Year in Pics: Cards Ending in “-Ipken”

[Not a fan a longform textual cardboard destruction or want to listen in the car? Try this audio summary from some bots instead.]

Dearly beloved (and A’s fans), we are gathered here today to honor the memory of the 2025 Wallet Cards. I come not to bury Billy, but to praise him. You see, the Billy Ripken card I carried in my pocket for much of the past year died. He went out as I imagine he would have wanted, screaming obscenities and covered in blood.

We’ll return to that in a moment.

The tolling bell has long been an audible signal of death’s arrival, with each strike announcing to the community that they are poorer by one. Donne, Hemingway, and Metallica have all left lasting tributes to the practice. But perhaps the message of the bell has been misinterpreted all along. Those sonorous tones are not commemorating what has already happened. They are harbingers of what is to come, a countdown towards a future that nears with every rhythmic strike.

A funeral bell can be heard approaching if you listen carefully enough. It is present in every excess, poor decision, and risk compounded. The bell itself is a marvel of mathematical precision, its shape and thickness calibrated to exact ratios to produce pure, resonant tones. The introduction of a hairline fracture instantly disrupts this harmony, giving every new strike a discordant sound. Each subsequent toll propagates stress through the weakened metal, widening the fracture and fatiguing the bell with every new strike. The bell becomes an instrument of its own destruction, hastening the moment when the cracks spread beyond repair and the bell fragments catastrophically. The bell tolls itself to death, one discordant note at a time.

One year ago I placed two related but seemingly opposite cards into my wallet: A rookie card of Cal Ripken and his brother’s infamous “error” card. Both had a latent flaw, Cal’s carrying a hairline crease on the back and Billy through a much more prominent bit of handwriting at the end of his bat. Both carried signs of their future destruction in my pocket, but with Billy’s the writing was metaphorically already on the wall. One card was destined to live a life of less discipline and more chaos, and we all knew which one it would be.

Brothers in real life, these two cardboard siblings were introduced to you through a post last February. The cards would accompany me through the next 12 months as the figurative angel and devil on my shoulder, offering often unsolicited commentary along the way. They bickered and fought, at times needing to be separated, while offering a seemingly incompatible duality of good and evil, moderation and excess, and order and chaos. Before Billy’s final act, the ethos of these cardboard opposites teamed up to build something beyond what I ever thought possible.

This is their story.

Signs and Wonders

The Wallet Cards take up their annual posts every year on my birthday, a day marked by donuts and a restaurant selection chosen by my daughter. After a heavy dose of sugar for breakfast and way too much bulgogi for dinner, I set out to atone the next morning with a run through a series of trails that start at the forested Jamestown settlement and eventually wind their way through colonial era plantations. The cards slid into the wallet with the peal of a starting bell.

Lacing up his spikes, Cal looked approvingly at the course planned through a three mile segment of the trail. Billy, jersey untucked and wanting to sleep in, grumbled about “that stupid bell” and how it “woke everyone up too early.” We set off, wondering what the new year in cardboard would have in store. It turns out that there would be signs of what was to come. Literally.

A footbridge soon provided the first opportunity to turn back with a “Slippery When Wet” sign. Billy, who had not been enjoying the run to this point, was suddenly giggling and pointing at the sign. Cal just shook his head and tried to apologize about how hard it is to take someone named “Fuck Face” out in public. Billy, who seems to always have a sharpie available, offered to “fix” the sign. Neither Cal or I trusted him so we elected to press onward with the goal of erasing the caloric record of the birthday excess.

A half mile past the bridge we again faintly heard the bell, prompting Billy to tug at my shirt and point to the edge of the trail. There, a squirrel was seen holding a discarded cigarette butt in its paws. Making our way past Billy’s spirit animal, we emerged into a more open section of the trail and were immediately greeted by a sharper peal of the bell. Blocking our path was a snapping turtled intent on standing its ground. Billy, using his best Crocodile Hunter voice, narrated the encounter while trying to get closer. Cal, the Attenborough of the pair, advised keeping a respectful distance, noting that much of the surrounding soil was sandy and that this was likely a female returning to her swamp from laying eggs.

Cal went into full educational mode at that point, effectively turning a morning run into an educational field trip. He pointed out a beaver dam and noted that his brother looks a bit like a beaver.

Cal’s exposition continued as we approached the edge of a large farm. Stopping in front of abandoned horse-drawn equipment, he told us that we were about to enter Mainland Farm, dating back four centuries and recognized as America’s oldest continually cultivated farm. Billy yawned and tried to settle in for a nap.

