Ok, another story. I grew up in the 70’s in a small rural potato farming town with a population of less than 300.
There were potato fields all around us. Mom always complained about the dust during digging season which usually started in June around my birthday. Potato bugs were also a constant in the summer along with the sight and sound of 18 wheel trucks coming and going to and from the several potato grader operations in town, one of those being across the pond in our back yard.
It was a place where you knew everybody in town, what they did for a living, who was nice and what yards you could play in, etc.
For a small town it seemed we had a lot of kids. I estimate there were about 30 kids born between 1955 and 1965 and less than 10 were girls. So we never had a problem getting a few kids together for pick up games in the 2 vacant lots in the middle of town.
But living on each side of me as a kid were elderly couples…one was a retired couple whose yard we tried to steer clear of even though Mr. Ralph didn't really mind if we cut thru or played there but his wife Miss Louise did.
On the other side was another elderly couple that owned a dry cleaning business, Mr. Clifford and Miss Mabel. I never had that much interaction with them…they were friendly but kept to themselves and didn't have children. One of the things I remember most is there was a real grave from the 1800's on the edge of their yard with a wrought iron spiked fence around it and a chest high hedge between our yard and theirs. Whenever I cut our grass which was one of my chores for my $2.00/week allowance and Mr. Clifford saw me cutting next to the hedge he would come out of his kitchen door on the side of his house next to the hedge and holler loud enough to get my attention over the roar of the old push mower we had. Then he would toss me a roll of Lifesavers over the hedge, smile and wave and head back in as I thanked him. The Lifesavers were usually the 5 flavor variety which was okay but my preference was Butter Rum or Cherry. But I was a kid and any free candy was always appreciated.
Anyway, in back of our house and our adjoining neighbors was a small pond down a hill. Remember this was the early 70’s so no ecological judgements please. We played in and around the pond constantly and Mr. Clifford had a small trash dump in back of his house near the brush of the pond. It was literally a dump…not bagged, etc. A pile of trash was certainly no deterrent to us kids snooping for treasure. So we would look thru it sometimes. Never anything significant or provocative but one day I struck gold…cardboard gold. I found a few old baseball cards in the pile and most were of my favorite team, the Orioles. But it was just a few and they were not in the best of shape. I now wish I had asked Mr. Clifford about them but I guess I didn't want him to know I had been looking thru his trash dump.
I scooped up the cards and did my research on the players with my trusty 1st edition Macmillan Baseball Encyclopedia I got for Christmas in 1969 and decided I would try and get all the cards of one of those players I found amongst my neighbors table scraps. It was Milt Pappas…infamous for being traded for Frank Robinson who just passed away.
Well, the town is no longer a potato growing community but my parents still live in the house where I grew up. Mr. Clifford and Miss Mabel are gone and the brush near the pond eventually grew and consumed their old trash pile. And the sight of the 1958 Topps Milt Pappas card I found in that trash pile can make me think of a nice elderly dry cleaning neighbor that would throw me Lifesavers over the hedge while I cut grass next to it and a real grave while growing up in a small potato town.
Here are 3 of those cards.
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