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Simple Pleasures Revisited


aquaman.JPGI wonder, sometimes, what the future holds for non-digital entertainment. And an unlikely event raised that question for me earlier this week.

My parents moved to town last weekend, bringing with them several boxes of miscellaneous flotsam and jetsam that every move inevitably stirs up. I thought I’d gotten everything they had for me—you know, college notebooks, trophies from high school, a picture from my college graduation. But when I went over to see how they were settling in a couple days later, they had one final box for me.

“Comics and Baseball Cards,” it said.

I was bit perplexed, because I was pretty sure I sold all my baseball cards at a garage sale decades ago. And my teenage comic book collection? Well, it’s safely tucked away in our basement and doesn’t get much sunlight.

But there it was, a box of comics and baseball cards.

I began digging through the box and quickly realized that none of it was actually mine, as far as I could tell. And there were some pretty old comics in the box. Like, 1958 old.

“Umm, Dad,” I asked, “where did these come from?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Why?”

“Well … there’s some pretty interesting stuff in here.”

Indeed there was. The real prize was DC Comics’ Aquaman, No. 1 from 1962 … a comic, the Internet helpfully informed me, that might be worth a pretty penny.

Here’s where the nostalgia kicks in: I didn’t remember ever seeing these comics before (and, to be honest, we still haven’t figured out where they came from). But I do recall spending hours in my adolescence buying, sorting, reading and re-reading comic books. The musty smell of these almost 50-year-old comics unleashed a torrent of memories in me—happy memories about an on-again-off-again hobby that continued through my teen years.

I also rifled through stacks and stacks of baseball cards, which also triggered memories of my brief flirtation with that hobby.

I know this is a long way around to make a point, but here it is: Pouring over the comics’ yellowed paper made me wonder how many kids growing up today will have a similar experience. Do baseball cards and comics still hold much appeal?

I realize, of course, that contemporary comics are loaded with their fair share of content concerns. I’m really not advocating for comic book collecting here. Mostly I’m just pondering whether the proliferation of all things digital—iPhones, YouTube, MySpace, Wii, etc.—means that simple, unplugged, analog pursuits like arranging one’s comics or baseball cards are doomed to go the way of the dodo, killed off by their digital replacements.

If so, I suspect fewer folks 50 years from now will know the unexpected pleasure of uncovering a long-forgotten box full of musty old stories.