Undeterred, and there has never a better word to describe Cal, he urged us onward through the farm. Blessed with supernatural stamina, he continued giving a history lesson as we ran. All of this was once Green Spring Plantation, and it was at this site that something absurd and possibly world changing took place in 1781 during the American Revolution. Recently augmented by the arrival of reinforcements, Lafayette saw British General Cornwallis preparing to move his army to the other side of the James. With scouts reporting boat after boat of soldiers moving across the mile wide river, he dispatched “Mad Anthony” Wayne and about 800 troops to capture Cornwallis’ rear guard.

This was a trap. Fully intending to make an actual river crossing at a later date, the British faked a crossing to draw Lafayette’s force into a battle on their own terms. The swampy terrain now inhabited by snapping turtles and beavers forced Lafayette’s men to approach through narrow causeways. Cornwallis lined this chokepoint with more than 4,000 regulars supported by artillery and units led by Benedict Arnold and Bannister Tarleton. Billy, whose entire understanding of Revolutionary history comes from the movie The Patriot, was shocked to learn that Tarleton was not killed by a flag-weilding Mel Gibson but rather came to this very spot to ambush a vastly outnumbered American force.

Wayne’s men rushed headlong into the trap, which began to close on them before Lafayette’s reinforcements could arrive to extricate them. Realizing that he trapped between holding an indefensible position and being cut down by calvary in a rout if he retreated, Mad Anthony lived up to his name by ordering a bayonet charge against a line outnumbering his men by a ratio of 5:1. The move sowed confusion among the British, who thought such a move must indicate an even larger trap was in motion to capture them. They moved to a defensive posture to absorb the charge, giving the Americans just enough time to reverse orders and hastily retreat to the safety of the fast approaching rest of Lafayette’s army. The engagement broke off as dusk approached, Lafayette’s force intact and Cornwallis engaging in a series of movements that culminated in the British surrender at nearby Yorktown.

Cal Brings Art and Culture

Feeling rather smug about outpacing his winded brother, Cal continued his efforts to provide an education for Billy. Cal, who is all about refinement and understanding intersecting narratives, attended a stage production of Les Miserables where he cried for Éponine’s On My Own. Billy contented himself by raising a glass to the masters of the house, the Thénardiers.

Feeling very francophone, the pair followed this with an enjoyable breakfast at the French bistro that has served as a backdrop for previous wallet cards.

Being baseball cards, the Ripkens also paid homage to their own history. Cal posed for a picture in front of what was once one of the primary factories of the American Tobacco Company. It was from where this parking deck now sits that the ATC inserted its T-206 tobacco cards into cigarette packs.

Seeking further enrichment, Cal brought his brother to an exhibit of Michelangelo’s original preparatory sketches used for his creation of the artwork adorning the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. This was a no-photography event, so Billy had to settle for a portrait in front of a sign showing the work’s most iconic panel, The Creation of Adam. He did well.

At that moment the vibrations of a faint bell could be felt tolling the absurd. Billy was fascinated to learn that Michelangelo painted his enemies into scenes of Hell. He took issue with Biagio da Cesena, Papal Master of Ceremonies who had objected to the nudity in the planned fresco, and portrayed him as the donkey-eared Minos being bitten in the groin by a snake. Known by his contemporaries as Il Divino (the divine one), Michelangelo painted his own self-portrait in place of the face of God. He winked through the centuries, making the joke in front of Pope Julius II (who commissioned the work) and on the ceiling of the very papal chapel in which the College of Cardinals would gather to elect all his successors. The man literally performed the equivalent of a “God, an angel, and Billy Ripken walk into a bar” joke in front of the pope, a multilayered act that is a work of art in its own right.

Family Time

Billy might be better known as “the other Ripken,” but he’s still a Ripken. Families do things together, and this year Billy and Cal were our guests for family adventures. There were the standard activities, but every now and then, Billy would giggle ominously at the sound of a bell and something would happen.

We spent Mother’s Day weekend at a hotel in the Outer Banks. Rousing Billy early and ambling down to the beach, I saw the amazing sight of a whale spy hopping. An hour later I snapped a shot of Billy at the beach with a pod of dolphins visible just above the right corner of the card.

Returning to the hotel we settled in for breakfast. The restaurant was playing smooth jazz instrumentals, but something felt…off. Listening for a bit, I realized that what we were hearing was AI-generated jazz covers of Nirvana. Not only that, the order of the sings indicated it was the entire Nevermind album being played in order.

