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The 4 Corners: Part 3 & 4 - The Storyline
by sportscardinfo
Part 3:
I felt stuffed and tired as I walked back towards my bedroom. Lying down on my bed I quickly fell asleep.
Believe it or not, but 5 long years went by without looking inside that old tin. I was 18 years old and I was about to head off to college. Packing up all my stuff I came across the old tin once again, right where I had left it. I felt a moment of nostalgia remembering that day up in the attic. So many things had happened in my life since that day I came home from the hospital. Both my brothers were killed in a car accident, my father left, and my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer. I felt so fortunate that I was able to get a scholarship to school. If I hadn’t received one I’d probably be working at McDonald’s for the rest of my life. For some crazy reason I decided to put the tin (which still had that strange metal like object inside) into my stuff to take to college.
About 2 hours later I had finished packing and headed downstairs. My mother was sitting there with a sad look on her face, knowing that I would be gone for a longtime. We talked for awhile and then I headed out the door to make my way to the train station.
It was a long 5 hour train ride to college, which was located in Old Mill, Virginia. I had always enjoyed history which is why I picked that as my major. Finding my way to my dorm room was a pain. It seemed like there were 800 drunk kids that just wouldn’t get out of my way. Finally, I made it to room 206 which was mine. Opening the door I quickly was introduced to my roommate Willy. When looking at Willy, one word came to mind………… dork. He wore thick glasses and you could just tell that he didn’t get out much. He was a talker too. I think I learned his whole family’s life history in 10 minutes. Willy wouldn’t stop talking about his grandfather who had just passed away and left him a huge box of baseball cards. Becoming curious, I showed him the small object in my tin with the name PLANK spelled backwards thinking maybe he could tell me something about it. Apparently Willy and his grandfather collected baseball cards and were quite familiar with their history, and when he saw the metal card he became intrigued. While examining it, he went over to his desk and opened a reference book titled Popular Baseball Cards. He went on to say that this was an image of Baseball Hall of Famer Eddie Plank. Willy wasn’t too sure, but he thought it might be the actual printing plate used to create that famous card from that 1909-11 set. The original Plank is so rare because legend says there was a problem with the plate and that’s why finding a Plank is so rare. He asked me where this came from, and I told him it was in that tin which was my grandfathers’. I told Willy that I think he once worked for a tobacco company.
Part 4:
It was almost time for me to attend my first class, but I didn’t want to go. I would have rather stayed back in my room studying the Plank plate. I grabbed my backpack and headed out the door, leaving the plate back in my room. My first class was American History 101 taught by Dr. London. Walking in the room, I sat down at one of the desks in the middle. I didn’t want to sit up front and make the rest of the class think I was a suck up, and sitting in the back might make the professor think I was lazy. Watching the rest of the class walk in, I spotted this really pretty blonde girl wearing a pink tank top and jean shorts, and thanked god for these hot Virginia summers. Just my luck, she sat down next to me and we exchanged smiles. The professor came in and placed the large stack of syllabi on the table, grabbed a marker and began to write his name on the whiteboard. Then we each received a syllabus. Dr. London started talking about how long he has been teaching and what the course was going to be about, but I doubt many people were paying attention because this guy had the wildest hair I had ever seen. It looked as if he placed his finger in an electrical socket and then went to class. We were dismissed after about 30 minutes so we could go to the bookstore and purchase the required books. I purposely put my notebook and pencil away slowly just so I could walk out at the same time as the blonde in the tank top. Catching up out in the hall I introduced myself to her and she told me her name was Amber. She said that she was a history major as well, which really surprised me because I’d never seen a girl with those kind of looks interested in history. Before I headed back to my room I asked if I could have her number so we could get together sometime and study. She gave me probably the best smile I had ever seen and said sure.
When I got back to the room, I found Willie hunched over that baseball card book trying to find more about Eddie Plank and the American Tobacco Company. Willie thought my grandfather stole the plate hoping to make the actual card worth a lot more than the rest of the cards in that set. I told him he was crazy for thinking that. My grandfather was the nicest guy in the world and never would steal anything. Sitting down on the chair across from Willie, I couldn’t stop thinking about Amber and that smile. It was hypnotizing. The television was playing in the background and it sounded like something important was happening. I went to turn up the volume and a cleanly cut news anchor was sitting behind a desk saying “Our affiliate KWXL out of Canton Ohio is telling us there has been an explosion at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. We’re getting reports stating it happened right after a robbery. We know little about the situation, but we’ll keep you updated as the story unfolds.” As soon as the anchor stopped talking, my cell phone rang. Looking at the monochrome screen I could see it was my mother.
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