Clint Courtney was the St. Louis Browns’ catcher in 1953, their last season before they moved to Baltimore and became the Orioles. He had an up and down big league career, became a minor league manager, and died of a heart attack while playing ping pong at the age of only 48.

On our last road trip day, we spent several hours in Cumberland MD (never before), including a visit to a true collector’s shop, called appropriately Awesome Gifts and Collections. If you collect sports cards, they probably have what you want. Rocks and geodes? Yes. Coins? Fossils? Cameos? Russian nesting dolls? They have it all.

Including a 1953 Clint Courtney baseball card. Not cheap and not needed, but it brought back memories. (They had a number of Browns’ cards, but this is the one I focused on.

I looked up Courtney on Wikipedia. He grew up in Louisiana and then Arkansas very poor. Edie found his best quote, something like: I grew up so poor that my shoes were bad enough that if I stepped on a coin, I could tell you if it was heads or tails.

It turns out that Cumberland, a town of 20,000 in western Maryland (once a town of 40,000 in Wwestern Maryland) is worth visiting, if only for its impressive architecture and unusual street layout. It’s one of those places, like Paducah has shown to be, where all you need is a bunch of creative people to make it sparkle.

It is well worth a visit.

On the way home, our last stop (of course) was Wonder Books in Frederick MD, where I found a signed copy of George H.W. Bush’s All My Best, and a copy of a book of poetry signed by Nikki Giovanni. That makes four books I bought this trip.

Last night, we watched the 7th tremendous World Series game of 2025. Wrong team, but that’s the way it goes.

Back to real life. And to a president who wants to give China sensitive technology, kill seamen in the Caribbean and Pacific, attack Venezuela, attack Nigeria and start up the nuclear testing arms race. And that’s only the half of it.