**laughter from Billy and a concerned look of disapproval from Cal**

A day in Norfolk brought with a local staple: Lunch at Doumar’s, a drive-in celebrating more than 90 years of continuous operation. Its founder famously invented the ice cream cone and in the following year built a machine to mass produce perfect cones. The original boardwalk ice cream stand was destroyed by a hurricane, but the machine survived. Today it sits tucked just inside the front door of the diner and is still used daily to produce all of Doumar’s cones.

The Wallet Cards only went to one professional sporting event during their shift, joining the record setting crowd for a PWHL Takeover Tour matchup between the NY Sirens and Montreal Victoire on the Washington Capitals’ home ice. My first PWHL game came with the surprise that its fans do something very different than the NHL: They sing. A lot. A typical hockey game will have five seconds of pump up music as a faceoff takes place. This staple took place with every puck drop, but was immediately followed by the crowd happily singing entire verses and choruses from the songs. The games I have seen online omit the sound of this crowd dynamic, something I highly recommend experiencing for yourself.

Things continued to be interesting back home in Williamsburg. My kids’ bus stop grew more exciting when a nest of bald-faced hornets decided to make the tree overlooking the corner their home.

Busch Gardens is just a few miles away from my doorstep, making at least an annual visit mandatory. Christmas Town is my favorite time to visit, simply because of the absurdity of the park staff decorating the already in-place decorations. A wrecked Porsche 911 has long sat immobile at the entrance of the park’s Verbolten roller coaster. At Christmas it gets covered in lights matching the color scheme of the car.

Sometimes a Porsche just isn’t fast enough. Air shows were once again a big part of the year. The local commuter airport featured some fantastic personal planes. A family displayed their matching Soviet Yak-52 trainers. A 1980s Mitsubishi MU-2 Marquise, a massive multiengine turboprop, was an unexpected joy to see and it was fantastic talking with the family that regularly flies it. Perhaps the most interesting of all was an Icon A5, the amphibious two-seater shown below.

The A5 has a top speed of 120 knots, or a bit under 140 mph. Going faster meant traveling to the land of I ♥Jet Noise bumper stickers, Joint Base Langley-Eustis. There was much more to see (and hear) at Langley. Cal made sure to stop for the National Anthem and watch parachute demonstration teams perform precise formation jumps out of Chinook helicopters. Billy, on the other hand, was there to watch the fiery pyrotechnics and concussive booms of simulated bombing runs of F-22 Raptors flying low with weapons bays open.

Of all the aircraft on display, it was this F-16 that most captured his attention. Why? The tail insignia marks its as part of the Air National Guard’s 119th Fighter Squadron: The Jersey Devils. I’m pretty sure Cal caught Billy and devil insignia return respectful nods just before we left. Billy was on a mission.

He took control of the calendar, saying he wanted to take the family for some history lessons. We traveled a short distance to Yorktown, where a newly arrived sailing ship was tied to the dock and people were milling about the waterfront. The crowd turned out to be a crew of costumed pirates celebrating the Yorktown Pirate Festival. There, he tried to get my kids to enlist as powder monkeys and listened to a lone guy dressed in viking gear that claimed he was “pillaging long before pirates made it cool.”

Shortly afterward, Billy told everyone they were going to “church.” A one hour drive and a raised eyebrow from Cal later, the Wallet cards arrived at a pizzeria set in a converted warehouse in Richmond. Grabbing a large cheese pizza, Billy brought the family to outside seating in a very flat piece of land in the otherwise hilly terrain. Between slices, he explained that we were seated on the former roadbed of the C&O Railroad. The tracks once ran eastward from where we sat to a tunnel taking coal trains under Church Hill and onward to Newport News. 100 years ago that all changed.

This particular tunnel had always been problematic for the railroad. Frequent cave-ins interrupted traffic for decades after its construction. Efforts to widen the bore and reinforce the tunnel lining ended in disaster in 1925 when a work train and a 200 man work crew were caught in a catastrophic collapse. Most made it out, but several remained trapped. Further instability of the tunnel and the collapse of multiple structures (including part of the church) convinced rescuers to abandon their efforts. The western end of the tunnel, where we were now seated and where the crushed train sits just a few dozen yards further, was sealed. It has since filled with groundwater, which can be seen seeping through the wall.

