Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Pioneers! O Pioneers!
Come my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready,
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes?
Pioneers! O pioneers!
For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
O you youths, Western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,
Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
All the past we leave behind,
We debouch upon a newer mightier world, varied world,
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
We detachments steady throwing,
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the unknown ways,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
We primeval forests felling,
We the rivers stemming, vexing we and piercing deep the mines within,
We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Colorado men are we,
From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high plateaus,
From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
From Nebraska, from Arkansas,
Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental
blood intervein'd,
All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the Northern,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
O resistless restless race!
O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all!
O I mourn and yet exult, I am rapt with love for all,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Raise the mighty mother mistress,
Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress,
(bend your heads all,)
Raise the fang'd and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, weapon'd mistress,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
See my children, resolute children,
By those swarms upon our rear we must never yield or falter,
Ages back in ghostly millions frowning there behind us urging,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
On and on the compact ranks,
With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead quickly fill'd,
Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never stopping,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
O to die advancing on!
Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come?
Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is fill'd.
Pioneers! O pioneers!
All the pulses of the world,
Falling in they beat for us, with the Western movement beat,
Holding single or together, steady moving to the front, all for us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Life's involv'd and varied pageants,
All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work,
All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their slaves,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
All the hapless silent lovers,
All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous and the wicked,
All the joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all the dying,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
I too with my soul and body,
We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way,
Through these shores amid the shadows, with the apparitions pressing,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Lo, the darting bowling orb!
Lo, the brother orbs around, all the clustering suns and planets,
All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
These are of us, they are with us,
All for primal needed work, while the followers there in embryo wait behind,
We to-day's procession heading, we the route for travel clearing,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
O you daughters of the West!
O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives!
Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Minstrels latent on the prairies!
(Shrouded bards of other lands, you may rest, you have done your work,)
Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp amid us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Not for delectations sweet,
Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the studious,
Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Do the feasters gluttonous feast?
Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they lock'd and bolted doors?
Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the ground,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Has the night descended?
Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged nodding
on our way?
Yet a passing hour I yield you in your tracks to pause oblivious,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Till with sound of trumpet,
Far, far off the daybreak call--hark! how loud and clear I hear it wind,
Swift! to the head of the army!--swift! spring to your places,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
- Walt Whitman
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
To Need or To Want
Dust off an old one...
To need or to want
Do not debate me
I said I needed you
You said you should be wanted
To need someone
Is to inherently want her
To want someone
Does not mean you need him
I need air to breathe
I need water to drink
I need what makes me live
I wanted what I needed
You wanted a new home
You wanted a new cause
You wanted a new persona
You wanted what you did not need
When you lectured me
Saying you shouldn’t be needed
But that you should be wanted
I knew I no longer needed you
Now
Answer me this
Do you still need what you want?
Or have you realized you want what you need?
Do not debate me
I said I needed you
You said you should be wanted
To need someone
Is to inherently want her
To want someone
Does not mean you need him
I need air to breathe
I need water to drink
I need what makes me live
I wanted what I needed
You wanted a new home
You wanted a new cause
You wanted a new persona
You wanted what you did not need
When you lectured me
Saying you shouldn’t be needed
But that you should be wanted
I knew I no longer needed you
Now
Answer me this
Do you still need what you want?
Or have you realized you want what you need?
Monday, August 24, 2009
Heaven and Earth
Come with me
I've seen where Heaven and Earth collide
Step lively
For the sun is hovering low
We walk a trail only I have tread
But each step is new
God willing
The view will not
I hear only my footsteps
I stop
Turning, hoping to see you following
You're not
Then I remember you're already there
I only see my shadow
Which is longer than my soul
Head down
I climb on
Short of breath
Almost at my end
Yet, pleased
There
In the distance
Heaven and Earth as one
And you
In the foreground
Expecting
Holding our son
Waiting for me to come back to you
Is it hope?
Is it pain?
