Tuesday, August 14, 2018

The Saturday Holiday


Saturday was National Baseball Card Day and while not a religious holiday per se, it's definitely a spiritual holiday in our house. Bob made plans well in advance to attend the card day event at his favorite (place on earth) card store, Hall Of Fame Baseball Cards.  Bob routinely saves his allowance for trips to this dark and narrow store, with circa 90s carpeting and paneled walls filled with sports cards and memorabilia. On National Baseball Card Day, the place was packed.

There is one chair in the store, a peeling Pier One Papasan chair with a faded red cushion. I refer to it as The Mom Chair since only moms sit in the card store. Moms who drive their kids to the store and patiently accompany their loved ones while important transactions are made. When we got to the store on Saturday, there was of course another mom already in the chair. I stood by, knowing I could outlast her. Bob had plans to be in the store for the entire two hours before his baseball game warm-up at 2:00 PM.

Sometime between the baseball trivia game and the raffle, Chair Mom left and I took over the spot. From The Mom Chair vantage point, I could see the whole store and comfortably take in the quiet joy of fans and their cards. I breathed deeply and noticed a distinctly musty smell in the chair. It was the scent of a thousand mom perfumes. Emeraude and White Linen, Chantilly and Vanilla Fields mingled together and for an hour and twenty minutes, I held down the spot in the store that is at least as important as the signed Jackie Robinson ball in the glass case.






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