Easter presented another opportunity for chaos. Given that Billy had just taken everyone out for lunch at a mass grave, Cal demanded activities that Billy could not profane. A children’s egg hunt at the William & Mary football stadium seemed perfectly wholesome. There was no way Billy could misbehave.

Cal watched children ran 30 yards faster than anyone on the New York Jets as church bells across the street pealed out the conclusion of another Easter service. Feeling confident in the day’s serenity, Cal suggested taking in the school’s afternoon baseball game. Fueled by massive amounts of Easter chocolate, the kids made it to the fifth inning of a 5-5 game before losing interest and wanting to go home. Seeing as how enough innings had been played to make the game official, Cal acquiesced and shepherded everyone to the parking lot.

A sound was heard as they approached the car. Was it an aluminum bat making contact? Was it a cracked bell? The sound of shattering glass removed any doubt as to the source. Freshman cleanup hitter Jamie Laskofski had just put his team ahead with his first NCAA home run, an event forever recorded in the remains of a nearby Dodge Caravan’s rear window. Billy sat there grinning as a relief pitcher sprinted out of the bullpen and joined us in search of the ball.

At this point there was no doubting it. Something had happened to Billy when he was touched at the Michelangelo gallery (or maybe its was the nod at the air show). This was no longer a baseball card. It was a sigil. One that would invite escalating chaos until it could no longer be controlled.

There Was Travel…

Not every adventure took place on the East Coast. Like the 1950s Philadelphia Athletics, I got on a plane and headed west. Work conferences took me to the familiar hotels of Las Vegas. From the vantage point of a footbridge in front of the MGM Grand I caught a glimpse of the progress being made on the stadium that will house the Sacramento Athletics once they complete their relocation to Sin City.

I have a confession to make. Despite multiple visits to the area, it was on this trip that I had my first taste of In-N-Out Burger. Cal made sure to order Diet Cokes, but Billy helped me progress from gateway Double Doubles to ordering everything Animal Style.

I’ve been hearing good things about the sandwiches at Eggslut. Billy and I waited 49 minutes in line, enduring the woman in front of us recording a series of updates about how hungover her best friend was for her Instagram followers. Like an angel (her words), she was grabbing breakfast for her recovering friend who was upstairs still feeling the effects of the previous night. With limited seating options and Insta-girl apparently in no hurry to deliver a rapidly cooling sandwich, we found ourselves seated together. She checked her metrics and I photographed Billy. She then raised her sandwich to eat, only to have the entire soft scrambled mess shoot out the back and right down her arm. I could hear Billy laughing as I handed her a napkin and left.

Vegas hotels are a bit…different. The egg encounter took place on a couch shaped like the hookah-obsessed caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland. The minibar in my room presented another puzzler: I was left wondering what the Venn diagram overlap is between guests who purchase both its canned sex toy offering AND the bag of Premium Quality Beef Jerky.

It wasn’t all fun and games. I could have died.

There was a connecting flight on one of the return trips. Our A321 lost power in an engine as it lined up on the runway, prompting the cabin crew to quickly take positions at each of the emergency exits. A silent conversation rapidly took place amongst them using only hand signals, with the only movement of their lips being a betrayal that they were counting heads. Am we about to ride the emergency slides?

In a moment of helping yourself before helping others, the Cal card was busy identifying the appropriate exit to aim towards. Billy, on the other hand, was looking out the window and screaming to the Grim Reaper, “Hey Death! Come closer. I’ve got an autograph for you right here on this bat!“

Death didn’t want to deal with Billy that night. Once it was determined that the engine didn’t pose a danger to the grounded plane, we settled in for a multi-hour wait on a now closed runway. The woman with the window seat on the row in front of me didn’t mind the wait. Billy pointed out that she was reading a rather explicit firefighter themed erotic novel. I guess she was prepared to meet some first responders.

Things settled down a bit. My wife and I attended a cousin’s wedding, opting to drive rather than fly. This cousin is a former Disney entertainer, and she requested guests come in full fantasy court costume. Gentlemen, please note the energy created by a room with 75 women all decked out in ear cuffs and fae wings. If you don’t get it, please report to your local library and ask the first female librarian you meet to explain it to you. I regret not being able to share images from the event, as several current entertainers were present and she was adamant that all photography was to be left to hired photographers who were already versed in what was allowed to be captured and what was not. We stayed in an old hotel, and the next morning I was able to capture Billy playing with the original Otis elevator control box and and a bank of phones installed nearly a century ago.

