On the Road to Buffalo and Pittsburgh : A Junk Wax Odyssey of Self-Examination

 

Thomas Wolfe said You Can’t go Home Again.

            Or at least he has a posthumously released book called that.

            Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatsby said, Can’t repeat the past? Why, of course you can!

            And we all know how he ended up.

            Or do we these days?

            I don’t really know who’s right. If either. As a middle-aged man I sometimes find myself confronted with the idea that more time might be behind me than what lies ahead. I don’t like it but aging is a fact of life. Sometimes I think I’d like to repeat the past. Go back to when I was younger. When I was cared for. When I didn’t carry around all of this worry and anxiety that I feel as an adult. Back when it was someone else’s job to keep a roof over my head and feed me, and my only worries were where I could buy a pack of baseball cards.

            Ah, youthful bliss

I do this when I’m not taking a good and honest look at the past.

The mind plays tricks on you.

It makes the time that you can no longer grasp seem idyllic.

Like, when I go home, I still expect my parents to look like they did when I was a kid. My mom exasperated from work. The old man coming in from being on the bus, in need of a can of beer. Okay, maybe not idyllic for them. How about we picture a pleasant Satuday cookout circa 1988. But my folks now...well, they’re older, retired, no longer burdened with feeding or keeping a roof over some kid’s head. They’ve done their work for capitalism and now it’s hearing aids, endless hours, and TVs shows to stream.

They don't have to shell out cash for kids screaming over this.

Like I probably did thirty-five years ago.

The people I grew up with? Well…that’s hard too. I still expect them to look like they’re ready to play nine innings of wiffle ball. Toss the Nerf ball around. Not be burdened with the same shit that weighs me down on a daily basis. I expect the women that I used to know to still maintain that girlish vigor, as well as their looks; not that they’ve lost their looks. Be those alluring humans I was drawn to decades ago. But most are middle-aged housewives or career women; almost all are mothers to children for whom the world will soon be theirs and no longer ours.

            When I look into a mirror a graying man stares back at me.

            He couldn’t play wiffle ball even if he wanted to.

            Still, I search for some lost Fountain of Youth.

            And, like I said, sometimes I wish Jay Gatsby were right.

            '86 Topps Traded really came out 35 years ago?

            Jesus Christ…where has the time gone?

            I was thinking these thoughts while visiting the city of Buffalo recently. I was alone in a rental car, the morning and early afternoon mine to visit various sports card shops throughout the Erie County region. I took it slow. Avoided the chaotic highways. Took the long way. I had the music of my youth blasting on the radio. New Edition. 80s and early 90s soul. And in my head, I could catch the glimpses on myself as a youth, when I used to borrow to car to go to the mall or just drive around smoking purloined cigarettes.

Once upon a time it was cassette tapes.

Then CDs.

Now the music is downloaded via some app and pumped through the car.

            You can’t go home again.

            Buffalo is vaguely familiar to me. My sister-in-law and her family live there. My in-laws moved to the Queen City to be near their grandkids. My wife and I visit a good amount. I even lived in Buffalo for two years. That was about fifteen years ago. Grad school. Two years of collecting more student loan debt, so that I could graduate and finally get a job good enough to pay back my older student loan debt.

            Higher education is a fucking trap if you can’t afford it outright.

            It can be a vicious cycle.

            For almost thirty years I’ve questioned my decision to get a degree.

            But that’s a blog post for another time.

            It’s strange riding around places you used to live. Life is organic and ever-changing. Yet places remain fixed in your memory. You remained fixed. Fifteen years ago, seems like it happened yesterday. For some reason you expect things to stay the same. Until you’re confronted with how much places have changed. Buffalo is like that for me, at least a little bit. A bar where I shrugged off grad school and shitty jobs that is now gone. A restaurant. Passing by an old apartment that is now filled with kids young enough to be your own.

Riding around Pittsburgh is even worse. Pittsburgh is where I grew up. Where I lived twenty-eight of my forty-seven years. I bled on those streets. Fell in love. Had crushes explode my young heart. It’s where I fell down drunk on weekends. Staggered blocks in tears of rage and joy. Emblazoned every nook into my memory. I laughed and loved and fought for my own independent soul in Pittsburgh. My life’s education began there, and I reference the place every single day in my head.

            Yet when I go back, so much has changed.

            It’s like I never lived there.

            I feel like a ghost.