I fear in the waning light
They may both be the same
I've seen where Heaven and Earth collide
Step lively
For the sun is hovering low
We walk a trail only I have tread
But each step is new
God willing
The view will not
I hear only my footsteps
I stop
Turning, hoping to see you following
You're not
Then I remember you're already there
I only see my shadow
Which is longer than my soul
Head down
I climb on
Short of breath
Almost at my end
Yet, pleased
There
In the distance
Heaven and Earth as one
And you
In the foreground
Expecting
Holding our son
Waiting for me to come back to you
Is it hope?
Is it pain?
I fear in the waning light
They may both be the same
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Friday Field Trips
Starting this week, I am working enough hours before our kids wake up, so I can take Fridays off to help out at home and spend more time with the family. Those who know me, realize that I am not a morning person. So dragging myself out of bed at 5 am without waking anyone is something I need to grow in to. They say it takes 3 weeks to start a habit, so check back with me in two weeks.
Anyways, with 40 hours of work done in 4 days, I will now get Fridays off. Maybe once in a while, I will take up Mike's offer to go fishing at Falls Lake, but what I really want to do is start Friday Field Trips. Since Kendal is no longer in day care, I think it is good for all of us to get out, enjoy the scenery and maybe teach our kids some interesting topics. I know they are way too young to understand much of anything, but I hope they will enjoy the time out and about.
So, I'm using this post to solicit ideas (free is best). So far, I've come up with the museums in downtown Raleigh, the Occoneechi Village in Hillsborough, Meadoc Mountain State Park, and much to Analee's chagrin, Bennett Place in Durham. If you've got any other suggestions, let me know and I'll add them to the list.
Educational is best, with a healthy mixture of indoor and outdoor fun. Currently, it is too hot to spend much time outside, so I need to start thinking of indoor activities.
PS - Morehead Planetarium at UNC... (this may be a good one for this upcoming hot Friday!), the Zoo (free for us), Hillridge Farms, Duke Gardens, NCSU Arboretum, Lake Wheeler Park, NCSU Insect Museum, Duke Homestead, Eno River State Park...
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
A Brief Essay on the History of Modern Baseball Card Collecting
I posted this originally on my sister-blog: http://bbcrecollections.blogspot.com/
Note: For the purposes of this commentary, the term modern shall represent the Topps Era from 1952 until present.
I was born in the winter of 1975, and my father preceded me in January of 1940. At the impressionable ages of 12, we both stood on the precipice of two major eras in the history of baseball card collecting, the years 1952 and 1987. My father witnessed the dawn of the hobby: the birth of Topps; the emergence of Mickey Mantle; the pure innocent joy of collecting. I on the other hand, retrospectively bore witness to the sunset of the hobby: the market saturation; the price guide; the business of collecting. Both of our childhoods were filled with the love of the game, and its illustration on a printed piece of cardstock. However, our perceptions of cards were tragically divergent; where his focus was on the card itself and mine was on the card as well, but also its worth.
In my opinion, this assigning a monetary value to a childhood memento is responsible for the death of baseball card collecting, and I place blame directly on my father’s generation. However, I believe my generation, through the use of responsible free trade and proper direction, is capable of resurrecting the hobby for our progeny’s enjoyment. To do this, I maintain we must understand our errors.
In the infancy of modern baseball card collecting, the cards served as a primary means of delivering the relative novelty of stick chewing gum. While chewing gum had been used prior to 1952 by the likes of Goudey Gum Co. and Bowman Gum, Inc., cards were previously distributed with tobacco products, a decidedly non-kid friendly product. With the introduction of the 1952 Topps trading cards, the market began the trend of focusing on children using cards with vibrantly colorful fronts depicting their diamond heroes, statistic and biographical data laden backs, all wrapped in wax and served with a stick of bubble gum for the reasonably low price of 5 cents per pack. To me, I cannot think of any product prior to baseball cards that was intentionally marketed to children, save for candy, and with the advent of television around the same time period, the conditions were ripe for the modern baseball card industry to begin.
