Reunion Solves 50 year old Theft Case

Last reunion (2010) Kenny Larkin our wives and I dined at the same table and reminisced a bit. It was good times. 

Back in the day... Around 1960 Kenny and I both lived on NIX street about a block away from each other. I think we first met during trips to the “Little Store” (as it was known back then), at the corner of Nelson and 16th. Or we might have met going back and forth to Whittier Elementary School. Kenny and I played Kids Inc. softball in the summer. He was on the better ‘Grasshopper’ team, and I was on the lowly ‘Termites’ team (along with my friend David Wilson), so we might have first met on the baseball diamond, can’t really remember. I know we both loved baseball and we both saved our money so we could buy Topps Baseball cards and gum at the little store. 

Side note... David Wilson and I were a softball pitcher/catcher combination for years, but that's another story :)

Kenny, his older brothers and I would get together and play in their back yard from time to time. The highlight of our play was when Kenny and his brothers would wheel out their collection of baseball cards. Man did they have a bunch, I never saw such a collection. I had maybe ten cards in my collection, they had scores of cards in theirs, perhaps hundreds. His brothers were older, so they could acquire money to buy cards a lot more handily than me or Kenny. During our play, we’d all rummage thru the cards pointing out the ‘Mantles’, ‘Maris’ and ‘Yogies’ (all NY Yankees, my favorite team, then and now). 

Back to the Reunion... I asked Kenny if he’d remember those days, he chuckled and said of course he did. I went on to describe to him one of my favorite childhood memories that involved me and his brothers… 

One day, as I remember, I was over at their house, for some reason Kenny wasn’t around, and his brothers were sorting thru their cards. There I was, in breathless admiration as they went from card to card, looking at the action pictures and reading all the heady stats. As I recall, his brothers were separating cards into stacks and filling boxes perhaps removing the duplicates which was a pretty common situation. 

This went on for a while, and It was getting late, so I knew I should head home. As I was getting up, to my amazement, one of his brothers turned to me and said “hey Doug, do you want this box?”. I thought for a second that the box was just a dup box that they didn't need, and they were being nice and giving it to me, I really didn't know.  So I said...“you bet I do”!  I was thrilled ! I ran home with what I considered a treasure. At that point in my life, it really didn’t matter what cards were in the box, the mere fact that I had just acquired fifty of anything was a pretty lofty concept.

editors note: (shortly after this event, my family moved over by Martin Rd lake and Gene Howe Park, across the street from Larry Gibson, right down from Cindy Boyle and Richard Snow, so my encounters with Kenny were greatly reduced. Months and years went by, I added to the collection, cherishing each card.)

Back to the Reunion... I finished my story, noticed that Kenny hadn’t said a word, even looked kind of pale. He finally cracked his voice and with big eyes said to me… “so that’s where my box of baseball cards went”.  

At our 2010 Reunion, a 50 year old theft case was solved.

Doug L

PS - I told this story at our last reunion (Mar 23, 2023) so you may have already heard it. It was also buried deep on this web site, hard to find, so I thought I'd resurrect it a bit.  Kenny approves.