Got his autograph
Back when I was a kid, I, like most people I knew, had a group that I hung around with more than with others. Sam was on the same youth baseball team as I. He played second while I was in center field, then shifted to center when I moved to first base. I led off, he generally hit second. Jon played on one of the other teams, but I got to know him through school and he joined Sam and I on the junior high team. Jim was a guy who played street ball and school yard ball with us. We were a great group. Sam has gone on to whatever afterlife, if any, awaits. Jim I’m still in contact with, and I have no idea what happened to Jon.
One of the things we did was listen to the same nighttime radio station. Where we lived in West Texas the local stations played a lot of music, but shied away from anything too crazy, loud, or risky (this is about 1962, so crazy, loud, and risky is relative). In the evenings we could pick up a radio station in Juarez, Mexico (and after all this time, I don’t remember the call letters) that played crazy, loud, and risky music. So we listened and enjoyed.
It also had the usual assortment of ads. One offered for $5.00 an autographed picture of Jesus Christ. All of us went “What the heck?” OK, we were hooked. We speculated on what it was and came up with some wild ideas but frankly drew a blank. Someone suggested we get it. Well, that was a problem. Five bucks was a lot of money for us. Jim was the rich guy. That meant that his family could park their car in their garage. All of us had a garage, but all of us had the thing so full of junk that we couldn’t park a car in it. Jim’s family was the same way, except they were rich enough to have a two car garage and one bay was open so the car could slide right inside. That was great in a West Texas hail storm.
So we decided to pool our resources (that sounds fancier than just scrounging around for a dollar) and get the genuine autograph of Jesus Christ. Sam, Jon, and I pitched in a buck and rich kid Jim tossed in two to make up the five. As Jim put in the most money, we decided he would get to keep whatever it was we got back.
He went to the post office, picked up a money order and the other three of us watched him address an envelope, stick in the money order and a note saying what he wanted, then watched him drop it in the mail box (I supplied the stamp). Then we waited. I don’t know how long we waited but each evening we’d call to see if the package arrived.
One evening it did. We were over at Jim’s as quick as we could and watched longingly as he opened our magic package. And there it was. It as an 8×10 black and white glossy shoulder shot of a man (that means you saw head and shoulders). He was dark haired, and a big dark moustache. All you could see of his attire was what appeared to be a white tunic of some sort. In the lower right-hand corner were the words “Best wishes, Jesus Christos Ramirez.”
As far as I know, Jim still has the autographed picture of Jesus Christ.
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