Over the next two decades, there was little change in the world of baseball cards. Even the price of a pack remained at 5 cents for nearly 20 years, until prices were raised to 10 cents per pack in the late 1960s. The only change of significance was that sets became larger; consequently more series were introduced. From 1952 to 1973, cards were typically issued in 132 card series over the course of the baseball season. Due to this marketing method, we are faced with our first signs of supply and demand in the baseball card world. As the baseball season headed toward the pennant race, the final series released tended to not sell as well as the release’s earlier series, thus Topps printed fewer cards (or destroyed them). Since public demand was lessened, supply was reduced accordingly to maintain the market price (5 to 10 cents), and to prevent a market surplus.
In 1974, the standard set was now printed in one single series, thus eliminating the short supply issue of previous year’s sets. For the remainder of the decade prices increased slightly, until 1981 when the market was expanded to include two new brands, Fleer and Donruss. With the market now supporting three brands, the supply increased two-fold and the demand apparently increased accordingly until the beginning of what is now commonly referred to as the Bad or Junk Wax Era.
In the mid-1980s, the baseball card collecting world began to feel the effects of the first generation of collectors from the 50s and 60s, now referred to as Baby Boomers. I surmise that these past collectors, who now had sources of disposable income, were trying to recapture their past. As many children had done, their baseball cards were loved to the point of ruin, which in my opinion is the badge of a good baseball card. Cards were used in flipping games, placed in bicycle spokes, glued to paper, tucked in back pockets, marked on and rearranged to reflect a favorite player’s new team, and usually ultimately thrown out when the child left home. Yet, sometime in the mid to late 80s, cards were no longer played with and stored in shoe boxes wrapped in rubber bands, they were stored in acid-free, UV protective plastic sleeves preventing damaging oils from children's fingertips ruining the cards...
Now armed with financial prowess, memories of childhoods long gone and a desire to escape the ever complicating world, I think the Boomers tried to evoke their faded pasts by recollecting their old heroes. This influx of demand and money, coupled with the shortening supply of older cards due to wear and tear, trash can happy mothers and short printed series, sent the value of vintage cards skyward. With this new market of vintage card collecting came the arrival of the price guide and dealers. Essentially baseball cards became a private or capitalistic commodity, sold not through department stores and pharmacies, but through entrepreneurs catering solely to baseball card collectors through shows and storefront businesses.
Not coincidentally, I think the manufacturers (i.e., Donruss, Fleer and Topps) noticed the increased demand and influx of capital into the hobby, and began to overproduce their products to supply the dealers, thus creating a draining market surplus. Shortly thereafter, the market again increased with the introduction of Score in 1988 and Upper Deck in 1989, as well as smaller brands like Sportsflics, etc.
With the launch of Upper Deck, I think many collectors unfairly blame the company for the ruin of the hobby due to their use of premium card stock, glossy finish and holograms. While it is true that other manufacturers developed spinoff products to compete with Upper Deck, such as Topp’s Stadium Club, Donruss’ Leaf, Fleer’s Ultra and Score’s Pinnacle, thus drastically increasing the base price of cards while outpacing the demand with a vast surplus of products, it is my opinion that the private monetization of baseball cards is what put the hobby on its deathbed.
Finally, in 1994, the MLB strike effectively killed the hobby, and in some ways created conditions for a rebirth. After The Strike, demand waned considerably, and manufacturers accordingly reduced their set sizes, but did not reduce their wide variety of products. In response to the diminished interest, card companies began to diversify their products even more and focused on niche markets. No longer could a collector vie solely for a hand collated base set because now packs included inserts, such as “upgraded” base versions, relics and game-used materials. With these premium inserts and fancier base cards, prices outpaced those a child could afford. Long gone were the days of 5, 10, 50 or even 75 cent packs. Packs now sold in the 2 to 5 dollar range for 5 or 6 cards, thus effectively ending the hobby for children to reasonably amass a collection. Only the die hard adult collectors with disposable income can safely wade through these troubled waters.
