in the boxes they remain. In all honesty, even a son
might not be interested in them, not with all of the high-tec
competition now-a-days. A static comic book doesn't have the
flash and noise of a video game or a Hollywood special-effects
movie. It's the difference between a cell phone and the rotary
phone attached to the wall.
So I guess it really doesn't matter
that I don't have those baseball cards anymore. If I did, they
would just be up there in a box with the old comic books. I
probably wouldn't sell them because of the sentimental
attachment. They would just sit there as time passed slowly by.
With each passing year, they would become more valuable. And all
the while maybe wishing that they could get out and get some fresh
air on the back of some kids bike.
- Back
-