Amazingly, there was one baseball related item at the fantasy court wedding. I spotted one of the guys tasked with a speaking role wearing a Rocket City Trash Pandas hat. Double-A baseball merch at a wedding? It turns out he collects minor league hats and wanted to keep his hair from blowing around too much ahead of the ceremony.

…And There Was BIG TRAVEL

In a previous post I framed 2025 as likely being a year of excess. When I wrote that I already knew my family was going to go on a vacation that we had been looking forward to ever since we had kids. This family, whose idea of a big beach vacation generally centers around a trip to the Outer Banks or that one time we took a cruise to the Bahamas, spent nearly two weeks in Hawaii.

There were plenty of poke bowls and udon noodles to share with my daughter. Trips to various farms with every sort of pineapple and macadamia treat imaginable. Multiple days of playing in the water at various beaches and the hotel waterfalls and pools. New wildlife (We encountered a walrus and learned cardinals are gray in Hawaii). My son and I spent more than 10 hours climbing through the battleship Missouri, the submarine Bowfin, and the aviation museum at Pearl Harbor, where the highlight for him was donning a helmet and sitting in the cockpit of an F-5 fighter jet.

Billy, who really wanted to show the navy how he can talk like a sailor, stayed put away for much of the Pearl Harbor visit. He did, however, have a say in some of our other excursions. Who else would suggest jumping with the kids into the waters of the North Shore to swim with apex predators?

Driving back from seeing sharks in Haleiwa, our Uber driver casually asked if we planned to do any hiking during our stay. Somewhere, inaudible to the rest of the car, I heard a bell. Unhappy that nobody on the boat was eaten by a shark, Billy grumpily elbowed me through the walls of his leather home. He was demanding a human sacrifice.

“Thinking about doing Koko Head tomorrow,” I told the driver. His smile dropped as he concentrated on looking unconcerned while trying to gauge the level of physical fitness in the car. A throat clearing cough announced he had decided upon the most diplomatic way to discourage this idea. “I don’t know if you heard, but the trail is closed. A kid fell into one of the bunkers and had to be airlifted out.”

“It’s alright,” I answered, with Billy’s lips mirroring mine like a cardboard Tyler Durden. “It’s just me going up.” The driver’s relief was palpable. “Shoots! I’ll give you a ride there.”

The trail is not quite one mile in length, but it proceeds in a straight line up the exposed southern slope of Koko Crater, an extinct 1,200 foot tall volcano that stood even taller until it blowing itself apart 7,000 years ago. At the summit sits an abandoned network of military bunkers that once supported a radar station. The way up is a railroad tramway that used winches to haul supplies up an average grade of 27 degrees. That is steep, but the crazy part is the last quarter of the hike involves navigating a segment climbing hundreds of feet with a grade surpassing 50 degrees at its most extreme. Imagine using railroad tracks as a ladder and you get the idea. Topping it off, the climb is done in tropical heat (no problem for a Virginia native) and to the sound of constant gunfire as the base of the volcano forms the backdrop of a nearby firing range.

Billy’s Art and Culture

Cal was tired after all this exertion. Billy and I planned some solo musical entertainment. The bell doesn’t count if you can’t hear it, even if you are enthusiastically beating a drum solo on it. What follows can only described as a full fledged concert tour. I can even imagine the t-shirt:

A new outdoor concert venue opened along the waterfront in downtown Richmond. Lamb of God and GWAR, bands that both started just blocks away were the headliners at one of the first concerts of the season. GWAR were their usual heavily costumed, psychotic selves, gleefully engaging in their habit of dismembering celebrities and showering the front rows with blood fired from high pressure hoses.

Lamb of God had was really on point and playing with absolute venom. Ozzy Osbourne had passed away just days before and Lamb of God had just returned from playing the Ozzy-themed Back to the Beginning concert in Birmingham. The amphitheater is located alongside the railroad viaduct, and at one point I turned to see a train making its way past with the engineer throwing horns. You haven’t headbanged at a rock concert until a literal freight train rolls through it.

Alice Cooper and Judas Priest formed an amazing twin bill performance in Virginia Beach. Alice Cooper showed his skill at putting on a tightly-knit show and I found myself admiring the large amount of stage magic and sleight of hand necessary for his act. Nita Strauss was also fantastic on guitar and is emerging as a real focal point in keeping the band’s energy high.