Thus, this finally brings me to the end. Money, greed and private capitalism turned an innocent hobby from a child’s game to an adult industry. Yet, I still see a glimmer of hope for my children. I firmly believe changes are on the horizon. Online auctions have begun the change from capitalism to free market trade, straight trading appears to be coming back due to blogs and message boards, and the manufacturers have been reduced to two (Topps and Upper Deck) thus reducing the gluttony of products. While I will not hold my breath waiting for the insane number of parallel sets, inserts and relics to disappear, I have hope affordable base sets will be in our near future. If not, I have plenty of old cards to help my children build sets from, and I am more than willing to help fellow collectors finish their dreams.
If I learned anything from the demise of the baseball card industry, it is that a baseball card is only monetarily worth what someone else will pay for it, yet its personal worth is priceless.
Doc T
Note: For the purposes of this commentary, the term modern shall represent the Topps Era from 1952 until present.
I was born in the winter of 1975, and my father preceded me in January of 1940. At the impressionable ages of 12, we both stood on the precipice of two major eras in the history of baseball card collecting, the years 1952 and 1987. My father witnessed the dawn of the hobby: the birth of Topps; the emergence of Mickey Mantle; the pure innocent joy of collecting. I on the other hand, retrospectively bore witness to the sunset of the hobby: the market saturation; the price guide; the business of collecting. Both of our childhoods were filled with the love of the game, and its illustration on a printed piece of cardstock. However, our perceptions of cards were tragically divergent; where his focus was on the card itself and mine was on the card as well, but also its worth.
In my opinion, this assigning a monetary value to a childhood memento is responsible for the death of baseball card collecting, and I place blame directly on my father’s generation. However, I believe my generation, through the use of responsible free trade and proper direction, is capable of resurrecting the hobby for our progeny’s enjoyment. To do this, I maintain we must understand our errors.
In the infancy of modern baseball card collecting, the cards served as a primary means of delivering the relative novelty of stick chewing gum. While chewing gum had been used prior to 1952 by the likes of Goudey Gum Co. and Bowman Gum, Inc., cards were previously distributed with tobacco products, a decidedly non-kid friendly product. With the introduction of the 1952 Topps trading cards, the market began the trend of focusing on children using cards with vibrantly colorful fronts depicting their diamond heroes, statistic and biographical data laden backs, all wrapped in wax and served with a stick of bubble gum for the reasonably low price of 5 cents per pack. To me, I cannot think of any product prior to baseball cards that was intentionally marketed to children, save for candy, and with the advent of television around the same time period, the conditions were ripe for the modern baseball card industry to begin.
Over the next two decades, there was little change in the world of baseball cards. Even the price of a pack remained at 5 cents for nearly 20 years, until prices were raised to 10 cents per pack in the late 1960s. The only change of significance was that sets became larger; consequently more series were introduced. From 1952 to 1973, cards were typically issued in 132 card series over the course of the baseball season. Due to this marketing method, we are faced with our first signs of supply and demand in the baseball card world. As the baseball season headed toward the pennant race, the final series released tended to not sell as well as the release’s earlier series, thus Topps printed fewer cards (or destroyed them). Since public demand was lessened, supply was reduced accordingly to maintain the market price (5 to 10 cents), and to prevent a market surplus.
In 1974, the standard set was now printed in one single series, thus eliminating the short supply issue of previous year’s sets. For the remainder of the decade prices increased slightly, until 1981 when the market was expanded to include two new brands, Fleer and Donruss. With the market now supporting three brands, the supply increased two-fold and the demand apparently increased accordingly until the beginning of what is now commonly referred to as the Bad or Junk Wax Era.
In the mid-1980s, the baseball card collecting world began to feel the effects of the first generation of collectors from the 50s and 60s, now referred to as Baby Boomers. I surmise that these past collectors, who now had sources of disposable income, were trying to recapture their past. As many children had done, their baseball cards were loved to the point of ruin, which in my opinion is the badge of a good baseball card. Cards were used in flipping games, placed in bicycle spokes, glued to paper, tucked in back pockets, marked on and rearranged to reflect a favorite player’s new team, and usually ultimately thrown out when the child left home. Yet, sometime in the mid to late 80s, cards were no longer played with and stored in shoe boxes wrapped in rubber bands, they were stored in acid-free, UV protective plastic sleeves preventing damaging oils from children's fingertips ruining the cards...
