[MattyC]

I have one stinging regret from my childhood.

On Fort Hamilton Parkway in Brooklyn in the 80's, there was a store adjacent to the Fortway Five Theater called ALPINE ARMS.

This was a gun store. It sold guns. Racks and racks of guns, rifles, etc.

Bear with me. This gets to cards very quickly.

It also sold cards. Yes, in the front glass case once you entered and turned right: baseball cards. And crammed all along a corner of shelves: traded sets, boxes, etc.

Only in Brooklyn.

I must have been in that store for days' worth of hours-- and I cannot recall one image of a gun. I never looked at them. Only the cards.

I bought many cards there. My late grandfather, a notorious cheapskate, lol, purchased a $20 Strawberry 84D for me there, in about 1988. I still have it in a screwdown. My father bought us a box of 1988 Fleer wax.

Now, the regret.

I realize I would have loved to walk into that gun store wearing Terminator shades, and tell the guy at the counter, in a Schwarzenegger accent, that I'd like...

"The Uzi nine millimeeda, a phased plasma rifle, and a 1988 Donruss Gregg Jefferies."