These were good shows, but the biggest of the year required more time in the air. I flew in and out of Vegas on a 48 hour mission to see masked band Ghost. A shameless sprint through the Denver airport allowed me to make a close connection and I was in. Donning black clothing fastened with no pockets and an alarming number of laces, I strapped Billy to my thigh and went downstairs to join a growing crowd six hours prior to showtime. I don’t know if you’ve picked up on this, but I truly enjoy a good spectacle. We turned the MGM into one big Halloween party, as 20,000 concertgoers assembled. The amount of cosplay was amazing, with many fans getting together to apply greasepaint and pose for pictures resembling religious tableaus. I saw ballgowns, priests, monks, sisters of sin, cardinals, Larry the Cucumber (hello Veggie-Tales survivors), multiple Jesuses, and even a dwarf Satan in a red sequined tuxedo. This band is known for an intense background lore with dozens of hidden easter eggs for fans to find. The wardrobe of the front man, Papa Emeritus, often has a hidden message reminiscent of the message of Billy’s bat. It didn’t take long for cosplayers to discover my Billy and start taking pictures with him.

The party atmosphere only increased inside the arena, though there are no pictures due to this being a no-phones show. Bright red cocktails were served in blood bags with IV lines serving as straws. An elderly guy was spotted using a walker in a Misfits shirt (Billy: Punk never dies!). Several people were full ballgowns with tiaras and opera gloves while one woman opted to forego this attire in favor of skeleton themed body paint. I chatted with Vanessa Warwick, the host of MTV’s Headbanger’s Ball. Billy even gained a crease when a woman dressed as a black lip-sticked nun tripped and fell into my lap while taking her seat.

The show itself lived up to its billing as one of the best live acts in the business. I cannot stress enough how absolutely happy this crowd was in this giant rolling Halloween party.

Consorting With Demons

Returning to work from a weekend in fake Hell, I saw a tour of a new office building had been added to my calendar in advance of a corporate relocation. The location is near Richmond’s Jackson Ward, which means it is in close proximity to the North American lair of GWAR. It was time to pay them a personal visit.

After the tour concluded I walked to GwarBar, a dive bar owned and operated by the band. Old stage props hang from every available point of attachment, including classics like body panels from the time the band painted a stock car for a race. Mike Derks (the bear-trap wearing guitarist known as Balsac The Jaws of Death) was tending bar. Fun fact: The television over the bar was playing The Hallmark Channel I asked about seeing the stage armor that I heard was kept at bar, and was directed to climb the fire escape outside to look through a second story window. There stood Oderus Urungus.

Pulling Off the Perfect Kidnapping

Good and evil cannot exist without each other, but Aquinas never bothered to wonder what happens when the two team up and work together. The answer is the best birthday party ever.

To understand this, you need the highly condensed backstory. My wife and I have known each other since we were kids. She’s the kind of intelligent that can teach graduate-level British Literature without breaking a sweat, a card-carrying member of the Jane Austen Society who thinks nothing of slipping into a period Empire Waist gown. She devours period stories with strong female protagonists the way most people binge Netflix. Her birthday falls right next to Halloween, two dates forever entwined in her core and ones that make Hocus Pocus and Nightmare Before Christmas more religious rites than entertainment. Her love of reading began with RL Stine’s Goosebumps and blossomed into an obsession with the darkest Gothic tales of the Victorian Era. I married an out-of-my-league blonde goth with a serious library card.

My track record with birthday gifts has its share of disasters, the worst coming very publicly when I gave her a practical gift instead of the engagement ring she’d been expecting (in my defense, it was already purchased and intended for our anniversary a few weeks later). Fourteen years ago, we attended a Christmas party at an extravagant house, more museum than a residence. She spent two hours in the library, reading the spines of thousands of curated first editions. I resolved that day to find her one of her favorites, but I knew nothing about antiquarian books. I set aside $20 from my next paycheck and started learning. For over a decade, longer than Cal Ripken chased Gehrig’s streak, I secretly learned everything I could while steadily increasing the scale of contributions to this hidden fund. Then, in 2024, I found it: a first edition of Elizabeth Gaskell’s North & South, the Victorian Era’s gritty answer to Pride and Prejudice, published under the guidance (and near ruination) of Charles Dickens. For the card collectors reading this, I’d essentially tracked down and authenticated her equivalent of a ’52 Mantle—with a surprising budget surplus still in hand.

