What are your top 5 hobby moments? …

I was meandering around cyberspace and poking my nose into the Network54http://www.network54.com/Forum/153652 discussion section (probably not the correct nomenclature), which then sent me further afield at to a Financial Times website where someone named Tony Barber was blogging about the inauguration of President Obama being such a momentous event for so many millions of Americans.

I would normally be way too chicken to venture to a website called Financial Times, especially in this day and age, but with the recommendation from a hobby venue I took a shot. What prompted me to comment on it was his No. 1 moment: Playing with a full set of American Civil War bubble gum cards.

His list encompassed Top 10 American Moments of his life, and he included popular culture and politics, presumably because it’s his list and he gets to decide the ground rules.

Barack Obama didn’t make it to his list anywhere, but I was intrigued that a set of Civil War cards could jump ahead of Robert Kennedy’s assassination, Nixon’s resignation and 9/11.

For most people my age, I suspect the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 either tops the list or is right up there, so this Financial Times guy is obviously quite a bit younger than I am.

Anyway, it got me to wondering about a top 5 list of hobby/sports moments, since including assassinations, wars and other calamities would dominate such a compilation way too much.
So with hopes of getting a look at some of the readers’ top 5, here’s my list:

1. Meeting and talking to Henry Aaron for nearly an hour in 1978 at a press conference in Plattsburgh, N.Y.
2. Opening my first pack of 1959 Topps Baseball cards, probably in the spring of 1959
3. First trip to Shea Stadium in 1964
4. Interviewing Barry Halper at his home in New Jersey in 1996
5. (tie) Attending my first Philly Show at Willow Grove in 1982; and my first National Convention in Parsippany, N.J., in 1984

Gee, listing that stuff is a lot more fun than pondering assassinations, global conflagration and such.