 The Boston Globe article: Cash for the memories tells the tale of Massachusetts residents who are forced to sell treasured items to raise cash due to job loss or escalating debt. As a child in foster care bouncing from home to home, from one caretaker parent to the next, David Mendes had one thing that he prized above all, one thing that he took with him when his life inevitably uprooted - a suitcase containing 5,000 meticulously kept sports cards, each in its own protective plastic sleeve.
"They're the only things I kept and all I had," he said. "It was just me and my cards."
Decades later, when Mendes had made a home in Lowell and had his own children, the cards became his legacy, of what he had lived through and of the life he had finally achieved. He pledged to his 4-year-old son, Adam, that one day they would be his.
But now he is breaking that promise. Layed off by a roofing company that is struggling in the flagging economy, 32-year-old Mendes has put the cards up for sale to pay rent and put food on the table. He hopes a collector will offer him several thousand dollars for the collection. He hasn't found the courage to tell his son.
"He'll say, 'Dada, let's look at the cards,' " Mendes said. "That's another thing that kills me. He knows about them. He knows they're his." Labels: Recession Obsession |
