Tag: History

Remembering Willie Mays: 1931-2024

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A Brief Willie Mays Story: My Uncle was African-American (former Baltimore Colt/Army Officer/Doctor of Education). Willie Mays needed two more people for a round of golf in San Francisco. My Uncle and his friend agreed to play. Before starting, my Uncle and his friend decided to pretend that they didn’t know who Willie Mays was. They made it to the 4th hole, when Willie says to them, “Say Hey, don’t you boys know who I am?” My Uncle told me that Willie Mays was a great guy. Perhaps the greatest baseball player of all time. Rest In Peace…

Are Clint Eastwood Cards Undervalued?

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1959 Menko
1962 Dutch Gum

Clint Eastwood is arguably the most iconic American male actor/director of all-time: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, Million Dollar Baby, Heartbreak Ridge, Letters from Iwo Jima, the list is endless.

Clint Eastwood was born in San Francisco in 1930. He is a 12th generation American, descended from the pilgrim William Bradford. As a young man he was: a jazz pianist, a lumberjack, a steel mill worker, a truck driver, a life guard, a grocer, a forest firefighter, and a bouncer. Eastwood was stationed at Fort Ord Army base from 1951-1953 and served his country as a swimming instructor. On September 30th 1951, he was a passenger in a US Navy Skyraider which crashed into the ocean off the coast of Point Reyes in Marin County, California. Eastwood was able to swim the two miles to shore at night, guided by the Point Reyes Lighthouse. Eventually, Eastwood made his way to Hollywood and slowly but surely became a movie star.

Clint Eastwood has two recognized rookie cards: the 1959 Menko & the 1962 Dutch Gum (see above images). There are a few variations for both of these extremely rare cards. There are only 21 graded (PSA & SGC) 1962 Dutch Gum/Menko rookie cards. Currently, eBay has only 10 Dutch Gum & 5 Menko cards listed. COMC has 13 Dutch Gum & 1 Menko card. I’ve been tracking these cards for several weeks; new Eastwood cards are almost never added to either platform. One slight breeze in the market & all of Clint Eastwood’s 1960’s cards will easily be $100+.

So, are Clint Eastwood cards undervalued? Yes, yes they are.

Nitzana: Israeli Archeological Site 1993

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negev desert, judea, where jesus once was, at least the bible says so, how to know such things? i’m digging in the earth, sliding shovel across the surface, not chopping into sun-laden ground, that breaks plates, pottery, artifacts, i see richard in the distance, bandana around his neck, this is his club med, his happy place, last night he told me about his termite business back in anaheim, says he saves up all year to come out here, to be alone with god in the land of the new testament, & he’s not wrong, they were here, nabateans, romans, byzantines, arabs, persians, turks, jews, muslims, christians, they built, conquered, lived, loved, died, their shadows surround us as we labor.

I Should Have Been Born In 1955

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what once was is all i think about, no, i don’t want world war 2 and the holocaust, and no, i don’t want to be drafted to vietnam, and the kennedys weren’t really that great, and jim crow was terrible, i don’t want polio, thank you jonas salk, there was no perfect time, what i’m talking about is technology and the speed of life, the environment, 24/7 internet television, tiktok addiction, the list is endless, the modern world is tough on someone who was born in the wrong year, i’m thinking it should have been 1955, not 1972, in 1955 tv was still new, american cars were still cool, food was less toxic, the planet wasn’t full on globally warming, and the dodgers and yankees had some epic baseball battles, the who could have been my first concert instead of the village people, as a kid i could still use a typewriter, and i could live for several decades with no email, no text messages, no cellphone, and i could have gotten lost more, remember when we used to get lost with real maps? i sound like an old curmudgeon, and i guess i’m getting there, but i look up and down san francisco streets and there are self-driving cars, motorized bikes speeding through red lights, people in tents, nothing seems to make sense, and shel silverstein isn’t alive anymore to help explain it to me, gosh bless his sarah cynthia sylvia stout, remember what happened? the whole pile of garbage just fell everywhere and destroyed everything, sometimes that feels like us right now, the 21st century collapsing into automation, artificially intelligent machine learning, humanity riding in the backseat, but tell them how you really feel dan, i still have hope, otherwise why teach? why be a parent? but something is off, it’s all just too fast, too digital, too many screens, can’t we just slow it down a little bit? take a deep breath, now one more, that’s a start.

The Life & Death of North Beach, San Francisco

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north beach has changed, the spontaneity is gone, we used to just go out, to shop at city lights bookstore, to eat, to have a drink, to be in the city together, listen to music, jazz, or whatever, the city used to be a community, no one really knew what might happen any given night, at vesuvio’s or caffe trieste, or on broadway, people being people, san francisco people, with their freedom and self-expression, the edifices remain, but the past is past, now they shop amazon online, order uber eats, reserve on opentable, scrutinize tripadvisor, calculate with gps, where to go and when, the city has had a partial death, and no one really cares, why go back to the old ways? we are now more and more, part of the machine, technology guides us, separates us from –lets just go out and be.