Memorable Moments in Life and Hank Aaron Cards

By chance last week I was home with my kids watching along with everyone else as things unfolded in DC.  In non-COVID times I would have been at school coaching, my son would have been away at college and my daughter would have been at gymnastics practice.  Instead, we enjoyed an hour or two of discussing world events, memorable events in our lifetime, etc.  My wife was working so she missed something that we never do with the kids, who spend too much time connected online and too little time just talking.  

A few days before that my mother was reflecting on coming home from a movie to see her parents huddled around a radio for news about the bombing at Pearl Harbor.  My kids and I then started discussing some of the most memorable events of our lifetimes.  I won't get into the differences in comparing 1941 to 1974 to 2021.

They shared their most vivid memories and here are the things that I mentioned to them  - 

1.  Kennedy Assassination (1963) - I was too young to remember it since I was in diapers and eating food from a jar.  I might be getting to an age soon where I will be doing that again.

2.  USA's moon landing (1969) - normally we'd have been outside at a Chicago park doing something but not on this day.  I witnessed this from the floor of our living room with lots of family members.

3.  Olympic Hostages / Massacre (1972) - as a nine-year-old kid, this was my first Olympics that I remember.  Luckily, I was too young to understand some of what was happening.  I did try to run around the block 26 times after Frank Shorter won the marathon.  My mom stopped me after an hour, but I got more than 10 laps done (FYI - a lap was a lot shorter than a mile).  

4.  Lyndon Johnson Funeral (1973) - with the four of five television stations this was everywhere.  I don't remember if it was a school day or not, but I was home watching this.  

5.  Hank Aaron's Home Run #715 (1974) - this didn't come as a surprise.  We planned out watching this.  I was on the wooden floor using a cheap tape recorder to capture the event.  I don't have that recording today.  Why the floor?  There were more people than seats and I wanted to get close for the recording.  

7.  Bears Super Bowl Parade (1986) - I didn't go to the parade since I was working, but the parade let out just before I was done working.  I worked on State Street in downtown Chicago, so all of the parade spectators were now on State Street waiting for their busses.  I couldn't even get on a bus for over an hour.

8.  Space Shuttle Explosion (1986) - I remember watching the news at a Walgreen's store on State Street while I was taking lunch.  This happened the day after the Super Bowl Parade.  So that was three memorable days in my life in a row - Super Bowl win, Parade, Space Shuttle.  

9.  9/11 (2001) - I heard about it in the morning but I didn't get home from work until 11:30 p.m. so I knew little about it since I had no cell phone and very little internet at my three jobs at the time (computer programmer, cross country coach, night school computer science instructor).  

10.  Christmas Tsunami (2004) - unlike the 9/11 coverage, I was home for this and I watched a lot about a part of the world that I knew little about.

There were many others that I remember, but not as vividly as these events.

Hank Aaron Card Memories

1.  In the early 1970s we found someone with a box of 1970 Topps cards.  They were ten cents each, a lofty price that would make me think hard about who to buy.  I decided to go with the most famous guys I could find - Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and Roberto Clemente.  I still have those cards including a few Clementes from that day.  

2.  1974 Topps #1 - 1974s were nice, but when someone showed up with that card they made all of us envious.  My sole focus for that set was to get that card.  What a great day it was to find it.  If I ever see it cheap at a card show I buy it.  Did we care that he was yet to be the All-Time Home Run King?  NO.

3.  1974 Topps Hank Aaron Special cards - this showed us all of his Topps cards just before we figured out where to buy these cards.  These cards and the Wholesale Card Company catalogue helped me learn what the cards from each year looked like.  At this point my oldest card was probably a 1964 Billy Williams.  I then got a 1956 Gil McDougald card which was my oldest for a while.   

4.  1975 Topps  - card #1 was awesome with the Braves uniform on his Highlights / NL All-Star card.  The Brewers card was nice too, but it was the rare instance where the subset card was desired more than the regular issue.