Billy and Cal weren’t just the sibling personification of good and evil, they were both Orioles – teammates working towards a common goal. They looked at each other and wordlessly initiated a rapid series of rock, paper, scissors motions. Being baseball cards, they both played “paper” and ended in a draw every time. After intense whispering they agreed to work together with each bringing their own strengths to bear. They were present for what followed, using each other’s strengths to create a once in a lifetime birthday surprise. They were going to write a story for her.

Cal immediately began a study of the relevant classic novels, while Billy furiously scribbled notes on his bat while watching Michael Douglas in The Game. A destination trip would be in order, or as I fancied styling it, a birthday kidnapping from her office. With the help of her boss I cleared time from her calendar a year in advance (very Cal). Grandparents were engaged to watch the children. I was vague about the destination, but gave out enough detail to sketch out a road trip to see the fall leaves in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Of course, word of the surprise trip leaked back to my wife through parents’ unguarded comments and office gossip. She even found printed reservations for a scenic lodge and horseback riding on the home printer. She smiled and played along as she didn’t know where she was going, all the while packing hiking boots in her weekend bag.

The big day came, we piled into the car and headed west, hitting play on a decidedly non-heavy metal playlist. Unknown to her was the fact that pressing that button initiated a coding script running in the background of my phone. It silently began launching a series of automated text messages to her entire social circle, each with their own thread to prevent chaotic group chat dynamics. Phones started buzzing with the news that she wasn’t going to the mountains after all. The recipients had just become accomplices in an unfolding surprise.

Text: Shhh...🤫 Operation Birthday Surprise is officially underway. [Redacted] has just left the driveway for what she THINKS is a Blue Ridge getaway. She has no idea how mistaken she is. Stay tuned.

A relaxing 45 minutes of tree-lined driving took us to a fork in the road. As we approached, I told her I knew how much a good story means to her. I told her that I had written her one for her birthday and that she was now in it. With that I turned the car sharply from the expected route and closed the distance of the short airport approach road as fast as possible. Before she had a chance to process anything her door was being opened and previously hidden luggage was being taken from the trunk by a porter. Stepping out of the car, her phone burst to life with the impact of a second text that had been triggered by geographical proximity.

Text: Change of plans (and maybe planes). She is at the airport and doesn't get to find out where she's headed until her name is called. Bombard her phone with destinations you would go if you had a ticket anywhere!

Punctuated by near constant pings from her phone, she only learned that she was on her way to Boston as she was led down the jet bridge to a waiting seat. It’s a short flight (barely 90 minutes) and she was soon ensconced in a waiting black SUV. The driver was already in on the surprise, and spun a story as we left Logan about how much she was going to love seeing the fall foliage in the Berkshires. Minutes later, the dashboard of our vehicle began chiming and it limped to a stop near Boston Common. Apologizing profusely, the driver handed us a note to give to staff of the hotel we were in front of said they would take care of getting her to the destination.

We walked into the richly paneled lobby of the Parker House, the oldest continuously operating hotel in the nation and one with a distinctly literary past. To her surprise, handing the driver’s note to the concierge prompted a knowing smile and a greeting by name. Greetings Mrs. CardBoredom. Your arrival has been expected and your room is ready.

We decided to walk the neighborhood and picked up a timely ghost story at Commonwealth Books before a pre-dinner walk through the market at Faneuil Hall.

Text: Hello from Boston. [Redacted] has a big night ahead of her. She promises not to break too many laws.

As evening fell, she set down to dine and the history of the hotel was laid out before her. It was the base of operations for The Saturday Club, where Longfellow, Emerson and Hawthorne debuted their works and gave rise to American Literature. It was a favorite haunt of Mark Twain, and Charles Dickens made it his extended home when he decamped London for America. It was from this very spot that he gave his first American public performance of A Christmas Carol, a tale that at its core is a ghost story.

That phrase was the cue for the next chapter of our story to begin. That is when the ghost appeared at our table. An actor in costume and spectral makeup approached, his lantern beckoning her to follow outside for a literal ghost tour of downtown Boston. Graveyards and infamous sites eventually led us back to our hotel, which has its own reputation as one of the most haunted places in New England, so much so that there is a persistent rumor that Stephen King based 1408 on its legacy. She fell asleep that night wondering about the elevators that stop to let cold blasts of air off at random floors, the long dead proprietor that checks on guests, and the woman in red that briefly appears in the massive hallways.

Her birthday arrived the next morning. We stepped out for a morning stroll through Beacon Hill, eventually encountering an imposing stone building. Her phone had been secretly put in airplane mode, and mine was once again silently humming with an incendiary hand grenade of activity orchestrated by Billy.

