apparently stupidity is hereditary.....

I think I've told the story here before about the time I played with my basketball that had been signed by the Harlem Globetrotters. I had ridden the bus with the whole team from their hotel to the arena, sat right beside of Meadowlark Lemon, and he passed a basketball around the bus so that all the players could sign it. I was so proud of that basketball. I took it to school with me and showed it off. I was six years old and convinced that life could get no better than this. That afternoon I played with the basketball out in the rain. All the signatures washed off. The ball went from priceless to $4.99, just like that.

I learned yesterday that I come by this "illness" naturally. Dad has some cousins whose father gave them a baseball signed by the 1956 Baltimore Orioles. A kid by the name of Brooks Robinson, who some say was the greatest third basemen ever, played on that team. They played with the ball until the signatures wore off.

A reporter for the Kingsport Times-News wrote an article on the Orioles ball. Hayden Brian, one of Dad's cousins, told the reporter about my Globetrotter basketball and he wrote an article on that last Friday. I'm waiting to get a copy of the article.

You can just imagine my pride.....