sesame street fever, saturday morning cartoons, oldsmobile faux leather seats, tom petty, david bowie, madonna, tina turner, zima, bill cosby, xeroxing, betamax, 8-tracks, brittany spears, axl rose, jimmy carter, politics without social media, tv channel knobs, typewriters, fruit stripe gum, overweight john goodman, stroh’s, kids without ipads, payphones, phone books, encyclopedia brittanica tomes, waiting room magazines, blockbuster video, gene hackman, robert duvall, diane keaton, maggie smith, jonny quest, bigfoot & wildboy, lou ferrigno, farrah fawcett, smurf-berry crunch, fidel castro, mao, ho chi minh, nixon, agent orange, facts.
Tag: Nostalgia
Running In My Dreams
i haven’t actually run in over 3 years, my vertebrae won’t let me, my bones said no long ago, but i can still sleep (most of the time), & dream, legs pulsating, up grassy hills, through pine forests, surging, my force, dormant, alive, memories of pacific coast trails, fire roads, predawn training, steep san francisco inclines, these dreams are real, in my subconscious i’m still a runner, in my physical body they are just memories, one day they will fade away completely, but for now i can still dream.
Playing Centipede
I recently went to the Musee Mecanique in San Francisco with my son. The place is built for nostalgia. Everyone I knew in the 1980’s had at least one video arcade game where they could dominate. After spending many quarters up and down the Rehoboth Beach Boardwalk, Centipede became my game (along with Galaga/Galaxian & Zaxxon). You see the DAN in the photo? The kid can still do his thing!
Before & Now
i could try to put
all the words back together
months and years of poems
those fragments, pieces of bone
structure of love, my body
of work, endless expression
of our boundless truth
when we were both
younger, before
but now
only this
Are Clint Eastwood Cards Undervalued?
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.
When The Holidays Are Over
no more 8am waking up, dean martin really can’t stay, chestnuts stop roasting, the hallmark channel starts to countdown from 364, the radio quits playing it’s the most wonderful time of the year, dead christmas trees adorn city concrete, jimmy stewart disappears back into nostalgia, family says goodbye, credit card bills get paid, calories are cut, gym memberships rise, green & red sweaters go back into cedar chests, thank you cards are written, hot chocolate loses its luster, mistletoe romance becomes memory, new year’s resolutions begin, to do lists resurface, everyone gets a little older & 2023 says goodbye.
Merry Christmas!
Moody Blues & An Old Flame
i wonder where you are, i wonder if you think about me, once upon a time in your wildest dreams, moody blues 1986, he sent her the song on a cassette in the mail, like a message in a bottle, old & scraped, washed up, on her shore, no one listens to the moody blues anymore, she replied on a postcard, but thanks, 10 years had passed, he never wrote her again
My Grandmother’s Scrapbook
held together by shreds of faded fabric, pages torn, inside inked December 1914, that cursive once on chalkboards all across america, found it in the trash where my father had placed it, rescued history, my hands cradling the past, how could you throw this away?, i thought, but never said a word, her poems carefully pasted next to drawings of men and women, little girls, dolls and dogs, lakes with sailboats, christmas greetings from the 20’s, dance cards, foxtrot, lindy hop, young love in pencil marks, pressed carnations, color long gone, diaspora of flower petals wedged into the treasure’s every crevice, army v. navy football ticket, pink powder puff once pressed on a face, my grandmother’s, her life still here, with me forever.
Yearbook 1990
we care, we don’t care, ballpoint pen, sharpie, maybe a pencil, use words like dude, sign with love, air out grievances, i guess we did have a few little arguments this year, address complicated romance, i suppose we’ve said before that everything was a mistake, but i really don’t feel that way, attempt humor, have a nice winter! make fun of teachers, doesn’t ms. earle look like grimace when she wears the purple lab coat? express bland kindness, you’ve been really cool this year, and i hope to see you around, give unwanted relationship advice, make sure to keep your girl in line, she’ll run all over you, talk sports, oh and by the way, the Braves do not suck, comment on music, STRAY CATS RULE! forget who’s yearbook it is, jim, chemistry wasn’t great but we made it to june, and this quasi-document, could be pompeii, everything, and nothing
Daniel W. Polk 