Snacks, Cards, and more Childhood Memories

This photo was taken sometime in 1986.  Unless you grew up in South San Jose... it probably doesn't do anything for you.  On the other hand, this photo takes me back to my middle school stomping grounds.

Sunrise Plaza is a strip mall that currently looks like this:

I'll still head over there whenever I'm craving a burrito from Chavez Supermarket or need a sporting good from Dick's.

But back in the mid 80's, it was the home to the UA Cinemas, Nova Arcade, and a local pharmacy.  That's where my friends and I would to buy snacks and packs of cards before watching a movie or hanging out in the arcade.

I hadn't thought about that pharmacy in years.  But a few weeks ago, Gregory over at Nine Pockets wrote a post about some Mario Lemieux cards that originally came with some candy.  One of the questions he asked his readers was if there were any stationary or drug stores with racks of candy in our areas when we were kids.  That immediately made me think of The Pharmacy.

By the time the late 80's rolled around, a card shop called National Pastime opened up in the shopping center.

A few years later the shop moved right down the street from my house.  It's currently a nail salon, but that's a photo of the actual address where the card shop was located.  I consider myself very fortunate to have been able to work at my LCS back then.

Anyways... today I figured I'd share another present from Ryan's advent calendar that is directly related to snacks and cards.

However let's kick things off with a cardboard appetizer involving two Nolan Ryan food issues:

1986 Drake's Big Hitters #33

I don't remember eating any Drake's baked goods, but they seem to similar to Hostess products which I ate all the time as a kid.

1991 Jumbo California Seeds #20

Sunflower seeds were a staple for me and my Little League teammates back in the 80's.  By the time Jumbo was inserting these cards into their packages of seeds, I had hung up my cleats.  But I picked up this card somewhere along the way.

Why am I featuring cards of Nolan Ryan?  Well he celebrated his 79th birthday yesterday and he happens to be one of SumoMenkoMan's favorite baseball players.

Okay... let's get to the advent calendar portion of the post.  Here's the haiku hint that Ryan wrote:

The 25th present in the advent calendar was a large box of rice crackers:

The box contained twenty individually wrapped packages that had a pack of cards attached to each one:

I opened them up, dumped the rice crackers into a bag, and separated the packs from the bags:

There were two different packages available:

Each came with a single pack attached to the back:

Here's a closer look at the front and back of one of those packs:

I cracked open the first five packs.  Each contained one baseball card and an advertisement card.  The baseball cards are made out of acetate or something similar:

Here's a peek at the card backs:

I love that there are so many snacks in Japan that are sold with trading cards.  Personally, I wish we'd see more modern food issues here in North America.

What about you?

Would you be more likely to purchase your favorite snacks if they came with trading cards?

There's no doubt in my mind that I'd seek out more snacks at the grocery store if they came with cards.  Heck... a few years ago I bought a box of cereal mainly because it contained an uncut sheet of MLS cards.

That's it for today.  Thank you Gregory for inspiring this post... and thank you Ryan for providing the snacks and cards.

Happy Sunday and sayonara!