Member’s most precious card

[Al C.risafulli]

My father left when I was 9 years old and my mom worked three jobs to keep things going in our house. In 1981, my whole neighborhood was obsessed with 1981 Fleer, finding all the errors and variations in the set.

Graig Nettles was my favorite player, and when I found out there was an error with Nettles’ card in the 1981 Fleer set, I HAD to have it.

My local card shop was a place called Dollars and Sense, in Ridgewood NJ, and when the owner got a Nettles error and priced it at $17, I knew I would never have one. In 1981 in my family, seventeen dollars might as well have been seventeen million dollars.

And then on my birthday, my mom gave me that card. She worked as a teacher during the day, and in a factory and a medical office at nights, so she could buy me that card. Not really, of course, but that’s what it felt like. I’m sure at whatever she got paid to work in a factory in 1981, it was half a day’s work to get that card.

I’ve still got it, and when they say “you can’t take it with you,” well, I’m taking it with me.

-Al