Well, its kind of odd that my first Father’s day comes only 2 months after Noah was born, as somehow I feel like I havent earned it quite yet. Either way, its still pretty cool that I get to celebrate this holiday so early in life, as I never expected to be married with children quite yet. Its not like I am not ecstatic to be a dad, just kind of shocking, right?
On top of all of that, I feel like this hobby is so father/son related, anyways. Everyone seems to be collecting for themselves now, but for their sons in the future. Personally, I can promise that he will have to pull my collection from my cold dead fingers, but at least he will end up with it some day. I mean, my dad was the reason I became such an avid collector of all things athlete signed, and I STILL havent gotten his Johnny Unitas signature that he has stashed away.
That part of our lives it is why most of us are here, and thats why a day like this is important. Noah is always going to have an understanding of how cool it is to meet his idols, and thats because he is going to see the joy I got from the stories I will tell. He may not travel down the same path I did, but he is going to know what it means. Although I stand by the fact that children should not and never should be the focus of growing the hobby, having a few extras like me and Noah around doesnt hurt. I would not give two rat’s asses about this hobby if it werent for my father, and Noah probably would have less of a chance of falling into it if I didnt show him the way down the road. Even though I am going to have to compete with his future XBOX 1080, hopefully he will get the point.
Basically, we all have a starting point, and in the past it was mostly our parents stories of losing all those Mickey Mantle cards to the garage sales or the trash heaps. In the future, its going to be a completely different story because of the way people find information now. Its less about “when I was growing up” and more about message boards and facebook from this point forward. That IS NOT a bad thing at all, just detrimental to the way some children discover things (good or bad).
I do hope Noah ends up as a sports fan, and I definitely hope he ends up as a collector some time in his life. If he doesnt, it wont be the end of the world for me, but it will be something that I feel could have been fun for us if it doesnt work out.