[Keith H. Thompson]

I would go shopping in Rochester, Michigan of a Saturday night with my parents. I would stare longingly at the colorful boxes of Wheaties with baseball players and beg my mother to buy the Charlie Gehringer. No, we always got the cheaper Kelloggs corn flakes.
I was a child of the Great Depression, and by that I mean that my mother made my clothing on her sewing machine. As a younger boy in Danville, Indiana (also Sam Thompson's home town) my father shot rabbits for the table, and I mean hundreds of rabbits. My mother tanned some of the hides and made me a jacket.
I think my collecting has been adversely affected by my childhood, but from time to time I pull myself together and dig deep in to the pockets for say --Charlie Gehringer's 1935 World Series Ring, a Harry Wright scorebook or a Tomlinson Imperial Cabinet Detroit Team Picture.