Now armed with financial prowess, memories of childhoods long gone and a desire to escape the ever complicating world, I think the Boomers tried to evoke their faded pasts by recollecting their old heroes. This influx of demand and money, coupled with the shortening supply of older cards due to wear and tear, trash can happy mothers and short printed series, sent the value of vintage cards skyward. With this new market of vintage card collecting came the arrival of the price guide and dealers. Essentially baseball cards became a private or capitalistic commodity, sold not through department stores and pharmacies, but through entrepreneurs catering solely to baseball card collectors through shows and storefront businesses.
Not coincidentally, I think the manufacturers (i.e., Donruss, Fleer and Topps) noticed the increased demand and influx of capital into the hobby, and began to overproduce their products to supply the dealers, thus creating a draining market surplus. Shortly thereafter, the market again increased with the introduction of Score in 1988 and Upper Deck in 1989, as well as smaller brands like Sportsflics, etc.
With the launch of Upper Deck, I think many collectors unfairly blame the company for the ruin of the hobby due to their use of premium card stock, glossy finish and holograms. While it is true that other manufacturers developed spinoff products to compete with Upper Deck, such as Topp’s Stadium Club, Donruss’ Leaf, Fleer’s Ultra and Score’s Pinnacle, thus drastically increasing the base price of cards while outpacing the demand with a vast surplus of products, it is my opinion that the private monetization of baseball cards is what put the hobby on its deathbed.
Finally, in 1994, the MLB strike effectively killed the hobby, and in some ways created conditions for a rebirth. After The Strike, demand waned considerably, and manufacturers accordingly reduced their set sizes, but did not reduce their wide variety of products. In response to the diminished interest, card companies began to diversify their products even more and focused on niche markets. No longer could a collector vie solely for a hand collated base set because now packs included inserts, such as “upgraded” base versions, relics and game-used materials. With these premium inserts and fancier base cards, prices outpaced those a child could afford. Long gone were the days of 5, 10, 50 or even 75 cent packs. Packs now sold in the 2 to 5 dollar range for 5 or 6 cards, thus effectively ending the hobby for children to reasonably amass a collection. Only the die hard adult collectors with disposable income can safely wade through these troubled waters.
Thus, this finally brings me to the end. Money, greed and private capitalism turned an innocent hobby from a child’s game to an adult industry. Yet, I still see a glimmer of hope for my children. I firmly believe changes are on the horizon. Online auctions have begun the change from capitalism to free market trade, straight trading appears to be coming back due to blogs and message boards, and the manufacturers have been reduced to two (Topps and Upper Deck) thus reducing the gluttony of products. While I will not hold my breath waiting for the insane number of parallel sets, inserts and relics to disappear, I have hope affordable base sets will be in our near future. If not, I have plenty of old cards to help my children build sets from, and I am more than willing to help fellow collectors finish their dreams.
If I learned anything from the demise of the baseball card industry, it is that a baseball card is only monetarily worth what someone else will pay for it, yet its personal worth is priceless.
Doc T
Friday, March 13, 2009
Autumn Moon
Of late, my dreams have been extremely vivid and I have been remembering every detail. Last night, I dreamed of strolling through a field with Analee very late in our lives, and while we walked hand in hand, I recited a poem to her:
Autumn Moon
In the light of the Autumn Moon
Your heart spoke to me
Whispered sweet secrets of a future
Beyond outstretched fingers
Yearning for a home
Where we reaped a harvest
Of smiles and giggles
From mouths that would one day
Be haggard and worn
When we were but a branch of a tree
With our memories long forgotten
Yet I will remember where to find you
Beneath the light of the Autumn Moon
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