Text: I don't think anyone expected last night to end like that. She should get out of jail around 11. Until then we won't have phone access. Details soon.

Jail was literal. We had walked to Clink, a restaurant inside the former Charles Street Jail where diners take their meals inside iron barred cell blocks. The building had been a place of incarceration for over 120 years before a conversion into a luxury hotel. James Curley, a Boston mayor convicted on corruption charges, continued serving his term from one of these cells and even won reelection from behind bars. The last suffragettes to be imprisoned were also former inmates. Oh, the food was also fantastic.

It was at this table that I presented her with the book. We discussed the secret learning project, how the book was acquired, and favorite moments from the underlying story. When our waitress approached with more coffee, I mentioned that Gaskell’s tale famously begins with not one, but two false starts. This was another prearranged cue, prompting the waitress to begin an act. Are you [Mrs. Cardboredom]? I have a message for you. An aged letter addressed to my wife was quickly produced. It informed her that she was invited for tea in a place far older and historically resonant than where she now sat. It instructed her to see “the Boatman” to find a way there. The letter was mysteriously signed “-A.”

Confused, my wife looked to me and then to the waitress. She was a fantastic actor, acting as if she feared the letter and insistently urging us to leave immediately. Your hotel is cursed and they are looking for you. GET OUT OF BOSTON NOW! The leisurely breakfast was now a mad dash to the wharf.

Once there she was handed a tablet and headphones. Pressing play texted a link to the digital audience, who were now seeing everything in real time with her. A quick recap of the last 24 hours filled in the missing gaps, including the jail scare, ghosts, and book reveal. The narrator’s tone shifted from the third person and she began to address the birthday girl directly. Everything up to this point has been an exercise in misdirection. The iconic shot of a witch’s shadow quickly flying over the water filled the screen. It’s not every day you board a ferry into the unknown, but where you heading next, mystery and magic are about to converge into one unforgettable adventure. As if by magic, you are leaving behind the busy streets of Boston for the spellbinding charm of Salem. Not only that, the video laid out exactly what was waiting for her on the other side.

Her phone erupted as the simultaneous reveal of Salem at Halloween propagated through her family, friends, and coworkers. In just over an hour she would arrive at The Pickering House, where Vinessa Shaw, the actress who played Allison in Hocus Pocus, was waiting with tea. A nighttime Halloween bash was planned in a historic barn, where she met more of the cast who had battled the Sanderson Sisters. The next morning brought viewing of records from the Witch Trials, getting caught in a zombie walk, and carte blanche at dark boutiques. Dinner was on a hotel rooftop and followed by another lantern lit tour. Before departing, there was one last surprise with a driving tour of the Hocus Pocus filming locations with the cast providing live commentary throughout.

The Death of Billy

Three weeks later Billy and Cal accompanied me to one last concert. Parking the car at the Norva, a small standing room only venue in Norfolk, I left Cal in the car with a warm glass of milk and NPR playing softly on the radio. This would not be his style of music. Wearing white, Billy and I went inside and assumed positions near the barricades. 

We saw a vampiric band fronted by comedian Jordan Olds of Two Minutes to Late Night fame. This was followed by moshing to the punk chaos of The Dwarves, who are what you would get if cocaine became sentient and started a band. Helmet took the stage, where a Dwarves fan lived up to his reputation by throwing a pack of cigarettes at the bassist. 

Then, the real reason for our pilgrimage (and copious amounts of plastic sheeting) came on stage. Gwar began playing The Great Circus Train Disaster, and by the end of the song the Billy Ripken card held aloft in my hand was soaked in torrents of blood sprayed by the band’s hoses. For the next 80 minutes we jumped, screamed, ran into people, helped the fallen off the floor and shoved others back. Billy never let go of my hand as the bell shattered. 

I carried him back to the car, laying the card on my ruined concert shirt, a burial shroud for the ride home. The card had too much dye absorbed into its fibers to be further trusted in a wallet or pocket. Billy, patron saint of graffiti, was gone.

Cal wasn’t distraught over the loss of his cardboard sibling. We all knew it was coming. There was simply no other way that a card named “Fuck Face” could continue living such a life. The Iron Man lived up to his legend, carrying the Ripken name onward in place of his injured brother. 

Walking through the woods on my birthday, I wondered if it was the cards that had bent in my pocket, or was it the world that bent around them? Go take your baseball cards for a walk. If you’re feeling really adventurous, drag them through Hell.