How Baseball Cards Fit Into Stories with My Older Sisters

I was talking to my mother and two of my sisters today.  One is four 1/2 years older than me and the other is 6 1/2 years (exactly) older than me.  Even though we grew up in the same house, we obviously had different friends.  In addition, we went to different schools so we were telling each other stories about our schools and things in the neighborhood.

My oldest sister mentioned that she used to go to a store name S.S. Kresge.  I asked if anyone knew when the store closed.  I was surprised that there were no answers.  I got them rolling by letting them know that I bought baseball cards there from 1969 - 1971 at least.  I've mentioned seeing the over-priced 1970 Kellogg's packs there and never buying any.  Now that I think about it, I think I got cards there up to 1974 maybe? 

I know that when I started a paper route in 1974 the Kresge was not around.  How would I remember?  I had to find a new place to buy cards when I had my paper route money.  The Kresge would have been the closest place to do so.  Luckily, a new candy shop opened about 200 yards from the Kresge.  My family couldn't remember much more about the new place.  I will have to ask some of the others.

I did not know that the S.S Kresge Company became Kmart until just now.  Based on the type of products sold there it makes sense.

Even though I'm the ninth child I ended up having a teacher that was new to our family.  After telling some crazy stories about her, I realized two other things about her.  First, that was the last grade where Mike D. managed to listen to Cub games on his transistor radio while casually relaxing his hand over the earphone.  I was able to easily see his scorecard without drawing the attention of this teacher. 

Second, this teacher was the fourth and last one who took cards away from kids during class.  I just realized today that this was because after fourth grade kids didn't bring their cards to school anymore.  That's something I never thought about until I was telling stories about this teacher. 

My sisters probably think it is odd that I can relate these events to my baseball cards, but from reading other blogs and message boards I realize that I am not alone.