[Casey2296]

Growing up in suburbia as a kid collecting baseball cards Kelloggs 3D cards were a big thing, new and shiny like a Cadillac right off the lot, I would implore my Mom to get as many boxes of Corn Flakes as would fit in the cart. Of course, that resulted in one whole box in the cart, but I was allowed to pick out the box and I knew that particular box was the one that held the coveted “Say Hey Kid’, the great Willie Mays.

Once a week at the Grocery I would conjure up the spirits of my long dead forefathers, singing the songs of my people, looking for guidance on which box of Corn Flakes to choose, only to be disappointed when I removed that baseball card from the box. No Mays again, nor ever for that entire summer.

I was thoroughly convinced there was an Evil Cabal of loading dock workers in Battle Creek Michigan conspiring to send pallets of Corn Flakes with nothing but Dick Drago & Bill Parsons cards to my particular grocery store, no offense to the Drago/Parsons families but jeez, just once couldn’t I get a Juan Marichal or Willie McCovey?

Then a strange thing happened in my 6-block card collecting universe. The Kelloggs All-Time Greats 15 card set. At first glance they were mesmerizing images that literally jumped off the card, an actual Babe Ruth card that you could touch, flip over, and see that amazing number “714”, Cy Young “511”, Lou Gehrig “2130”…

And unobtainable.

You see, Mr. Kellogg was no dummy, there was only two ways to get those cards. Sending money to Battle Creek for the whole set or buying high end Danish that the cards were inserted in. Neither of which was happening in our household anytime soon. Ah, but there was a third way, I spent the remainder of the Summer trading, flipping, cajoling, threatening, whatever I could do to get my hands on those cards. Obsession would be an understatement. Grand total in my possession by seasons end? -2- Cy Young & Lou Gehrig.

So I suppose I should thank you Mr. Kellogg for a summer long diet consisting solely of Corn Flakes and planting the seeds of pre-war card collecting ruin in the mind of an innocent child…