Ticket Stubs Are Bookmarks To My Life

I am a 45-year old man, and I have a treasure box.  There, I said it.

It's a pretty ordinary wooden box.  It has a whale carved on the top and comes from Maine. About 25 years ago, it was sitting empty on my dresser collecting dust.  Then it became a resting place for my treasures.

It doesn't contain money, jewelry or gold coins.  It doesn't have baseball cards, photos or antique watches.

It holds a lifetime of memories.  A lifetime of memories in the form of ... ticket stubs.

The Bookmarks To My Life

These  pieces of paper mark more than 100 events in my life.  They are from concerts and comedians.  Broadway shows and basketball games.   Dance recitals and plays. Aquariums, zoos and gardens. The truth is these tickets stubs are the  bookmarks to my life.

When I was younger, I thought it would be cool some day when I was old to sit on my porch in a rocking chair, take out my treasure box and walk down memory lane.  A cheap and restful form of entertainment for an old man.

I wondered if a particular ticket would make me laugh?  Remind me of an old friend? Perhaps bring a song to my mind?  Conjure up images of the kids?  What would I remember when I looked at this assortment of decorated pulp?

This week, I took out my ticket stubs to see what I would find.

The Kids

The kids tickets marking
adventures and milestones.

There was a large group of tickets that will always remind me of the kids:

• Saturday afternoons with the kids at the Shriner Circus in Mennen Arena where cheap popcorn, cotton candy, elephant rides and acrobats made us laugh and cheer
  
• Tess' dance recitals and  Emma's performances in Willy Wonka and Hairspray
  
• Days at the Liberty Science Center, Sesame Place, the Bronx Zoo, and the Aquarium in Boston


• Long walks up the Cape Hatteras Light House every summer
  
• Spending a Daddy day with little Emma and Tess at a production of Cinderella.  A great idea until little Tess got a spontaneous gushing, bloody nose in the parking lot two minutes before the curtain.  I can still see the red handkerchief,... hear my most soothing "you'll-be-fine, Tess," ... and thinking "I hope they don't call DYFS," as we ran through the parking lot to make the curtain.  :)

From the Community Theater
to Broadway

The Shows

In another stack are the shows that remind me of great performances, lots of laughs and endless evenings with friends:

• Howling at Bobby Collins, Drew Carey, and Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood -- the two funniest men alive by my account.  Check out this video and wet your pants.
  
• The first time we took Emma to see Wicked and would hear Popular sung 10,000 times by our little starlet
  
• Les Miserables, Lion King, The Producers, Chicago, Riverdance and Rent

The Concerts

One more group for the concerts that set the musical score for my life and embed all those "old" songs in my head to this very day.

• Going to Bruce Springsteen's last show at Giants Stadium and screaming out Thunder Road.
  
• Seeing Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden and at Yankee Stadium.  My favorite performer ever.
  
• James Taylor at the Garden State Arts Center.  Is there any better way to spend a summer evening in NJ? (My wife would say there are hundreds of better ways, but she is from Ohio -- and thinks Dave Matthews is far better)

• Going with my wife to see the Irish group, the Chieftains, one week before my daughter Emma was born. We had to leave early because little Emma was kicking like crazy and enjoying the music a bit too much for her poor, uncomfortable mother-- and then getting lost in Newark on the way home.  Aaah, the bliss of impending parenthood and panic.

The Games

And, finally, The sporting events that brought me together with friends and family -- and were far less about the game and more about the gathering and camaraderie:

Gathering at games over decades

• Tailgating at countless Kickoff Classics at Giants Stadium.  No better way to end the summer and start the fall.
  
• Nets games at the Meadowlands -- especially for that brief moment when the Nets were good.
  
• Minor league baseball games in Bridgewater -- where summer reunions with the old colleagues never got old.
  
• The Rose Bowl in 1997.  Jake the Snake and Arizona State against the Ohio State Buckeyes in a thriller.  The culmination of a "boys" trip up and down the California coast with my Prep crew.
  
• Saint Peter's College basketball games against Seton Hall at the Meadowlands.  We rarely -- if ever -- won, but spending the night with my dad feasting in a VIP box as special guests was always priceless.
    

Dwindling, but Precious Treasures

Today, there are fewer ticket stubs.  We print them off our computers on cheap disposable pieces of paper.   In some cases, a sticker or a wrist band will do. Soon they'll just be digital certificates on our smart phones and stamps on our hands.  

I will miss ticket stubs.  They are dwindling, but precious treasures.  The memories they store will be a wonderful gift when my rocking chair calls and memory lane is awaits.