Pud Gannon Memoirs #2

It's time for another look into Pud Gannon's scribblings while we wait out the winter.  If you missed or have forgotten the previous entry, you can find it here. I haven't quite figured out the timelines or Pud's actual age yet.  He isn't thoughtful enough to provide dates, though the anecdote towards the end of this entry must be around 1917, and the ruminations in the first part must pre-date WWII, my guess is the late '30s to 1940.  But you can draw your own conclusions.  Enjoy.

Jewel of the Cumberland

Every autumn, I take a couple weeks to myself, fill the backseat of my Ford with assorted mismatched clothing, books, dried and canned foods and drive.  Just pick a direction and drive in search of yard sales, estate sales, pawn shops, wherever garbage accumulates.  Where the treasure lives.  Every year save one yielded a rare, and to me, indispensable artifact.  In 2008 I bought a Duke Snider rookie card from an old man named Abraham Hostler for $15 and a conversation.  He offered it to me with a wizened hand, the skin gone translucent, just brittle bone and blue vein.  He told he hadn’t seen a game since the Giants beat the Cardinals one day in May 1968.  “It just ain’t the same on television.  And my heart can’t take the city anymore.”  I replied that I understood, shook his hand and escaped with my prize.