an old find, a concert and happy mother's day

05/10/2009

Last summer, my great uncle passed away at the age of 97. He was one of those Jewish people who defined the stereotype, “a cheep Jew”. He never through away anything. Wore suits, always looked good, unfortunately they were from the 50’s or maybe a new suit for him was from the early 70’s. Not like he didn’t have money. He, along with his brothers, ran a successful scrap iron business for about 40 years and invested very well When my dad first went up to start the process of cleaning out the condo, He found a check written in 1940 something to a bank that doesn’t exist any more. When my mom was cleaning out some draws of his, she found a ticket stub from the 1946All Star game that she brought home for me. The price on the ticket read “$3.50” and they were the good seats. They had found other things like a closet that was stacked with light bulbs from over the decades.

The condo itself is sold, they are passing papers Tuesday. So my dad went to the storage area in the garage of the condo, with gloves and a box of trash bags to clean it out. He found things that to him was trash, although he did look at every item, an antique appraiser he was not.

And there, on the shelf of the storage, sat an item, it was yellowish, no doubt from being locked up all these years. (He had moved in to the condo in 1972) However, it was just the item sitting there. No protective covering of any type. It didn’t even sit in a holder.

My dad reached up, took the baseball off the shelf and examined it a bit. There was some autographs on it. My dad not knowing much about sports, took it home to me. Between my mom and dad, they tried to figure out the names and what year it possibly could have been from. My dad was on a baseball history site, that had the roster’s of every year from every team while my mom was trying to make out the player’s names. My mom would be like… it looks like a Josh or a Joseph,. My dad looks down the list of names for a certain season. They very easily narrowed it down to a 10 year span by the first 3 names. However, we had keyed it down to either 1948 or 1949.

Some of the autographs that were on the ball included:

Bobby Doerr, Johnny Pesky, Dominic DiMAggio, TeD Williams
Billy Goodman, matt Batts, Ellis Kinder, Mel Parnell, Mickey Harris, Tex Hughson and so many many more.

I had ran down to my room to get a baseball holder-cover to put the ball in.
My mom had suggested to take it to sports world, a sports collectable shop in my town to see if they could maybe see what it maybe worth and have it authenticated.
SO me, holding the baseball in the holder, with shaking hands, went with my father to the shop. There was a few men working there. We asked if we could get it authenticated. He said that Joe is the expert in this type of stuff. He went and got Joe. He looked at it and said it was definitely real. I asked if he could Authenticate it or if not, where I could go to get it authenticated. He said “oh, no, I can do that right here. Let me go and figure out what year it’s from.” After about 5 minutes waiting, he came back and said it is definitely real and that it was from 1948. He handed me a ticket of authenticity for the ball. My dad asked him what he thought it would be worth?
So this baseball that my great uncle probably paid a nickel for in 1948,
In the condition that its in, the guy said it’s worth about $500 to $750.

………………………………

I was suppose to go to see BoyZ II Men with Nikki last night.
I was trying to find someone to go with. I asked two and eventually three former female coworkers of mine. Each had prior plans they could not get out of, but they would have love to have gone. I asked my twin, and then my college roommate said he would go but he would have to check with his wife. My mom said she would go. I Asked my cousin and than a friend of hers. I ran out of people to ask. I ended up taking my mom.

The concert was in a bran new hall, in a bran new development that the owner of the New England Patriots, the football team here, developed on the land next to the stadium.
My mom and I got there early so we could walk around the development and grab dinner.
It was a very nice place. It was like a shopping center with a roof. I know in FL they call them malls so what ever it is. They had all types of stores: Puma, Rebock, victory secret, godiva chocolate store, a pizza joint, an up scale stake and fish place, and a red robin, where we ended up eating. There was even a hotel, a movie theater, and more that I cant think of. The place was packed.

We walked to the concert hall, and even though there was a long line, someone working there saw my white cane and asked us if we were going to the show. He brought us right in. The hall, when not a concert, was a night club. The place was huge. Must have had a few thousands people. The DJ was playing music and getting the crowd pumped up for the concert. My mom asked someone working there if I could have a chair. He brought it over right away, asked my mom if she wanted one too, my mom declined but thanked the man.

We were on the right side of the stage. Between the stage and the side wall there was about 10 feet. That’s where we sat.
Boyz II men were great as always. They were entertaining and got the crowd into it a lot. They played all their hits and a few off their new album, “mo town” which my mom knew all the songs from that album. She even remembered all the hit songs. I will admit, I did get embarrassed once, when my mom was singing the cores to “I’ll make love to you” lol um, not cool hearing your mom sing that.
During one song they came out each holding roses and as the song went along, were throwing the flowers out to the crowd. The girls went nuts. They also had a video bored behind them, showing pictures of hmm don’t remember what my mom said.
Before one song, they asked everyone to take out their cel phones, so I did, and hold them up. (I didn’t get this, my mom explained that cel phones light up, so it give the effects of holding candles up) Then one said, hold up, I want everyone to call their moms. That’s right, call her, even if you have to wake her. I put the phone to my ear and turned to my mom “hi mom”
BoyzIImen than sang their song “a song for mama”
The place went nuts again. They started taking people’s phone and singing into them.
They had walked off and the place went crazy. I turned to my mom and said “they still have to play its so hard to say good bye” In a few minutes, one of them came out, thanked everyone, (they had been thanking everyone all night) and started singing “its so hard to say good by to yesterday” acapello and eventually the other two came out to join him, but one at a time. It really awesome.
They closed the show with the same song they opened with, Mo Town Philli. It was an awesome concert.

This was definitely one of the top 20 best days of my life.

Happy mother’s day to all the mothers.

Carlise, Amy, Kim And a special first mother’s day to Liv.