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| Strike The Gold smells the roses in the 1991 Kentucky Derby |
By Harry Cummins
Do you love collecting picayune keepsakes? I plead guilty. I admit to a particular affinity for event programs and ticket stubs. Particularly ticket stubs.
No, I don't make fridge magnets or plastic sleeve scrapbooks out of them. They are simply tucked away in a big manila envelope marked SAVE. Savion Glover, U-2, The World Series, Elton John, American Pharoah, and Floyd Mayweather Jr. all rub shoulders in a cherished cacophony inside.
To qualify for entry into my envelope, I have only two criteria:
1. The stub must originate from an event I attended that was memorable for me, for whatever reason. There's the one from the time Michael Jordan scored 30 points in the 4th quarter. Another from the night John Curry glided across the frozen stage of the Metropolitan Opera House.
2. In design, the face of the ticket must loosely resemble what I call 'art.'
Over the passing years, I am putting less and less into my envelope. I like to attribute this to a general economic tightening, rather than my own capacity to retain meaning and memory in our world.
I am not sure, post pandemic, what might find it's way into my envelope going forward. It has remained sealed throughout 2020, even as eBay beckons.
As any savvy railbird will attest, in a year when a virus and a vaccine arrive in a dead-heat, you heed the track announcement "hold all tickets."
I am doing just that.
hcummins@aol.com
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