Boxes

At work we got talking one day about government cheese. For those that don't know what that is let me give you brief description. While I have no idea on how long the program ran. When I was a kid they would give out a box of cheese to families in need. That is all I can say about it as it was a friend's family that got it. More about that later, and how this goes into baseball cards will be revealed then.

The entire conversation got me to thinking about baseball cards, and boxes. Growing up I had a family that knew absolutely nothing about sports. Everything I have ever learned is self taught from reading, and learning on my own. Throw in that we were living in a very small town at the time. With those two things going against me it was no wonder that we had some different ideas on storing cards.

While you hear stories of rubber bands, and shoe boxes we were not part of that scene. Our storage came from the cards themselves

(image from baseballcardpedia.com)

We would do our best to be the kid who bought the last pack from the box. Your reward for said purchase was it gave you the claim on the box.From that point we would store all our cards in the box. As everyone knows these weren't the sturdiest of boxes so we had to be good with them. 

Then the day came that changed the baseball cards storage game. A friend's mom headed up to where they were giving out something called government cheese. 

While I don't remember the flavor or anything about the cheese itself. I do remember that the box was perfect for holding our baseball, and football cards. From that day on I would be asking constantly for when I could expect the next box. The friend who's family got these didn't collect baseball cards so he had no need for these wonderful boxes.

 Not only did the cards fit perfectly they were much sturdier than the flimsy boxes that packs came in. This also cleared up the opportunity to cut the cards from the bottom of the box, another game changer for us. Another great part was we could decorate the boxes as well to add to the fun. How long they got the cheese I can't remember, but I do remember all us kids holding our cards in those cardboard boxes the cheese came in.