            Can’t repeat the past? Why, of course you…

            At my age I’m still restless. It’s tiring. Often when driving around Buffalo or Pittsburgh, I wonder about those people who can take solace in the place they live. The ones who are comfortable in their familiarity. I don’t think I ever feel that way. Or I haven’t in a really long time. Maybe New York City isn’t conducive to that kind of memory. Although to the born and bred Brooklyner I probably sound crazy. To them, New York City is home.

            Truth be told, I felt restless when I was stationary in Pittsburgh.

I think it’s just me.

I feel disconnected and temporary.

Like my life is a place-holder for something else.

I don’t feel this way all the time. There are long periods of contentment. Periods where writing is going well. Where the job doesn’t intrude too much. Times where I can let comfort permeate. Stop and smell the roses. Just be. Where I feel like I’ve made some decent choices.

But contentment can be fleeting. Man, you gotta work at happiness. Especially when you start to push the human needle toward fifty. Futility is a patient beast. Yet I search for that solace. In Buffalo. In Pittsburgh. In the almost two decades I’ve put into New York City. In places that I’ve traveled more than once. A drink in a familiar bar. Walking an old block. Rewatching a favorite show. Stopping by the building where I favorite writer wrote his key work, and just standing there staring in awe. Conversations about the old times with old friends, where there’s no mention of current hardships.

This is a blog about sports cards, right?

Opening up packs of baseball cards can give me solace.

Or the act is akin to finding that Fountain of Youth…sometimes.

Especially when I open up the baseball cards of my youth.

And that’s what this trip to Buffalo and Pittsburgh turned into.

There are some people who slag off the so-called Junk Wax Era (IMO it’s 1987-1993) of baseball cards and collecting. They bemoan the lack of value. The ubiquitous presence of the cards. The cheap cardboard. The cheesy shots. The lack of bells and whistles.

I feel the exact opposite.

I feel lucky to have come of age in an era of mass-production.

I’m happy that the cards of my youth are still so plentiful and affordable.

That in the right circumstance I can still buy this card for a buck.

I don’t know how I would’ve approached a return to collecting if those cards were expensive now. I might’ve skipped returning to The Hobby altogether. Sought out a therapist for my anxiety instead. For the first so many months of collecting, all I did was open up Junk Wax. I return to Junk Wax often. I feel lucky that I can tool around in a rental car feeling lonely and nostalgic, and still find some mom-and-pop baseball card shop in the suburbs of Buffalo.

Like this one.

And buy these for ten-bucks a pop.

Can’t repeat the past? Why, of course you can!

Pulling up to a card shop and hobbling my wide, relatively out-of-shape frame out of an economy-sized rental car might not be the same as being let loose in the mall by my mom, racing my friends down sun-soaked hallway to the be the first kid in the American Coin. Or piling a group of us into a car to go to a card show at the Monroeville ExpoMart or the A.J. Palumbo Center. But it still feels pretty nice. I still get that old anticipatory feeling in your gut. That Christmas morning feeling.

I’ve never been a happier capitalist then when I’ve been in a baseball card shop.

Okay…maybe record stores do it for me too.

And bookstores.

The Bases Loaded baseball card shop did it for me…kind of. Truth be told, the shop had just recently moved locations. Like very recently. Like so recently the omnipotent gods of information at Google hadn’t even updated the address on their search engine. I’d actually mapped myself to the old Bases Loaded location. Imagine my shock at the desolation. I stood in an empty parking lot like some lost Quixote. Or Clark Griswold at Wally World.

Until I realized that they’d posted their new location on the door.

Cell phones can be a godsend sometimes.

That said, because of the recent move, Bases Loaded wasn’t fully up and running. Which was a shame. I’d read great things about the store online. Perused picture of purchases made by satisfied customers. Collectors I know in the region swear by them. I was anticipating a good mixture of old and new card product. Quarter bins. Dollar bins. Common card bins to help a guy like me try and fill his various sets.

I even took photos of my 1980 Topps checklist in anticipation.

Talk about a set that fills me with nostalgia.

But the Bases Loaded I pulled up to; it was a store in transition. Most of the stock was still in boxes. The showcases bare, save some hobby boxes for new product. I don’t fault the owner for trying to make a buck without a proper set-up. But he lost out on some sales by not waiting until he was fully stocked. There were actual KIDS in his store that day. Those kids wanted to leaf through singles. They left empty-handed.

Still…

Kids in a card shop.

Like it should be.

The kid inside me walked away with these.

Ten bucks a box.

I’m not passing up Junk Wax when it’s ten-bucks a box.

Even if it’s 1991 Fleer.

And I’ll definitely be back to check out Bases Loaded when they are up and running as they should.

