Road Trip: Finding Paladin or Have Collectibles Will Travel

     The next day on the trip was Cherie and I's thirty-seventh anniversary, so we kept the day low-key.

We agreed far ahead of time about the trip being our gifts to each other, so we kept that day very basic as we started the day with a visit to Conrad's elementary school for his award as "Tiger of the Month", complete with school fight song "We are the Tigers".

I've always thought teams named the Tigers used the song "Tiger Rag," but times change.

After that concluded, Cherie and I returned to the hotel for a while before another visit to the hospital to see Archie.

I never got tired of that trip, but I did leave for a bit to go shopping in Omaha as Conrad needed a thing for an upcoming football camp the following day.

We spent the rest of the day around the hotel and enjoyed hanging out with plenty of talk about the good times.

The following day, we had agreed to take Conrad to his football camp, starring Kansas City Chiefs running back Isiah Pacheco, because Archie was coming home, and that's what we could do to help.

After making the football camp stop, we traveled to an Omaha suburb, Gretna, and our second trip to a Brass Armadillo!

At the Omaha Armadillo, I found this Exhibit card of Richard Boone, the star of the 50s television show Have Gun Will Travel.

The case with this card was in the first row that we walked through, but I took note of it in case I didn't overspend.

The Exhibit Company produced postcard-sized cards in the forties, fifties, and sixties, and they came out of vending machines one card at a time, with cards of baseball and football stars, singers, and film and television stars.

I wound up buying it for $15.50, and it came with three other Hollywood cards from the set as well.

I only knew one of them (Gene Barry of Bat Masterson TV fame), but I would have bought the "Paladin" card anyway, so the others were an added bonus.

That was the only thing that I bought for myself here, although Cherie and I found some things for other people. Still, I was very close to buying a vintage Mego Catwoman, but the price was a little higher than I saw it on eBay, and I decided to pass.

We drove back to Ryan's for pizza and a visit before ending the day back at the hotel.

The following day was our day with Ryan, who showed us the sights of Omaha, but that will wait until the next installment. 

Cleaning out the Inbox

   Lots of links to clean and with what has been (so far) consistent Cavaliers and Devils coverage has left me with not as much time for inbox cleaning, passings, and posts like yesterday's on the situation with the Houston Texans.

Since the inbox security guard cannot be working forever, I suppose I should get to work!

The first four of these are all from The Athletic.

We start with Kelly Holcomb looking back on the Browns only previous playoff appearance of the "New" Browns in 2002, which saw the Browns rolling over the Steelers in Pittsburgh before tremendously dumb moves on both sides of the football that allowed the Steelers to rally for the victory.

Holcomb talks about the game, the 2002 season, and the competition with Tim Couch after the 2002 season and it's really interesting.

As for the dumb moves, I'll leave those for another post.

Mike Lombardi is someone that I've never thought highly of as a football executive.

If you have been reading TRS for a long time, you'll remember how loudly I protested the Browns hiring of him years ago, but he gets this right as he writes about the Dwayne Haskins situation in Washington.

The former Ohio State quarterback and 2019 Washington first-round pick was released by the Red and Yellow during the season and Lombardi's argument that while Haskins has more than a little blame for how his tenure turned out, the team that selected him must take a decent percentage of the blame as well.

Washington was the worst team to select a player that had really played one year of college and combined with the distractions of being his hometown as well, one couldn't design a better way to manufacture a bust.

Haskins has signed for Pittsburgh for next season and if there is any hope of salvaging his career Haskins needs to be on a team that has a veteran quarterback that is preferably a pocket passer and would be willing to help Haskins develop a bit.

All of that assumes that Haskins has learned from his errors in Washington.

The 1984 Olympic basketball team might be the most talented basketball ever aside from the "Dream Team" and it certainly was the most talented in the all-amateur era, but the stories about the players that didn't make it and why make those trials a fascinating story.

Between Bob Knight, the talent at the trials, and questions to this day of why Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, and John Stockton didn't make the team and the likes of Steve Alford, Leon Wood, and Jeff Turner did, it is an interesting read about the trials and the always mercurial Bob Knight.

The final link from The Athletic looks at one of the corniest hype videos that you will see from 2012 from students at Missouri- "We Are Mizzou"

I had never heard of this until this article, but as corny as the video is, the even better version is the parody "We are KU"!

Fred Landucci sends me this video with 10 facts about Have Gun Will Travel, which ranks near the top of my favorite shows period, let alone of its era/genre.

It literally lists ten interesting facts about the show, its star Richard Boone and the character Paladin.

Have Gun Will Travel was televised by CBS from 1957-1963.