You know what I’ve been really down on lately? Modern cards. I realize that maybe we’re at the end of the insanity that we saw in The Hobby throughout 2020. I see collectors posting pictures of card product that’s sitting back on the shelves at Wal-Mart or Target. And that’s a good thing. What’s not a good thing is that prices have not come down. I worry that they won’t. I worry that this Devil’s deal the major sports leagues have made with Fanatics is just going to make things worse.

Fanatics bums me out.

            I worry they’ll kill The Hobby.

            Though Panini and Topps aren't currently doing it any favors.

            I mean $425 for a hobby box of football cards?

            Come on, man!

            You can’t get that Christmas feeling on $425 dollars a box.

            It was with that impending sense of modern Hobby dread that I went to Dave & Adam’s Card World. I don’t mean to slag off Dave & Adam’s. I like the store. If you’re a fan of the Bills or Sabres it’s a must visit. Think Steel City Collectibles but with a TON more team merchandise. Or just think of the biggest sports merchandise store you’ve been to, and add cards and comic books.

            Dave & Adam’s is a touchstone in the return to collecting for me. I bought my first modern day hobby boxes (a box each of Topps 2019 flagship series 1 and series 2) there. Back when hobby box prices were reasonable. When I didn’t feel guilt for buying cards. I genuinely like Dave & Adams.

            But it’s hard with modern product now. It’s hard not to get discouraged walking by a counter and seeing hobby boxes of Score football going for $300. Or the aforementioned Panini Donruss football. Those Topps flagship hobby boxes now going for $90. And that’s on discount.

            With prices like that…you really can’t go home again.

            You can repeat the past.

            But it’ll cost you.

            Truth be told, I went back to the car and sat there dejected. $300 a box isn’t what I wanted from The Hobby that I loved. When I came back, I wanted to feel connected. Stave off the restlessness a little and focus on something that gave me a meaningful connection to my youth, beyond buying the Junk Wax stuff. A full circle vibe. And it was that initially.

But now?

Here’s a funny conundrum that only a DINK (Double Income No Kids) with the type of time on his hands to consistently self-examine himself could have. I spend a lot of time on the Baseball Card Exchange web site. Not a lot of time. But some. They’re selling 1987 Fleer baseball product for about $120 a hobby box. I sit there and stare and think how outrageous. Junk wax for $100+ a box! For 1987 cards? Don't they grow on trees? 

Yet the other day I almost dropped the same amount on a pre-order of 2021 Topps Update.

 Then I posed a question to myself.

Which one of those purchases would give me more fun?

Give me that Christmas feeling?

The wax box full of joy and memories?

Or the over-priced item from the NEW Junk Wax Era that’s full of unproven rookies and a bunch of bells and whistles that I probably won’t get in packs anyway?

Did Thomas Wolfe or good ol’ F. Scott every have this type of trivial problem?

My answer was no…the Topps Update wouldn’t.

But $100+ for a box of 1987 Fleer...

It made me feel more at a loss.

Restless.

Less rooted in The Hobby.

I’ve rambled on a lot in this blog post. To read it over, I’d have to say my mind just isn’t clear this week. Its conflicted. It’s a tightrope between the past and present. What counts and what doesn't. And I don’t really know what I want to say or how to say it. And to think this was supposed to be a simple, hey, look what I bought! blog post. And for that I’m sorry. I’ll do better next week. Keep it more focused. On point.

With that I’m going to stop here. I’m just going to say the trip to Pittsburgh was good. It was full of family, friends, and people who maybe were too close together for pandemic times. But even I’m getting sick of pandemic times. I wasn’t able to hit any card shops and my flea  market paradise is closed during the week. I did hit up my favorite antique shop called The Hub. 

They have a small selection of cards. Mostly my blessed Junk Wax. My Christmas morning feeling cards.

Anyway….

Hey! Look what I bought!

This baby

And these babies.

The 1986 Donruss lot had some doubles.

But I'm not complaining.

This team set got me within inches of finishing my 1984 Topps Football set.

1984 Topps football is the shit.

And when I got home I opened it all up in a fit of morning joy and a bunch of Grateful Dead.

Could've ended the rack box at pack one and been in bliss.

I got your inserts right here.

Eat your heart out Jonathan India.

This man makes yellow look GOOD.

And lastly...the obligatory this all cost less than 1/2 the cost of a modern hobby box.

Now let's go and over-pay for some 1987 Fleer to helop compensate for aging!

Thanks for reading! Happy Collecting!

NEXT FRIDAY: Tears of rage at the card store...how about we talk a little bit about 1976?